what it is? Practical exercises for 30 days. What does conscious living mean? Levels of development of awareness in everyday life

Often, when we say that a per­son leads a con­scious life, we there­by com­pli­ment him. Indeed, liv­ing con­scious­ly is not only use­ful, but also inter­est­ing. But how to achieve aware­ness and whether every­one can do it — these ques­tions can be answered in the arti­cle.

Mod­ern psy­chol­o­gy inter­prets aware­ness as the prin­ci­ple of life, a skill in which a per­son con­stant­ly mon­i­tors his cur­rent states, expe­ri­ences, sen­sa­tions. He fix­es the inter­nal focus of atten­tion on them. In fact, a per­son lives here and now, not being dis­tract­ed by expe­ri­ences of the past or wor­ries and thoughts about the future. Aware­ness is not absolute, it is con­sid­ered quite rel­a­tive, because rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the ani­mal world are also able to be aware of cer­tain events, some­times sub­con­scious­ly.

The lev­el of atten­tion of peo­ple and ani­mals is reg­u­lat­ed by the ner­vous sys­tem. How­ev­er, the lat­ter dili­gent­ly “sup­press­es” many impuls­es, oth­er­wise the part of the brain, per­ceiv­ing the data, sim­ply would not be able to cope with their pro­cess­ing due to the large amount of infor­ma­tion. If the sys­tem of this “sup­pres­sion” is weak­ened, then a state of “expand­ed con­scious­ness” occurs, in which much more data enters the brain than usu­al. This con­cept is wide­ly used by shamans and fol­low­ers of some eso­teric tech­niques and prac­tices.

Some heal­ing tech­niques are based on aware­ness. For exam­ple, it is used by Gestalt ther­a­pists to treat cer­tain men­tal dis­or­ders. Speak­ing about aware­ness, one should clear­ly see its dif­fer­ences from con­scious­ness — the sec­ond “reminds” us of the rules of behav­ior, norms, duty, while aware­ness only helps to expand atten­tion, focus on one’s inter­nal state, and from this grad­u­al­ly move on to exter­nal inter­ac­tions with the world .

The con­cept is also used in phi­los­o­phy. One of the first to study it was René Descartes. He called the state of aware­ness “sci­en­tif­ic con­scious­ness” and used the famous say­ing “I think, there­fore I am” to describe it. Descartes defined the path of self-obser­va­tion as intro­spec­tion. A lit­tle lat­er, the achieve­ments of Descartes were used in exper­i­men­tal psy­chol­o­gy.

A lot has been writ­ten and said about how beau­ti­ful and rich the con­scious life is, how impor­tant aware­ness is for self-devel­op­ment. But this does not make it any clear­er — con­fu­sion reigns in the minds of most peo­ple on this issue. If, for exam­ple, you ask why aware­ness is need­ed at all, you can cer­tain­ly live with­out it, then the answer is obvi­ous — you can, but life will be more dif­fi­cult. Let’s try to fig­ure out why.

When a per­son prac­tices mind­ful­ness, he receives a lot of ben­e­fits on three lev­els — psy­cho­log­i­cal, bod­i­ly and in every­day life. A clear fix­a­tion of your actions allows you to nev­er for­get where, for exam­ple, the keys to the apart­ment, doc­u­ments or the tele­phone direc­to­ry are stored. But every­day advan­tages are just a pleas­ant bonus on the path of aware­ness, while the main process­es devel­op at a deep lev­el.

Through gain­ing aware­ness, there is an accep­tance of the world with­out crit­i­cism and neg­a­tiv­i­ty, as well as one­self in this world. It is also worth train­ing aware­ness to improve one’s health — a per­son begins to lis­ten to his body and its sig­nals, to mon­i­tor the puri­ty of his thoughts. There is a clear and proven rela­tion­ship between the puri­ty of thoughts and the phys­i­cal state, and there­fore learn­ing aware­ness means noth­ing more than mov­ing to a new lev­el of devel­op­ment.

Gain­ing aware­ness, a per­son learns to weed out pos­i­tive thoughts and atti­tudes from neg­a­tive ones that destroy him and his exis­tence. It effec­tive­ly coun­ters the stress­es of the mod­ern world, depres­sion, anx­i­ety dis­or­ders. The head is put in order, which, of course, is the main thing. Reg­u­lar exer­cis­es aimed at increas­ing the lev­el of aware­ness allow a per­son to become more calm and self-con­fi­dent. He quick­ly finds con­tact with the world around him, clear­ly under­stands his true needs, knows how to set goals for him­self.

