Finding Awareness in All Things
Why do we always tend to think that awareness requires some certain kind of condition? Like we have to be properly positioned, in a certain frame of mind, or going through some dramatic life-changing event. I don’t think it does. Sure, sitting in a quiet room can bring profound awareness, or it can make you sleepy. We can meditate, try, and quiet our minds, and all sort of other deliberate methods to find it. In truth, each of those can lead you down positive roads to awareness, but awareness doesn’t limit itself to those scenarios. They happen all around us every day; we just may not recognize them.
Do you ever sit around and think about how much can be revealed by something absolutely ordinary…or normal? I do sometimes. I can’t tell you how many times a song comes on and suddenly your mind is transported to a memory or a memory of an event that we haven’t thought about in many years. How about pictures? Looking through old pictures routinely take me back to days past. Some were really good and some not so good. But the feeling, the awareness is present. Let’s flip the coin on that effect. Someone might say something to me that really pisses me off and before I know it, I’m in a whole other place I didn’t mean to travel to. My mind creates stories about what that can lead to…it’s a rabbit hole. These are just random experiences in our everyday lives, right? But what makes them unique? Well, that answer comes easy: no matter what experience it is, it doesn’t announce itself as a mindful awareness exercise. But somehow, they each give us a grand opportunity to notice what is happening within us.
That brings me here to this topic: finding awareness in all things. Awareness isn’t about trying to force or coerce an experience of meaning into every single thing we do. We don’t have to impose meaning onto having a good cup of coffee. We don’t have to impose meaning into being stuck in traffic while we are already late to work. Truthfully, not every song does it for me. Sometimes a good song is just a good song. And traffic, well yeah, it just sucks. A good cup of coffee can just be a good cup of coffee.
It doesn’t sound very inspiring. I hear you. But that is my point. And that point is curiosity….being curious enough to recognize when an ordinary experience is showing us something about us deeper than what’s on the surface. While some experiences, even the slightest, tiniest detail can bring us something we never expected, it also teaches us about our expectations from things and from people, our assumptions about life, our memories, habits, emotions, and perspective. These small moments of learning the difference between the two is a Kind Rebirth.
A Kind Rebirth is not built on the dramatic or theatrical transformations we see in movies. It’s a split second in between realizing and responding. It tells us why we move, why we think what we think, and what led us there. More times than not, that one second helps me rescind my need to judge someone negatively just because in the prior moment, I failed to respect or honor their opinion or their perspective. When I hear that song, it helps me appreciate something I have been taking for granted far too long. Sometimes we just need to catch ourselves from falling victim to negative old habits. It doesn’t completely solve the problem. It’s just there to notice.
So, friends, let’s recap for a second and let’s be clear. The world around you will rarely change it’s behavior toward you. If you are late tomorrow, you may be stuck in traffic and may not learn a lesson (other than to wake up on time). So, while people will still piss you and me off, but that one song may still find that one note that brings you self-reflection. That’s the experience of awakening and awareness. Just experiencing the moments and when they shift. Those shifts matter. They encourage awareness.
When we begin finding awareness in the lives we live, the idea, the concept of mindfulness isn’t just an occasional or accidental approach. It shapes the way we view the world around us and perspectives we form. The more we notice, the more we question, the less we start to assume. And possibly in one moment out of 1 million others, we may see something differently than we did before. That’s clarity of awareness. That’s a rebirth.
Stay mindful…
Rebirth
