When we are open to receiving help, even when we haven’t asked for it directly, God can perform magic in our lives.
The first step to lasting inner-healing is awareness. You cannot heal what you are not willing to see. Self-awareness is understanding your personality, honoring your strengths, accepting your weaknesses, observing your thoughts, understanding your beliefs, tapping into your motivation, and feeling and expressing your emotions in ways that serve you and others. Most people are not patient enough to surrender to the process of getting to know their true self. This is unfortunate because this step solves so many parts of our lives that no longer work in our favor.
The more self-aware you become, the stronger the urge to “fix you” grows. Your thoughts and emotions may start to swing wildly between reactive and responsive. You will begin to see defects in your character, and if you aren’t careful, you will begin to feel as though you are broken. Your feeling broken will immediately turn to shame. With that said, it’s important for you to logically remember that you are not broken.
If you struggle in relationships, becoming self-aware will help you begin to develop deeper connections with others as you will understand them better. You will also begin to intuit how they feel about you in return. This process in itself will only breed more self-awareness.
Most people on a spiritual path assume that because they are spiritual, they are automatically self-aware. This isn’t true in all cases. While having a spiritual practice is essential to your wellbeing, it only increases your self-awareness if that is your intention. I strongly urge you to make self-awareness a priority. Many of the clients who decide to coach with me are astounded at how quickly their self-awareness expands. It is only with this expansion that favorable changes are made in their relationships with themselves, others, and even in their relationship with money.
You may be wondering how a person knows if they are on the path to self-awareness. One of the first clues is your ability to observe your thoughts, feel your emotions, and watch where and how they guide you in making decisions. Most people operate from a place of survival. In other words, stress is the motivating factor. This causes the reptilian brain to run the show. If you are constantly operating from flight, flight or freeze mode, then your adrenals are hyperactive and will eventually blow out. This causes your cortisol levels to skyrocket meaning you can’t lose weight, you’re exhausted, and lack motivation.
The majority of the population must get sick first in order for their spirit to be woken from what I call an emotional coma. If you aren’t sick, but still see that something is “off” in your life, congratulations. You are in the small minority who become self-aware strictly due to an internal struggle. If you are physically ill, I’m sorry for your health, but I am genuinely happy you are with me, on this journey. Congratulations to you, also, because your life is getting ready to change!
As you begin to develop self-awareness, your own thoughts, not the thoughts of others that have been imprinted on you, but your thoughts will begin to change. Why? Because you will begin to discern what is your thought and what is someone else’s thought that, for whatever reason, you decided to agree with at the time. I’ve watched people change religions, political viewpoints, careers, relationships, simply because they became aware that they were following along with someone else’s thought pattern.
Then, once your thoughts begin to change, your emotional state will shift drastically. Your emotional intelligence will go through the roof. Then, your magic emerges like never before as you build the foundation for the life you want. You will easily begin to feel your passion and emotions which will lead to, what I refer to as, your passion playing out its purpose. You’ll discern your personality traits and freely select those that work for you and those you’ve outgrown.
As you recognize where your thoughts and emotions are leading you, the ripple effect changes. You may lose relationships while simultaneously gaining others. That dream job you’ve always pushed to the backburner may suddenly seem a lot easier to achieve. The boundaries you could never set before out of fear, are now in place and you feel freer than you could ever imagine. This is self-awareness.
Self-awareness is the first step to your “right path.” Your spiritual team will not rescue you unless you’re about to die. That’s just a fact. If you find that door after door stays closed for you, it’s because you are not on the right path. You have three choices: 1. Keep doing what you’re doing, whining that nothing ever works out for you; 2. Stop doing what you’re doing, but choose to do nothing else, or 3. Step completely into self-awareness and heal everything.
