Awareness creates change
Mar 25th, 2008 by spaceagesage
Enneagrams, NLP, EMDR, boundary setting skills, John Eldredge, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Louise Hay, brain plasticity, the Bible, years of teaching in the martial arts, care taking my aging mother, being married to my amazing husband — all these have led me to insights I share in this blog. I am no PhD., but as a trained and skilled news reporter — from the old school days of real journalism — I have a knack for picking out salient information.
The latest gem I discovered is The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual growth for the Nine Personality Types, by Ron Richard Riso and Russ Hudson. I have just skimmed it so far, but this passage hit a lot of what I have learned right on the nail:
” … what usually enables us to change is neither haranguing nor punishing ourselves but cultivating a quiet, centered awareness so that we see what is compelling us to harm {I would add “to limit”} ourselves. When we bring awareness both to our bad habits as well as to parts of ourselves that would like to rid of us of them, something entirely new enters the picture.”
There are many ways to finding that level of awareness:
- Christians turn to the awareness that reading the word of God creates, as noted in Hebrews 4:12:-“For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
- Louise Hay would advocate becoming aware of our total personal responsibility and using affirmations to change our inner self.
- The Enneagram overview of nine personality types helps us become aware of who we really are and why we do what we do.
- Dr. Dyer would have us become aware of how our thoughts affect our lives so that we can do as his book title says: “Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life.”
- NLP and EMDR help the mind become aware of its own blockages and to release the blockages with techniques that access the subconscious in various ways.
- Boundary setting skills make us aware of our responsibility for setting sane limits on ourselves and others.
- John Eldredge wants us to become aware of the heart and passion God has given every human and how the romance between God and his people is like an epic love story.
- Brain plasticity shows us that the physical brain has more capacity to understand awareness than we ever thought possible and that change is desirable and lifelong.
- The martial arts teach incredible awareness skills for self defense, but they also teach awareness skills in the process of self improvement physically, mentally and emotionally.
- Taking care of my aging mom creates awareness of my own feelings and thoughts as I become my parent’s parent.
- My husband’s love makes me aware of how close a person can come to not just being aware, but living with awareness as a natural state of existence.