COLUMN: Developing self-awareness helps us get to know who we really are

You’ve read several times in these little chats of ours about living in the moment and raising your vibe but what happens when we go about doing these things through practising Acceptance?

Does anything happen at all? Maybe there’s a soft light shining on us from our new halo!

The truth is that nothing obvious happens but we do seem slightly different and hopefully a little more easy going and tolerant. So when we live present in the moment what does that do to our relationships with others? After all, our relationship with ourselves has changed, won’t that change how we see others and relate to them?

A simple truth to remember is that how we see ourselves is often how we think others see us and they aren’t really paying that much attention.

That’s why developing self-awareness helps us get to know who we really are.

Living in now doesn’t mean changing yourself, it means becoming deeply aware of your own thoughts and feelings, allowing you to be in control of your reactions.

Too often I hear, read and speak to people who have disconnected from their “old” life, friends and family as they don’t feel like they are on the same wavelength anymore.

They feel as though those relationships have nothing to offer or that they simply aren’t compatible with the “new” way of being that the more aware person is experiencing.

This is missing the point entirely and is also quite arrogant, perhaps showing that there’s more work to be done in seeing everyone as part of the whole!

When we are actually self-aware we are in control, we choose who and what influences us. We become comfortable in any situation, able to be ourselves in any circumstance without effort.

We become accepting without accepting the influence of others, letting them simply be themselves while insulating ourselves from any negative traits, thoughts or feelings as a necessary ability to co-exist in the world we live in. I say insulating but it’s really just a process of letting things go that don’t serve us.

We insulate ourselves by being aware, through consciously choosing our reaction to a situation or person. We understand that our emotions and thoughts are not us and that their effect on our awareness is ours to choose. We don’t need to remove ourselves from old relationships or from those who aren’t on the same wavelength.

We are simply ourselves and nothing anyone can do can alter our perception of who that is and how we act, think and feel.

To alienate ourselves can also be an act of fear, fear that we will somehow be lessened by contact. It’s also an act of selfishness, of ego, because we can’t all be one if we separate ourselves.

I can’t help anyone if I am apart from them and teaching my ego means teaching it that the person with whom I have no common ground is still a part of me, still worthwhile.

This is an act of love, an act of understanding and compassion for both those who haven’t yet understood, those who may never understand, and for myself, because it teaches me humility, tolerance, patience and a greater awareness of myself and others.

The Zen master is at home in all company, all situations and all levels of conversation and society. Why?

It’s because they understand how to be at peace, at one with everything and everyone, so much so that they will often blend into the crowd so well they will be overlooked, as if they’re not there, because in a funny way they’re not.

They are free of any attachment to need and want and so they don’t attract people’s ego attention as a threat.

In the Bible accounts, when Jesus was teaching he rarely taught the scholars. He mixed with those in need of teaching rather than those who thought they had the answers.

This lesson means being yourself and others will naturally gravitate to your company, seeing in you traits that they want to cultivate in themselves.

You play your note, ignoring the lesser vibrations, drawing those to you who want to tune their instrument to your sweeter melody.

If you encounter the negative influence of a toxic person you will be able to be aware of yourself, aware of their influence and withdraw from it by not giving energy or attention. You are still you.

The negative energy can’t alter that and will only rebound to where it came from, making that person more negative and frustrated while you remain calm, positive and Accepting.

Acceptance isn’t a one off practice. It’s a daily practice. In every interaction there’s an opportunity to see what’s happening from the outside as if you were watching it on TV.

This allows you to be aware of how it’s playing out and as the director of this scene in the movie of your life, you can change it to become the best possible outcome for everyone!