Spe­cial­ists in the field of psy­chol­o­gy and psy­chother­a­py iden­ti­fy sev­er­al lev­els of aware­ness that dif­fer in depth (degree). The high­er the lev­el, the high­er the degree of aware­ness inher­ent in a per­son. Each lev­el opens up a new poten­tial for choice. Most often, the struc­ture is depict­ed as a mul­ti-lev­el pyra­mid. It is under­stood that each of its lev­els has its own fre­quen­cy ener­gy poten­tials. Low lev­els can be com­pared to the base­ment of a build­ing. If a per­son is here, he looks at a bor­ing and monot­o­nous base­ment view, believ­ing that the world is lim­it­ed to this par­tic­u­lar room. To see more, you need to go high­er.

And dwelling in the low­er lev­els of aware­ness can be com­pared to unin­ter­rupt­ed sleep. A per­son ensures his bio­log­i­cal exis­tence, but does not use either his ener­gy poten­tial or the excep­tion­al tal­ents giv­en by nature. Such peo­ple are more sus­cep­ti­ble to manip­u­la­tion, their minds and opin­ions are eas­i­ly con­trolled by those who have climbed sev­er­al floors high­er. Pro­po­nents of eso­teric teach­ings claim that the inhab­i­tants of the low­er lev­els of aware­ness, liv­ing in the “base­ment dark­ness”, are active­ly tak­en away by those who live above. Their poten­tial is lim­it­ed only by the ener­gy lev­el that is suf­fi­cient for banal sur­vival.

At what lev­el you are, it is not so dif­fi­cult to deter­mine. Experts have made the fol­low­ing clas­si­fi­ca­tion.

• Vic­tims. The low­est lev­el (the same “base­ment”). A per­son painful­ly reacts to prob­lems, looks for the guilty, seeks to blame them and the imper­fec­tion of the world. Often such peo­ple say that their life is hope­less. Light rarely pen­e­trates into the base­ment lev­els. A per­son often gets sick, faces fail­ures, and his usu­al emo­tion­al back­ground is neg­a­tive.
• Wrestlers. This lev­el can be com­pared with the first floor of a mul­ti-storey build­ing. A per­son reacts aggres­sive­ly to prob­lems, seeks to look for the guilty, but not only blames them, but also fights them, some­times launch­ing large-scale hos­til­i­ties, he is inclined to prove his case and down­load rights. Often lives in a state of con­flict not only with oth­ers, but also with him­self.
• Seek­ers. A per­son of this lev­el reacts with inter­est to emerg­ing prob­lems. It is impor­tant for him to find the cause of what hap­pened, to under­stand what is hap­pen­ing. They are less like­ly to get sick, vir­tu­osic in the search for solu­tions. But the sit­u­a­tion is unsta­ble, they are often pro­voked by peo­ple from the cat­e­go­ry of vic­tims and fight­ers, and if a per­son suc­cumbs to such manip­u­la­tions and provo­ca­tions, he again falls to low lev­els of aware­ness.
• Play­ers. A per­son of this lev­el per­ceives each prob­lem as the next step. Quick­ly finds solu­tions, does not waste time and effort search­ing for rea­sons or dig­ging into him­self. Such peo­ple almost do not get sick, they are more often in an upbeat opti­mistic mood, they com­mu­ni­cate well even with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of low lev­els, being able to defend them­selves from them. But if the defense is “bro­ken”, then they risk briefly being in the ranks of vic­tims or fight­ers.
• Cre­ators. These are peo­ple who react to all trou­bles with enthu­si­asm. They watch over them, patient­ly sur­vive as the prob­lem devel­ops. If it is not solved by itself, they take it and solve it eas­i­ly on their own. They are healthy, most often hap­py, and if they drop to low­er lev­els, then it is sole­ly for the sake of an adven­tur­ous adven­ture.
• Sources. Peo­ple who were able to reach the upper floors. They almost nev­er have prob­lems, com­plete har­mo­ny reigns every­where. It is believed that there are prac­ti­cal­ly no such peo­ple on the plan­et, but this lev­el is the bench­mark to which all the oth­ers are aimed.

Before you start work­ing on your own aware­ness, you need to learn more about its com­po­nents. The most effec­tive and effi­cient tech­niques used by mod­ern spe­cial­ists are based on them.

Usu­al­ly we are not aware of it. From birth to death, we sim­ply breathe, which is a nat­ur­al process. A per­son usu­al­ly begins to focus on breath­ing only when some prob­lems occur to him, for exam­ple, res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases occur. Psy­chol­o­gists advise not to wait for this moment.

