In today’s day and age, most of us work on autopilot, going through the motions, the daily activities without being fully present for them. We are conditioned to ignore the present moment, always be lost in thought about the past and future, so much so that our thinking become compulsive and we can’t seem to stop it by ourselves. Most behaviors become automatic, with our subconscious guiding them rather us being conscious and making conscious choices in how we respond to various situations. An example of this is when we travel to some place and we don’t really register how we got there. Or we do a task but we are absent minded or zoned out. Our mind is used to this and because of it, the mind the is always in habitual survival mode or seeking mode. Always looking for the next experience that can satisfy us and not even filly living in the now when those experiences come around. The constant feeling is that of “not enough” and we seek more and more external experiences, people, events, achievements, entertainments to fill that void. It is obvious that a lot can threaten us in this mode, real or imagined, from the past or the future and we go into survival mode: avoiding unpleasant emotions, dissociating from reality, losing interest in productive hobbies, feeling anxious and trying to suppress it or other feelings, using unhealthy coping mechanisms to survive. We learn to accept our mind at the surface level, not wanting to delve deeper, to work on core issues, but merely being okay with our external and superficial experience of this world.
The mind, then is habitually unaware, and instead of learning to deal and process and learn from our triggers or hnpleasant emotions and thoughts, we find crutches that will help us only temporarily. All sorts of mental health issues are related to this habitual unawareness such as depression, anxiety, low self esteem, addiction to drugs or alcohol, behavioral addictions, interpersonal problems, anger, loneliness, suppressed emotions and of course the obvious: increased stress. Over a period of time, we become robots, operating only on our base reactions, desires, emotions and conditioned psychological patterns.
To find answers to these issues, to step out of survival or seeking mode, we need to start raising our awareness about our mind as well as our body. The term “raising awareness” is linked with esoteric, mystical experiences, that seem to be misunderstood or rarely understood by a lot of people. However, it is not the case, we can use systematic steps that can raise awareness and help us catch our patterns and make more conscious decisions. Our mind then, stops being our master and we can gain mastery over our mind. We can learn to not be a passive passenger in the stream of unstoppable or uncontrollable negative thoughts and emotions but someone who makes conscious, moment by moment choices on what thoughts one wants to have and what emotions one wants to let go off. This helps in responding to any challenging situation with ease, effectiveness and from a place of calmness, wisdom, acceptance and responsibility for our own feelings.
In this article, we outline a few easy steps to increase our awareness:
- Meditate
Isn’t it a wonder that we have to teach people to sit and do nothing: physically or mentally? We are so full of anxiety and so out of touch with the present that meditating even for a few minutes is perceived as impossible by many people. Meditation is simply being aware and having your attention in the present moment. It is not about stopping thoughts or feelings, but learning to be an observer and not just a participant who is carried away by their overwhelming thoughts and feelings. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But it can be quite difficult to do. Meditating on any object: breathe, music, nature sounds, guided instructionsor even movement based meditations are very beneficial and cotribute not just to a peaceful state of mind but to an increase in awareness of our thoughts, feelings and attitudes. Meditation of course requires patience, sitting through the initial teething difficulties such as restlessness boredom, irritation, anxiety, is necessary for one to start enjoying it and reading the benefits of meditation. This practice has been around for thousands of years, has been incorporated in diffirent religious rituals for people and has shown time after time the innumerable positive effects on one’s mind and indirectly the body as well.
- Breathwork
Breathing is a voluntary as well as an involuntary act, which means we can either observe it or practice it. Breathing exercises have been shown to have amazing effects on various issues, physical or mental, lowers stress response, improves mood, reduces negative thinking, anxiety and many other psychological issues.
Pranayam, kapalbathi, unalome vilom, are some of the popular Indian breathing exercises in which breathing is regulated using some pattern. There are many others such as boxed breathing, pursed lip breathing, interval breathing (4-6-7), diaphragmatic breathing and so on. Anapana is one the Buddhist techniques in which one does not attempt to change or regulate the breath but simple watches the natural breath. This is usually a meditation or a precursor to other meditations and is extremely beneficial. All These are useful in raising awareness as you are directing your attention to a relative activity that in turn helps keep the chattering mind calmer and you keep coming to the present with every breath you take.
- Writing down our thoughts and feelings
We have thousands of thoughts and maybe hundreds of feelings in a day, most of which are unnecessary, repetitive or negative. We are not aware of a lot of conscious thoughts, let alone our subconscious ones. These influence the way we feel, react, what we remember and our moods and emotions. Writing down our daily thoughts and feelings is very important as it makes us aware of what we are actually feeding ourselves psychologically. Keeping track, especially of negative thoughts and feelings is beneficial as it helps see patterns in the long run. Some patterns may be: negative self talk, pessimism, self doubt, cynicism or over criticism, should thinking, jumping to conclusions, blaming, and there are many more. Writing is an act that solidifies in memory what we want to remember, way more than just making a mental note of things.
- Spending time in nature
Mindfully, consciously enjoying our time in nature has been shown to increase our awareness levels and have a multitude of other benefits such as improved mood, decreased stress, better immune response, lower anxiety and so on. Taking walks in nature, bird watching, looking at flowers or sitting under trees, walking in grass, are some of the ways you can spend time in nature. It is about cultivating peace rather than chasing pleasure in our daily lives.
At ZorbaCare Rehabilitation Center in Pune, India, people are admitted for drug and alcohol addiction as well as for other mental health issues like anxiety, depression, emotional instability or personality issues and so on. Here a holistic treatment approach for addiction and other issues is employed by our team of professionals. Mindfulness training forms a major part of psychological interventions which is about becoming more aware, attentive to the present moment and learning to accept rather than be judgemental about our experiences or our selves. Raising awareness is achieved for our clients by engaging them in daily meditations, mindfulness activities such as mindful sharing, writing sessions and paying attention to their thoughts and feelings. This enables them to deal with life situations effectively without falling into mental traps that lead to unpleasant outcomes. Awareness is the key to change, it is the key to a happy, healthy life with an improved mental state!