The Transformative Power of Awareness
“Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise” Sigmund Freud.
Sometimes, when trying to dispense words of guidance or advice, I find myself saying “I know this is easier said than done.” I do this in an attempt to show empathy with the person’s struggle, but in truth I am often wrong to say this. Instead, it would be far better to remark, in the positive and assertive manner of Yul Brynner, “now it is said, let it be done!”
When we tell people that we understand how hard their predicament is we are not always doing them a favour. Instead, we might simply be delaying the magic of change, for only once all escape routes have been boarded up do we become fully aware of our situation. Of course, this can be a frightening time, but once a problem has been clearly identified then the machinery of the universe begin to provide a solution.
Another way of saying this is that we need to know before we can grow.
At other times, having gained an awareness of the nature of the problem a person may well leap straight to “so how can I fix this?” This time it is them making the mistake, because in order to fix a problem we often have to know not just the what, but the why. Awareness of the what and the why of a situation, what we did and why we did it, is necessary if we are to avoid repeating the error later on.
Though what I am saying is might seem quite obvious, it is against the current of our times. Our modern-technology-obsessed world says no to this approach. Instead, it issues false promises that the answers to all sorts of problems, are instantly available, only a tap, click or swipe away. Though you can certainly order your dinner this way it is not a method that will ever be successful with any problem related to growth and evolution.
To solve our problems, whatever they might be, we must first identify them. For this we often need the help of others, because we are all fish who do not know that we swim in water. Then, once the underlying, root cause of our problems has been identified we will need to spend time with that discovery, to digest it, to accept it.
We may also have to disentangle ourselves from the stories we have knitted around us. These stories, about how that person was against me, or how another person stood by and did nothing to help me, or how that problem was nothing to do with me act like the walls of a padded cell, seeming to provide protection but in reality, restricting our growth and development. But to untangle ourselves from these stories is very necessary, and if we can do it, maybe, eventually solutions will start to reveal themselves. In my experience it is always the solutions which find us, rarely we that find the solutions. This is due to the spiritual truth that the guidance of the Universe is always available, but we are not always available to it. We only become available to the guidance when we are clear eyed about our own role in our own problems.
At that point we may be ready to use the key of awareness to open the door of change. We then get to see how serious we are about solving our problems. And the truth is that some people are not at all serious about this, wanting instead to be told that they have no problems. Some will walk over hot coals to be told that all the good things in their life are their own doing, while all the bad things are someone else’s fault. But that’s neither awareness, change, healing or progress.
Awareness is the key to change. But awareness can be hard, because it will always, always, relate to our own failings, weaknesses and flaws. We are not perfect. We are not ‘enough.’ We are works in progress. And the sooner we realise this the sooner we will be able to move forward.
