Vida J Phoenix MA LPC

There are no new stressful thoughts.
What have you been recycling?
xoxo bk 💞
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Being Alive and Aware

That you are alive is extraordinary. Feel grateful for that one thing. Having experiences in life, as an alive and conscious being, is like icing on the cake. There is awareness, and there is everything that takes place - experiences, from awareness. However, we continuously miss the vital dimension of awareness because we are stuck in the past – in past thoughts, or in trying to run to a mentally created future. We are constantly in our thoughts. We are not paying attention to awareness and the knowingness of it. The spaces/gaps between thoughts are a doorway to the field of awareness, out of which thought comes, and into which thought returns. Be aware and be aware that you are aware. It is a matter of getting out of thoughts, out of mental constructs, out of an if/then mentality, and out of expectations; versus, present focused here and now reality. It is coming back to your basic senses. Who you really are is that awareness prior to, and in between, thought, so easily missed and forgotten in incessant mind activity. You still exist when you are not obsessively thinking. It is a coming home to beingness, versus unchecked thinkingness. You have always been aware, that part of you is the witness to experience. Awareness is a constant, unchanged by everything that has come and gone.

Being aware, and not in ruminative and repetitive thinking is not spacing-out or going numb. With awareness, you are checking in to your surroundings; without it, you are checking out. In the closed space of your thinking mind, you are separated, and alone. Awareness is the place where we can truly connect to each other, as awareness is shared. It is also the place where we can appreciate objective experience for experience sake, by being the witness to it – through awareness, versus being lost in the evaluation and deciphering of it. Thinking is a necessary tool, just don't let it take over, all the time.

The experience of life is challenging, it is supposed to be, how else can we return to the larger perspective of our true being. Every disappointment reinforces the deeper understanding that this life we live, as this personality - with the limits of a self-focused thinking mind, is insignificant to a larger truth about ourselves. Together we are the consciousness in which all our stories play out. The key word is play, and we should not take ourselves, and our painful stories, too seriously. Trauma does need to be unwound at times, lest it further splits off the self-focused identity from its source.

Though, each thinking-personality mind is capable of harm to another thinking-personality mind, mind alone is not the whole story. There are those who would maim and even kill our bodies, they are still lost in their individual mind. We would protect against them and the dangerous world they perpetuate. We would still fight for order, fairness, and social justice. We can only step away from them, without judgement, protect and defend ourselves when necessary, and take a wait and see attitude. They need more pain to break the unconscious spell they are under. They can be aware and conscious beings, but that part has been overlooked, even dismissed. Only pain is powerful enough to remind them that consciousness is before all else that transpires. Pain hardens; or, softens and finally gets a person to a teachable place.

Aliveness, animating force, consciousness, awareness, knowingness are concepts that attempt to describe something slightly beyond our human understanding. However, it is nevertheless integral to our existence. It’s where we are the same. It’s what unifies us, beyond nationality, culture, color, creed, or any form of superior personal identity the thinking mind can conjure up.

There is room for the thinking mind in consciousness, just don’t let it take over. In its ignorance it will push away the truth, and in its superiority, it will destroy itself. We still have to live the complexity of human life. However, it is possible to find a working balance between thinking/doing and your consciously aware beingness when necessary.

Vida Phoenix