Is Awareness Over Rated?

- A 7 Benefit Series; #5: Freedom -

This is part of a 7 benefit series in the exploration of gains to be had through the development of our awareness and consciousness.

Benefit #5: To find freedom born of self acceptance, honesty, and truth.

As more and more we accept full responsibility for our actions, we take on a sense of acceptance of who we are. We can be honest about our faults and qualities. We can accept how we feel regardless of whether we like it or not. There is no need for lies, half truths, or hiding. With the burden of pretenses removed, being truthful both with ourselves and others can be liberating. It opens up deeper levels of integrity and genuineness in all aspects of our lives, not the least being in our relationships.

This is not to say that complacency about what we are discovering in our personality is ok. Falling back on the “that’s who I am” or “I’m ok with being this way” is not what I mean with being accepting of who we are.

Can you be at piece with your lesser qualities and still thrive to be better? Isn’t that a contradiction?

After all, how can you accept who you are, faults and all, AND continue to work to be better? If you work towards making something better, are you not in essence stating that you are not satisfied with the state of what that something is, and that you want to change it?

Well yes, and I still maintain that it is possible to be both at peace with the person we are today, at this moment, warts and all, and continue to grow towards the person we envision ourselves to be.

The accepting is more in tune with letting go of judgment and simply recognizing things for what they are, without assigning a definitive label on the scale of good versus bad. From that stand point there is no stress, just recognition. We are at a place of choice with how to proceed.

In acceptance there is freedom. In honesty and truth, there is freedom. We are no longer prisoners of our own lies and limitations. In accepting what is, we are free of worry. It’s a very zen attitude in a way. It lifts the veil of deceit behind which we hid ourselves from our own mind, feelings, and soul.

Next, Benefit #6: Judgment and Compassion

This article is copyright 2008 Christine Pointeau and for entertainment purposes only. All rights reserved. Pointeau is the artist, author of the book series A Cappella and Stray Tales, and a personal development published author. For articles and more information, go to http://www.ChristinePointeau.com

Is Awareness Over Rated?

- A 7 Benefit Series; #4: Pro-Active -

This is part of a 7 benefit series in the exploration of gains to be had through the development of our awareness and consciousness.

Benefit #4: To become pro-active rather than re-active.

With our new found understanding, we can now look further and deeper into our own psychology and stop living within our own drama. Do you ever feel like a puppet on a string at someone else’s mercy? Step back and see the pattern. Find your part in bringing these situations on, then change what you don’t like.

In becoming more aware and taking responsibility for our part, we switch from re-active to pro-active. We go from being stuck on automatic response to taking back the controls. We can take a stand and make our own choices.

Being Pro-Active implies taking action, rather than waiting for something to happen and then Re-Acting to it.

There’s a funny expression I learned while living in West Texas, and that’s “cow chipping it through life,” a great metaphor for the re-active life. Unless you’ve lived in ranching communities, you might be unfamiliar with this imagery,

Imagine if you will an open field in the dry Texas land, sporadically covered with sun dried cow chips. Because this is West Texas and the wind is ever present, these dried cow chips get push around here and there, at the mercy of the wind. This describes you as well when you merely sway to and fro according to outside influences.

Some events are out of your control off course. What is well within your control is what you do about it. Becoming pro-active is learning to see what needs to be done in order to get out a particular pattern, habit, or situation.

Along the same lines, letting other people’s opinions, prejudices, or fears dictate which way we lean only results in preventing us from getting where we want to be, doing what we truly desire to do.

Being re-active is akin to forever being on the defense team, waiting for something to happen. Every action we take is directed by some outside force and stimulus over which we have no control.

Being pro-active is taking deliberate steps to accomplish a task or getting somewhere. It is about going after what you want and making it happen.

Pro-active vs. Re-active.

Which will it be?

Choose for yourself.

Next, Benefit #5: Freedom

This article is copyright 2008 Christine Pointeau and for entertainment purposes only. All rights reserved. Pointeau is the artist, author of the book series A Cappella and Stray Tales, and a personal development published author. For articles and more information, go to http://www.ChristinePointeau.com