Where to Find Awareness

Awareness is that friend we have who shows up to everything. It's that friend who always follows through. The one who no matter how good you want to look in that dress they'll show a warm, knowing smile and gently nudge you towards the more forgiving number--saving you the humiliation of weeks of unsuccessful dieting...

Awareness is always aware of US but we seem to get preoccupied in the bedazzled world of memes and capitalism. We all have grazed the surface of what awareness has to offer us in our everyday life. In 2019 with one more year until the new decade, most people are hip to awareness and mindfulness. Mindfulness can encompass more than just those 15 minutes of silence you commit yourself to each day. Meditation is the practice that increases your awareness. However, I see people who "practice meditation" but do not actually perform it in real life. Part of your practice of meditating is applying it to your life. Mindfulness can be the result of practicing meditation, you can of course learn it the other way around too. Both mindfulness and meditation may be used to achieve peace and understand yourself and others more deeply.

Why Be Mindful Everyday?

The question should be why not be mindful ? Why not have a deeper understanding of our world ? Mindfulness is more than just chanting "om" or breathing. It's completely going against our brain's social conditioning. Which is why we see many people only get so far with meditation but fail to reap the benefits. We give up because it "wasn't working". The problem with this excuse is that it doesn't fit the natural temperament of mindfulness, What I mean is, mindfulness--much like any other art form; must be learned, practiced and honed. For that, you can consider Buddha a spiritual artist. Even if you are the holiest man you'll still need to practice to keep your chops up. It is the overriding of our capitalistic conditioning into a state of quiet observation that will allow us to grow into our true human potential. In the mindful state, we can see things on a broader spectrum, and we begin to notice things we will not have noticed about ourselves and the world around us. It's a fun, beautiful journey to be on... the mindful one.

Remember that scene in Shrek where he talks about onions and layers ? Yeah, mindfulness like green ogres played by Mike Meyers, is an onion. As you grow in your ability to observe without final judgement, different layers of intense stinky life-shit will be revealed to you, it'll be so real, you might even cry...but tears are the wine of life!

So how can we find more awareness each day ? Let's use the 5 senses!

Sight

Notice your surroundings not just what's in front of you. Look around. People watch. One of my favorite things to do is just watch life! I don't own a t.v. and sparingly watch Netflix. Since I started watching life, watching t.v. is boring and feels like a waste of energy now. Take in the rich hues of your own real life "movie set". The best thing about watching your life is that you are the screenwriter!

Fun-work:Think of 5 beautiful things you saw today or see right now. They don't have to beautiful by anyone else's standards, just your own. When we are able to see our world as vast, our dreams and accomplishments can be vast too!

Sound

As a music instructor and musician, I've always loved hearing and appreciating the small details that come together in a song. I always tell my students that when learning a song there are many layers to listening. Try spending time noticing the tone and melody of your own voice and others' voices. Each person I meet has their own "key"--they have their own tonal center where their voice sits, or they may have a dynamic range. I remember in one of my past apartments being fascinated by the surprisingly interesting melodies that occurred just from water dripping from the faucet a certain way, or just little small abstract sounds. Let your creativity paint in the rest for you. It can be fun to discover new sounds, and tune into the sensory playground around you.

Fun-work: Try looking at your favorite playlist, you can learn a lot about yourself and your inner emotions by reading between the notes of your favorite songs. Music is an emotional art-form, like smell it can bring a sense of nostalgia. A song can make us feel familiar, and some songs may even make us feel more emotional. Either way it's evident that music is powerful and influential to our behavior.

Smell

Smell can have that love and hate effect for some. Most seem to know keenly what they love the smell of, and what they hate the smell of. Everything else is just....meh. What if we had a little more awareness of how smell influences our feelings and even actions. Smell is often a sense that can bring someone into a memory, or capture a moment. For example some people may love the smell of apple pie, others may feel it reminds them of a negative event or have no opinion. It's important for you to see what smells you can relate to, why you like them or why you don't like them.

Fun-work:Try mindfully incorporating scent into your life more by getting a diffuser or working with essential oils. The best thing about essential oils is that most are completely safe and non-toxic, and have a variety of uses and medical properties. Clove for example can not only be used as a warm and comforting part of a diffuser blend it can be used for dental care & helps find cavities! Lemon oil is a great air purifier but also can be added to your water to add some sunshine to your day, have fun with it and find what scents you like!

Taste

As a highly-sensitive individual, I often find serenity in coming home and cooking my own meals. I like to be involved in the process of my food plus I enjoy the sensory aspects of preparing and eating food. Sometimes I'll just put on a record and get into the zone. When I'm cooking I don't really try to rush, I want to take my time. Trying new foods can be hard to do especially is you know what you like, but the interesting thing about our palettes is they can change overtime. We all have had foods that we normally didn't like but those foods grew on us overtime. Figure out what foods your body loves! Figure out what foods your body doesn't mesh with, this can be a really important step to improving your overall health and wellness.

Fun-work: Look for a fun, new recipe using some of your favorite foods in a new way! Set aside a whole evening or afternoon so you are not rushed and try preparing your meal slowly so you can incorporate other senses in this activity. Enjoy the smell of chopping up fresh rosemary, feel the texture of your food, the smell and the taste. Try using a mixture of fresh herbs and spices frequently in your cooking to heighten your sensory experience they tend to be more potent and their scent and flavor comes through stronger when fresh.

Touch

Touch is perhaps the most neglected sense, especially in our digital world. It's more common for us to go a whole day without being touched (even if we have a significant other). We get wrapped up in social media and internet so much that sometimes we forget to connect with ourselves and others in real time too. Yoga is mega popular in the U.S. and I believe this can attributed to the high-stress life we endure. Our constant obligation to our hundreds of friends or thousands of followers keeps us from connecting to our physical existence so our craving for touch gets projected onto our social media in the form of our needs for likes a.k.a acceptance.

Fun-work: Checking in with your body's need to be touched can be accomplished by doing a body scan. First sit in a comfortable place and try to tune into your body's sensations. Find the tension and the tightness. Then find a way to release that tension. One way is by stretching or yoga routines. Another way is giving yourself a massage or asking a friend to. Sometimes we go all day without giving ourselves some love. I am a firm believer in the benefits of the daily self-hug!

Awareness is in your hands. You can control the degree to which you are aware of the sensory information around you. There's a lot to see, hear, feel touch and taste and if you get too bogged down in millennial stressors you may miss out on the real deal! So take your time, stop and smell those lovely roses!