Coaching Videos & Tips - August 29 2019 No.618
RAKING UP DIRT?
When people realize that their programs are actively divorcing them from reality, what do they become obsessed with? Yes, you've guessed it... their programs! On that basis alone, today's video is worth five minutes of your time!
And, if you'd like to go a little deeper, don't forget that you can browse all the "back issues" in The Archive!
How aware are you of how aware you are at present? If you need to re-read the question, it might just suggest that you're not all that aware at all!
This is not some deliberately Zen-like conundrum... it's a simple question that those who are daily developing their ability to be focused (or aware!) can answer effortlessly - effortlessly to the point that they can actually answer the question without even asking it of themselves - they are simply aware.
Ultimately, developing your mindfulness (the opposite of normal mindlessness) is simply an exercise is developing self-awareness. But, if you watch today's video, you'll realize that that rarely comes naturally to the normally-minded.
How would you describe yourself? I often hear words like "introvert" or "extrovert" or phrases like "I'm a great worrier". However, in exactly the same way that your average personality test is designed to put you in an artificial box, these self-descriptions never do you justice - they are no more than an attempt to articulate that with which you have become comfortable or, perhaps, something you'd prefer not to really discuss at all. The simple fact is that such trite "insights" are nothing more than labels based on something we've now been talking about, in our videos, for weeks... repetitive, patterned, ruminative thought.
Thinking about yourself in the foregoing terms is what enables the normal person survive alongside other normal people - survival is not synonomous with living and certainly bears little relationship with living one's life to the full. Thinking about ourselves in this way provides us with a veneer of comfort that means that we don't need to really explore who we actually are of who we might really be. We fear our own potential.
Realizing that we may be more than the sum of our own thoughts is shocking to most people. It is a wake-up call to people who, more often than not, are fairly content with staying asleep. It challenges us to move our lives forward, to take the often relatively small steps that any of us needs to take to bring about change in our lives. With change comes loss, with loss comes uncertainty and fear... or so your normal way of thinking would have you think.
Today's Quick Tip alludes to the synonimity of clarity of mind, mindfulness, awareness and self-awareness - they are all but sides of the same coin. Today's Video explores how we don't need to expend any more energy on trying to figure out why we think we are who we think we are, we simply need clarity and awareness to move forward.
Nothing could be simpler or more challenging.
Whoever we might think we are or whoever we could actually become, some things are self-evident... we are, for starters, animals with animal instincts.
We often sit sipping something nice outside the St. Jaques in the town square on a Sunday morning - watching the world go by or, to be precise, people watching.
Last Sunday, as a local lady (at a guess in her 60s) stood chatting to a group who was sitting beside us, a very, very elderly gentleman trundled by ever so slowly in his mobility chair. As he passed us, he stopped, performed a three-point turn and trundled back up to the lady in question. And there he sat, for a good minute - and there's no politically correct way to say this - admiring the lady's posterior which was conveniently located exactly at his eye level.
Having enjoyed the moment, he gently trundled on...