I find it funny how much I tended to fool myself. I thought I was aware of what is going on with me. In a way I was and am, yet there were things I chose not to be present with. Or, more honestly, I could say, I chose to lie to myself about aspects of my life.
It has been interesting for me to find out how much can change if I am willing to be fully present with what is and not push it away or distract myself. Being fully present with something means I am completely honest with it and about it. When being young, I learned it is better to not look at everything, to gloss over, to ignore, to pretend it is different than it is. Growing up and in my marriage there were the proverbial ‘mountains under the carpet’, all the stuff we chose not to look at. With personal growth this changed, yet only to a certain extent. Today, I am aware that what I was not willing to look at was either in reaction to conclusions I had come to, as a protest against points of view I rejected or because I was afraid of the pain I had decided I would feel if I did. I thought I was aware of what I needed to be aware of.
Those conclusions were not serving me. My life got into a rut. Today, it is more important to me to be honest with myself, to become truly aware and not be ‘pretend aware’ as in the past. I noticed that I began to ask different questions, perceived new or different possibilities, and, as a result, I am getting so much more clarity. My life is beginning to change in ways I would have never thought of.
Being fully present gives me the awareness of the choices I make and what these choices create. It is only by being willing to get that awareness that I can make a different choice and create my life in a different way. If I operate on autopilot , I can’t change anything. Sometimes, I tell myself that something is a difficult choice, yet when I am completely honest with myself, I have to admit that I have been thinking about that very same choice already for some time. I just found all those justifications for staying in the comfort zone of no change. No longer! I am ready for more. (Posted on blog)