Development of awareness

The development of awareness is the development of the ability, skill and habit to accompany with consciousness one’s own:

• states,
  
• actions,
  
• activity,
  
• course of your life.

Recently, the word mindfulness has become very commonplace and is often mentioned inappropriately. A large number of psychological and psychotherapeutic approaches indicate that their feature is the development of awareness in people. At the same time, it does not say what exactly is meant by this quality, what observable signs are in question.

There is awareness of speech, there is awareness of movements, there is awareness of thinking, there is awareness of one’s life as a whole — what are we talking about?

Claims of various spiritual gurus or psychological schools: “We develop awareness!” is nothing more than a publicity stunt. Everyone develops awareness: both parents, when they teach a child to put a spoon in his mouth, and teachers, who teach a first-grader to write line by line, and an instructor, who teaches how to use new technologies. “We develop awareness” sounds the same as “We give knowledge!”. Everyone gives knowledge. All normal teachers develop mindfulness — only in different areas and directions, and this is an endless path.

Mindfulness develops constantly throughout life, it is an ongoing process that has no end point. The development of awareness is always the development of awareness in some part of human life, in that activity where this awareness is in demand. There is no one training that helps the development of awareness, and there cannot be. There may be trainings that draw the attention of participants to different moments of awareness more than others, but it is simply unrealistic to cover all the moments of awareness in one training.

As in the development of any skill, the development of awareness has its own levels and its own directions.

The development of basic level awareness is facilitated by all practices that help to control one’s emotions, primarily a calm presence, the habit of being relaxed, and meditation practices that successfully combine this.

If a person lives for today, is aware only of his momentary or immediate needs and desires, then this is low-level awareness. If a person looks at life more broadly than through the prism of his desires, takes into account not only himself, but also other people, plans his future, knows how to load his head with the right thoughts, and his soul with the right feelings, then his level of awareness is already much higher.

Mindfulness can be developed, awareness cannot be developed. This paradox says that the development of awareness is not one specific process with a specific end, but a branching endless path, the next stages of which are open only to those who have already passed part of it. The phrase of Socrates: “The more I know, the more I understand how little I know” is fully applicable to awareness: the more a person begins to live consciously, the more he begins to understand how much is still unconscious in his life.

However, it is not difficult to distinguish a person with any kind of developed awareness from a person who lives unconsciously. External signs of awareness are an attentive look, the absence of excessively sharp, impulsive movements, composure in a relaxed body. In communication, mindfulness is manifested in the ability to clearly formulate one’s thesis, control one’s emotions and the ability to repeat what the interlocutor says. In business — the presence of a list of tasks of the day, thoughtfulness of goals for the year, etc.

A person who is aware of his life can always answer the questions: “Who am I? Where am I from? What am I doing? Where am I going?» (both in small things and in a big life perspective). Aware people see what they do, hear what they say, and how they talk to each other.

The more a person is aware of his actions and his behavior, the clearer the vision of the templates and tools he uses, the understanding of his motives and goals, his problems and his opportunities.

It is possible and necessary to develop awareness, but one should also develop one’s awareness consciously, having considered the directions of future work.

The main directions for the development of awareness

For those who would like to develop their awareness, it is important first of all to decide on the direction of this work. It is impossible and unnecessary to realize everything, but awareness in important matters is important. At the same time, the development of awareness in many ways resembles physical development, where there is general physical training and the development of special skills. We can here give some hints to help develop general awareness.

To develop general awareness, work out a calm presence, free yourself (if it was) from sharp impulsiveness and antics. Never jerk your head sharply — at moments of sharp turns, consciousness becomes difficult or turns off, awareness disappears.

Mindfulness of Speech: Practice the Total Yes. Start listening to others, and most importantly, yourself.

Behavioral awareness: learn to simultaneously direct one vector of your attention outward, to the life around you, and the second vector to yourself, and at the same time note how you feel at each moment of time.

Awareness of movements. What you did impulsively, abruptly, quickly — start doing it slowly and smoothly, seeing and feeling movement, turns, tension and relaxation. Only after that gain speed.

Awareness of activity. Learn to decompose complex actions into simple, elementary operations, and train to do each component in the best possible way: beautifully and on time.

Consciousness of actions. Before you do anything, get used to looking at it from different perspectives: is it true what you want, how is it in the interests of others, and so on.

Awareness of your values. Decide what is truly dear to you, what are your goals and values.

Awareness of one’s work and life in general. Start each day by making a to-do list for the day. Thinking through the tasks of the day, focus on the tasks of the week and month. Weekly and monthly goals should match your goals for the year. Accordingly, think over your goals for the year, three and five, write these goals into the vision of your whole life.

Mindfulness of thought. Constantly put into words the facts about what is happening inside and around you, look for new facts, formulations, points of view. When recognizing the presence of emotions as a fact, think in terms of facts and conclusions from them, not emotions.

The Development of Mindfulness in Practical Psychology

There is no one training that helps the development of awareness, and there cannot be. There may be trainings that draw the attention of participants to different moments of awareness more than others, but it is simply unrealistic to cover all the moments of awareness in one training. Different moments of mindfulness develop in different practices and in different trainings, and the development of awareness that occurs in a good training is not always indicated in the goals for the training. What, however, can be recommended? Syntone program (N.I. Kozlov), Stalking (Sergey Shishkov) See →