Focus­ing on the breath is the first path to mind­ful­ness. Now, as you read this arti­cle, do you notice your breath­ing? If not, then it’s time to try fix­ing your atten­tion on both the breath and the text at the same time. Car­ry this prac­tice into all activ­i­ties. Wash­ing dish­es and notic­ing the breath, nego­ti­at­ing with a client or part­ner — and doing the same, that is, watch­ing the breath. From this point on, we can assume that you have found a stair­case that will climb to high­er floors. How­ev­er, you are only at the begin­ning of the jour­ney.

Hav­ing mas­tered con­scious inhala­tions and exha­la­tions, com­pli­cate your task — learn to fix your feel­ings in real time, not­ing feel­ings at one time or anoth­er. Try not to judge your feel­ings — they are nei­ther good nor bad, they just are.

Emo­tion­al life will be the third area of ​​work. When per­form­ing actions, we not only breathe and feel, but also expe­ri­ence cer­tain emo­tions — joy, sad­ness, anx­i­ety. The task is to learn to dis­tin­guish between pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive emo­tions. When you start to feel some­thing unpleas­ant, you should learn to quick­ly fix this moment and stop in time, switch­ing to more pos­i­tive thoughts.

We have a con­stant stream of thoughts. We think about the mass of things and phe­nom­e­na, while thoughts jump, move from one object to anoth­er. Most of the time, we are not even aware of them all. On the way to aware­ness, a per­son learns to con­trol his thoughts, man­age them, direct them exclu­sive­ly in a cre­ative and pos­i­tive direc­tion.

Cul­ti­vat­ing mind­ful­ness means encour­ag­ing atten­tion to what­ev­er you are doing. Focus con­sis­tent­ly on breath­ing and walk­ing, and only then move on to the next com­po­nents — sen­sa­tions. It will not be pos­si­ble to turn on emo­tions and achieve con­trol over thoughts if the pre­vi­ous stages have not been com­plet­ed. The main skill will be the abil­i­ty to prac­tice the rule of “here and now” in every­day life.

Not only Tibetan monks and fol­low­ers of Tao­ism will be able to devel­op such skills. Every­one can achieve the absence of inter­nal tor­ment, dia­logues and doubts. If you wish, take action imme­di­ate­ly. Keep a diary and note in it dai­ly what progress is observed. This will help improve your achieve­ments, and will also help increase your own con­cen­tra­tion.

• Only truth. Any lie reduces aware­ness. This is the first and main rule. Every time you encour­age the truth, speak it, act on the truth, your aware­ness grows.
• Watch. Prac­tice obser­va­tion, do not con­fuse it with obser­va­tion. You do not ana­lyze or eval­u­ate any­thing, but only see and fix for your­self a fait accom­pli. Look at the famil­iar as if you were doing it for the first time, for­get about the obser­va­tions of the past.
• Don’t sup­press your­self. Mind­ful­ness does not mean that you begin to active­ly con­scious­ly sup­press your neg­a­tive char­ac­ter traits and short­com­ings. Try­ing to “dri­ve” your greed, deceit and fears deep­er, you only con­fuse every­thing even more. Soon­er or lat­er, repressed emo­tions come out in the form of aggres­sion, men­tal dis­or­der, sex­u­al per­ver­sion and var­i­ous manias. You need to active­ly work with the neg­a­tive inside, and not hide it.

There are many tech­niques, but each tech­nique has its own advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages. Here are some effec­tive meth­ods to help you raise aware­ness.

The Non-Eval­u­a­tive Obser­va­tion Method (BON) is an effec­tive tech­nique that turns on the inter­nal observ­er in you. The bot­tom line is that you remain your­self, but you con­stant­ly observe your­self from the out­side: your thoughts, actions, sen­sa­tions, with­out giv­ing any prac­ti­cal assess­ments. You don’t judge your­self and you don’t approve. You are neu­tral. All thoughts and emo­tions are con­sid­ered care­ful­ly, but do it imme­di­ate­ly, not allow­ing them to go to deep­er sub­con­scious lev­els.

It won’t work right away. The ten­den­cy to eval­u­ate every­thing will inter­fere for a long time. Train­ing will help, in which you will fix the assess­ment, but at the same time per­ceive it as an assess­ment and noth­ing more. The method involves sev­er­al steps.

