The Gift of Awareness

Even though they say knowing is half the battle, sometimes it feels like awareness is more frustrating than not knowing. If I don’t know something I can blame a third party. I can live my life in blissful ignorance. I can avoid the issue. I can step around it. I can duck the pain because being aware can be very painful. It can sting. It can make you feel small. It can make you feel exhausted. Like the battle’s too big for you to even begin trying to fight it. Like you can never win anyway so you might as well duck under the pillow and not listen to the voices in your head.

But, of course, we all know that when there’s an elephant in the room, it takes all the space there is.

That’s how awareness works for me. Once I know, I can’t un-know. My brain constantly shows me examples of how I repeat that weakness or bad behavior. Sometimes I even see it coming and still can’t stop it. Because knowing myself doesn’t always mean I can stop myself from making bad choices or decisions.

But still.

As frustrating and frightening and defeating as it might feel, I am a huge fan of awareness.

I believe in making choices consciously. I am grateful for the power of having options. I like to know the cards I am holding so I can decide if I want to rearrange them, let one go, or even let them all go.

I’ve been teaching this class on time. And when you start to look at where your time goes, the instinct to self-reprimand is strong. Just like when you’re gaining weight and you sit down to write all the things you actually eat, you often feel ashamed of how much you do indeed lie to yourself all day long. It’s not the eating. It’s how you *think* you’re eating so much less (or differently) than you actually are. It’s how you spend three times as much time on the computer as you think you do. It’s how you can see that you certainly have 30 minutes to spare to exercise each day.

Truth can feel painful.

But it also gives you the power to run your own life. I can’t remember where I read it but I remember an article about newborn babies and how even they prefer to have the choice to make their own decisions. How important it is to have options and to feel like we’re in control (even at that young age.) So knowing where your time goes gives you the option to change it. It puts the reins back in your hands. The reason it feels overwhelming is because “With great power comes great responsibility.”

But the thing is, whether we like to face it or not, we are responsible for our lives. We’re responsible for what we eat, what we do, how we talk, the words we say, the actions we take. And the way we spend our minutes. We already have all this responsibility whether we like it or not. The great gift of awareness is that it gives you a clear view into how things actually are. So you can make your decisions with 20/20 vision.

Would you rather go at it blind?

I’ve decided to embrace the gift of awareness. Bring it on. It’s part of growing up and owning who you are. Living in your story. Making the choices and standing by them. Good or bad. I prefer to see things clearly and make all my choices with acute awareness.

I only wish it was as simple to have a clear picture of how things are in all areas of my life.