My self-awareness slap in the face was when I was certain I was going to get a contract for a reality television show only to have it all fall to pieces. I was crushed. My immediate reaction was anger toward the producers, my friend that introduced me, and to God. While it would have been a dream come true in some ways, I knew in my gut it wasn’t the right thing for me. I was angry anyway. That’s when you know you’re out of alignment. When your emotion doesn’t match your logic, you are not self-aware. I had some work to do.
I was relieved. At least I was self-aware enough to know I was out of alignment. The very first step was understanding why the show didn’t happen for me. The short and simple version is that I would have been out of my integrity with the way the producers were going to film my “character.” That is when I knew I was actually in alignment, I was just hurt. The keys to self-awareness are:
Strong character
The ability to lead with purpose
Trust
Authenticity
Openness
Self-awareness allows us to not only look at our successes but also our failures for self-analysis and improvement.
If you are ready to embrace your spirituality on a deeper level, manifest the things you want in your life, and live the magical life you were designed to live, then you’re going to want to become (more) self-aware.
Here are some practical tips.
You must meditate without exception. Meditation keeps you in the now. Breathing turns off the fear response in your body. Taking deep breaths translates to your brain that you’re alive and calm. By simply taking deep breaths, you are in a form of meditation. During this breathing, you can simply ask the Universe some simple questions. My favorite question is: “What is my next step?” I ask myself this several times a day. Another I recently learned is, “What would love do?” Lastly, an effective question to ask yourself, especially if you’re feeling stuck is, “What is standing in my way right now?”
Whiteboard. My “whiteboarding” as I call it, is essential. I put oversized post-its on my walls, and I write my immediate goals, long-term goals, my “why,” and my to-dos to get me where I’m going. Notice that I didn’t say anything about “how?” That is strictly up to God. If you ask for your next step, THAT is your “how?”
Buddy System. Self-reflection is important, but there is nothing like having a trusted friend who will reflect back to you what you are projecting. In your buddy system, you can each give honest feedback as to how you are being seen in the world. This is only to serve you. We will talk about comparison later in the next blogs. This exercise is not for approval from others. It’s simply to help you assess whether your thoughts, actions, and intentions match how you are being perceived. Remember, we can’t see ourselves when we are in the frame.
In closing this segment, I want to talk about the proverbial oxygen mask. We’ve all seen or heard this analogy by now. You can’t help others breathe without first placing an oxygen mask on your own face first. If you are an over-giver, this is by far the hardest adjustment for you. Please be aware that your desire to heal everyone else, and the pleasure you feel in the sacrifices you make is the symptom that something is lacking inside of you. You want the oxygen mask placed on your face by God, or a spouse or boss, or anyone else other than yourself. This is because you have lost faith in yourself somewhere along your journey, so you ignore your own breathing but believe that by taking care of everyone else first, you will somehow win in the end. It’s simply not true.
Here are my questions for you, whether you are a rescuer, or not. First, do you feel self-aware? If you do, is your life going in the direction of your biggest wish? If not, why not?
If you don’t feel self-aware, or you are seeing, like I did with my own journey, that it needs some adjusting, how do you plan on doing that? Which of the three tips are you willing to embrace?
Know this! You, my dear, are loved more than you can wrap your brain around. You matter more than you believe. You are playing small, and it’s not okay anymore. You are reading this for a reason. Wake up! Show up! Look up! Straighten up! People are ready for you. They need you! When are you going to step into your truth so that others can heal? What steps can you take today to begin living the life you were born to live?
Intuitively, I feel I need to include this here. Some of you are drinking every day. Is it serving you? Others of you are spending way beyond your means. Why? Still there are those of you who simply refuse to do the thing, or things, you know in your heart will advance you forward. How are they going to happen if you don’t do them? What are you waiting on?
You are worth your BIG WIN!
SHORT EXERCISE:------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Find your alone time. Get your journal and answer these questions.
When was the last time you felt self-aware?
Is your life going in the direction of your biggest wish? If not, why not?
If you are moving toward the direction you want to go, what's working?
What's one thing you know you need to change right now in order to feel more self-aware?
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