One of the first and most critical tools you need in your toolbox to help you develop Positive Powerful Possibilities is awareness. To tap into that, let us start out with a little awareness exercise:
- What has been the center of your focus all day? What is the pre-eminent issue on your mind? What is your mood? Note that and then move to the next step.
- Right now, where you are seated, I want you to do an exercise which requires you to shut your eyes. Before you do so, don’t look around the room. Just finish reading this section then close your eyes. What are the sensations you are experiencing? What are you noticing? Imagine the room. What do you see or not see? What is in the room? Visualize and remember using your imagination all that is around you. Do that for a few moments and then open your eyes.
- When you open your eyes, look around the room. What did you miss in your mind’s eye? What was your focus? Did you notice the contact point between you and the chair beneath you, the air on your skin and the temperature in the room? Or were you thinking of your breath? The things surrounding you? What things held the most importance to you?
- How does that relate to the center of your focus all day?
I asked you to be present to yourself, to focus your awareness on you, in this moment, here and now. Yet, most likely, your mind has been on something else all day long. And you have been feeding that something else and missing out on what is here, right before you.
Your awareness is always on something. ALWAYS. You are constantly focused on something whether you are aware of it or not. For a few moments when you did the exercise, your awareness was on the present moment. Most people are constantly ruminating, fretting, fantasizing or worrying about the future or the past.
However, there is a consensus that staying in the moment is healthy for the brain and it helps us reset and deal with problems better. It also helps us to be more creative.
Awareness is like a pair of glasses that you put on and all of a sudden you see what is invisible and present. You see nuances and it raises your intentionality.
Awareness is also important because it helps you choose your thoughts: It helps you focus your intention on what you want and not what you don’t want.
In 2010, a professor of psychiatry, Daniel J. Siegel, wrote a book called “Mindsight.” In this book, he addresses this potent skill that is the basis for both emotional and social intelligence.
“Mindsight is a kind of focused attention that allows us to the internal workings of our own minds. It helps us to be aware of our mental processes without being swept away by them, enables us to get ourselves off the autopilot of ingrained behaviors and habitual responses, and moves us beyond the reactive emotional loops we all have a tendency to get trapped in.”
He defines mindfulness as a way of intentionally paying attention to the present moment without being swept up by judgments. He says, “Mindfulness is a form of mental activity that trains the mind to become aware of awareness itself and to pay attention to one’s own intention.”
You see, Beloveds, you cannot increase your positivity unless you are aware of what you are paying attention to. You also cannot be positive if you are judging everything and everyone all around you negatively. Defensiveness does not support positivity. However, gratitude and appreciation support positivity.
As you harness your awareness, you choose to direct it where you want it to go. There is an intentionality that goes hand in hand with awareness to create positivity.
The very first building block of emotional intelligence is emotional self-awareness. It is “the ability to recognize your feelings, differentiate between them, know why you are feeling these feelings, and recognize the impact your feelings have on others around you.” – The EQ Edge.
This week, my invitation to you is to develop your mindsight: Become more aware of your internal emotional ecology. What are you paying attention to? Are you judging? Are you appreciative? Do you know the impact you are having on others? Do you actually know how you feel?
This, Beloveds is how you fine tune your positivity.
As always, I am here for support. Please let me know how I can support you.
