Education & Career Trends: February 18, 2023
Curated by the Knowledge Team of ICS Career GPS
- Article written by Deepak Chopra, published on medium.com
Our lives are guided by change. Everyone is aware of changing thoughts, feelings, and moods. You can be happy and alert in the morning, full of ideas about the rest of your day, or you can be the opposite. It’s the opposite that starts to dominate in times of distress. You feel pulled around by mood swings. Bad news reinforces a sense of gloom and doom. Negative thoughts arise of their own accord.
If you understand that thoughts, feelings, and moods are similar to the weather, all of this becomes superfluous. Climate and weather are not the same things. You don’t just peek outside your window and judge if the environment is favourable or unfavourable based on the weather. Yet when we go “in here” to check how we feel, the majority of us do that. Swings and passing occurrences become far too significant.
The climate “in here” is your state of awareness.
It should ideally be peaceful, steady, quiet, and aware. Inside the stillness, there is a nebulous sensation of activity, and from this dynamism happiness and joy can arise. Whatever your current feelings and ideas may be, this is still true. We lose sight of awareness during difficult situations, and this needs to be remedied. Normal consciousness is devoid of suffering, even when it falls short of the ideal. It serves as a point of reference that you always go back to.
Your awareness is a power that can cure the body and mind as a whole. Your cells have a chance to resume their usual function when you feel balanced within. Homeostasis is a dynamic equilibrium condition that has long been understood in physiology. Every time you feel calm and focused inside, you are experiencing awareness, which has its own unique form of homeostasis.
Two widespread conditions in modern life keep awareness from being normal:
Overload — A significant portion of today’s widespread depression and anxiety is a symptom of “central nervous system overload.” The speed of modern life, the persistence of stress, diversions, continual news cycles, Covid, and other factors make it difficult for the neurological system to regain its normal equilibrium.
Given the situation, unexpected crises and awful occurrences just add to this stress. Yoga, meditation, and breathing techniques can all help you regain your sense of equilibrium. The same goes for mindfulness, which involves recognising when you are worried or agitated and leaving the environment to calm down and find your centre.
Threats to Personal Safety — Human awareness is designed as a hierarchy or pyramid of responses. Safety and security, or the sense that you are rooted and not in danger, form the pyramid’s foundation. Normal life is considerably more grounded here than in hot regions like Ukraine, yet many people still feel uneasy and dangerous.
The higher responses of awareness, such as achievement, empathy, and bonding through relationships, along with moral and spiritual values, are not attainable until you take care of the foundation, which is feeling safe, secure, and grounded.
The key here is support. Mental and physical well-being is associated with a strong support system, and the more sources of support the better. But during the pandemic people became more isolated. Each of us needs to rebuild our support system of family, friends, support groups, etc.
Overload and danger are the two factors that keep consciousness in a troubled state. Worse than the incapacity to regain equilibrium is the exclusion of ideal consciousness and the delight it offers. You were intended to have perfect awareness. It is neither a mythical place nor a realm reserved for the wise.
How can you ascend the pyramid of awareness?
Once more, the pyramid metaphor is helpful. The base of the pyramid has to be entirely solid in order to reach the higher ideals of consciousness, such as love, compassion, truth, beauty, empathy, creativity, insight, and spiritual revelation. We might refer to the basis in this case as straightforward awareness.
Simple awareness is fundamental, as the term suggests. When you meditate, go to sleep, or are otherwise thoroughly quiet and relaxed, you come back to plain consciousness. Simple awareness is like taking a mental activity vacation. Simple awareness, however, is not inert. It enables a complete body-mind reboot, similar to how the brain does it while you sleep. As simple as this condition of consciousness may seem, it provides the foundation for extensive healing.
The practice of simple awareness may be done whenever you feel anxious, preoccupied, overwhelmed, or just in need of inner peace and quiet throughout the day if you are prepared to devote yourself to rebalancing. Choose a peaceful area where you may be by yourself. Put your eyes closed and inhale deeply a few times. Now focus on your heart area while continuing to breathe normally. If your focus leaves the area of the heart, kindly bring it back.
There is nothing more to do. Sit in simple awareness for 5 minutes, then open your eyes take a deep breath or two, and sit for a moment to let the feeling of being centred become anchored. You have given your brain and central nervous system a new way to be, a default that with time will become deeper and calmer. There is profound healing in simple awareness, and beyond this, you will find yourself on the threshold of higher awareness. The entire pyramid of higher experiences awaits. You only need to claim them as part of what it means to be fully human.
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Have you checked out yesterday’s blog yet?
The Japanese focus on imperfection to prevent burnout
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article mentioned above are those of the author(s). They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of ICS Career GPS or its staff.)
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