• Absence and pres­ence of “here and now”. Try to keep a sense of where you are now — in the present, past or future. You drink cof­fee, so you only drink cof­fee and noth­ing more. Do not men­tal­ly break away from this pleas­ant activ­i­ty. Observe how often you are not “here”. At first, this may scare you — too often you will be absent from the present tense. Under­stand­ing your absence will be the begin­ning of work on your­self.
• Return­ing your­self to the now. When you catch your­self in anoth­er absence, start prac­tic­ing an exer­cise that will help you bring your­self back. Speak to your­self a key phrase, such as: “Come back” or “In the moment.” For exam­ple, you are prepar­ing break­fast. But catch your­self think­ing that in your head you have already begun to pre­pare reports for the man­ag­er, although this will only take 3 hours. But in fact, you are in the kitchen, so you should imme­di­ate­ly give your­self the com­mand to return and focus on the action that you are cur­rent­ly per­form­ing. Prac­tice the exer­cise an unlim­it­ed num­ber of times a day.
• Con­scious obser­va­tion. Hav­ing learned to observe your­self in a moment in time, move on to non-judg­men­tal obser­va­tion of your emo­tions and thoughts. Try to look at them, as well as at your­self, from the side — from the side or from above (but with­out rat­ings). For exam­ple, you have an inter­view com­ing up, so you are ner­vous because you are inter­est­ed in get­ting a job. Look at your­self through the eyes of a view­er of a film in which you play the main role. See how the hero is going through, how he seeks to please. Notice the ten­sion in your body.

The method can be prac­ticed dai­ly, some call it the “Chal­lenge 30 days”. Of course, the process will not be lim­it­ed to a month, the exer­cise will have to be per­formed lat­er, but not to enter aware­ness, but to main­tain life in it.

• Breathe. What­ev­er you do, watch your breath. Try to increase the con­trol time. Whether you’re talk­ing to some­one, or stay­ing alone, prac­tice mind­ful smooth inhala­tions and exha­la­tions.
• Feel. Start by focus­ing through­out the day on sen­sa­tions that occur in a spe­cif­ic mus­cle group, such as the fin­ger­tips or the cer­vi­cal region. Watch them, how they change in dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances and sit­u­a­tions. Grad­u­al­ly expand the area of ​​atten­tion by simul­ta­ne­ous­ly con­trol­ling two or more mus­cle groups. Grad­u­al­ly, you will learn to “hear” your body, to under­stand what caus­es cer­tain sen­sa­tions that arise.
• Con­trol emo­tions. Every time an emo­tion aris­es, watch it. This will help to impar­tial­ly see your true feel­ings and needs. Grad­u­al­ly, you will learn to calm­ly neu­tral­ize every­thing neg­a­tive and main­tain cre­ative emo­tions (joy, ten­der­ness, grat­i­tude). Ask your­self more often dur­ing the day about what emo­tions cur­rent­ly pre­vail in you, why this is hap­pen­ing.
• Think. Try to track your inner dia­logue with your­self, mono­logues, tran­si­tions from one thought to anoth­er more often with­out rat­ings. As with emo­tions, ask your­self what you are cur­rent­ly think­ing and why.

Only after mas­ter­ing the above basics (and this process takes sev­er­al months), move on to more spe­cif­ic train­ing, aimed at cer­tain aspects. It will be eas­i­er and eas­i­er for you to cope with these tasks. This block includes the devel­op­ment of a con­scious approach to the fol­low­ing aspects:

• val­ues ​​— define them and fol­low only them, with­out chang­ing your­self in any sit­u­a­tions;
• real­i­ty — try to eval­u­ate what is hap­pen­ing around you, per­ceive what is hap­pen­ing sober­ly and with­out judg­ment;
• speech­es — watch what you say your­self, as well as what oth­ers say, be an atten­tive lis­ten­er;
• move­ments — do not rush in move­ments, be smooth and mea­sured, do not strive for high speed;
• actions — con­sid­er them from dif­fer­ent points, but do not give assess­ments, oth­er­wise you will have to start all the way from the very begin­ning;
• activ­i­ties — per­form your work impec­ca­bly and respon­si­bly, no mat­ter what you do (even a tri­fle must be per­formed at a high lev­el, expert­ly);
• life — con­trol your goals and plans, per­son­al time, elim­i­nate unnec­es­sary actions and peo­ple who take time with­out effect from your life.

Achiev­ing a cer­tain goal will be eas­i­er if you lis­ten to the advice of experts.

• Change your atti­tude towards the world and your­self in favor of a neu­tral one. Only it cor­re­sponds to the truth.
• Your behav­ior will change as you move through the lev­els of aware­ness, but always grad­u­al­ly.
• Stay moti­vat­ed and respect your choice. Don’t be afraid to start over.