Innovation is one hell of a hot buzz word these days. Everyday we  hear a lot of talk about technological, social or business  innovation. There is this felt need of innovating our social and  organizational practices together with our technology and business  processes so as to meet the demands of a fast-changing world. Not  less pressing is the continuous struggle to narrow the void of an  increasingly uncertain future.

Innovation is really about changing and tweaking something to make  it behave or work in a different new way. It involves the input of  creative thinking since it’s about looking at old things in new  perspectives. It requires getting out of the old mold and break  patterns of habitual thinking so as to reveal a fresh new outlook  on everyday things.

Sometimes we are stuck into looking at something in a set way. It  can be the way we go about a particular task or problem. It  becomes a ‘given’ that we unquestionably assume it’s just the way  things are. A fresh new perspective can give it a whole new  meaning and to our own amazement we realize there is a better way of dealing with it we never imagined could be possible.

Yet we always tend to think about innovation in terms of changing  something in the world around us. How about innovating ourselves?  Would that be a teasing thought? I think so.

I have a gut feeling that women can be more receptive to this. The  reason is that women tend to have more self-motivation to go  through regular ‘make-overs’ like changing their hairstyle and general look, revamp their wardrobe, re-decorate their living space and re-design other things in their immediate physical and social environment. On the other hand we men tend to go through such ‘make-overs’ as frequent as celestial alignments of an inter-galactic scale.

Truth being said, it however remains doubtful whether change in appearance can count as genuine innovation – although it’s a start nonetheless.

Here are a few of my own ideas on how we can truly innovate ourselves and keep a fresh stand on our ever-changing lives.

1. Observe and be conscious of recurring patterns of behavior that have been with you since you were a child. Lately I’m getting  more conscious of this. Did you ever notice that there are some traits, like a behavioral response to a situation or a mental predisposition that could be traced back many years as long as you can remember? The weary side of it is that there are many patterns of behavior which determine us throughout our life – most of which unconsciously. The upside is that you can be conscious of them if  you will and reprogram them. Easy said but doable nonetheless. Awareness is the first and greatest step forward.

2. Embrace the habit of change and novelty. Fear of change is the greatest inhibitor of any form of innovation. Fear causes resistance and immobilization. Install the habit of changing minor patterns first. As an example I was walking down a favorite walking path in the countryside a few weekends ago which I have been going to occassionally for some years. Upon entering the usual path, a spontaneous idea sparked of taking the other path at the bifurcation – something I never really done before out of  habit. This is a small pattern change. Habit will lead you to bigger and bigger ones such as the ones in the previous point.

3. Play with the idea of innovating  yourself. How would you like yourself to be? More creative? Young spirited? a better communicator? a tech-savvy, trend-conscious forward-thinker?

4. Let the idea of a new you sink in. This is what many refer to as an ‘incubation’ process where the seed of a new idea starts forming. An other way of saying to give some time and space for the idea to settle in.

5. Start considering new ways of thinking. Before taking a decision, think of whether you were following old patterns of thought. Here is one method from Edward De Bono. The method is called APC (alternative, possibilities, choices). It’s basically a brainstorming exercise where you look at a given issue or problem and start spooling out different alternatives, possibilities (even crazy ones) and eventually considering different choices. May sound foolishly simple but an effective method for directing our minds ‘outside of the box’.

6. It’s not whether others see you differently but whether YOU see yourself differently. And this points at why changing your wardrobe might not result in innovating yourself. Others might see a ‘new you’ but do you? or do you see yourself in the same way? And this takes us to the next point.

7. Start talking to yourself differently. In previous posts I have frequently made reference to positive self-talk as an effective self-development tool. It comes in very handy in this context too. If you haven’t yet noticed (quite unlikely) you talk to yourself all the time. There is that internal commentary ‘in your head’ that never shuts up. Yet the language and metaphors we sometimes use can determine whether we build up the right attitude to succeed in something or sabotage ourselves in defeat and surrender. If our ‘self-talk’ contributes a lot to our self-image, then changing the way we talk to ourselves means changing our self-image, hence ultimately innovating ourselves. Can you think of ways to talk differently to yourself? I might come up with a future post on this.

8. Use your internal resources creatively. We all have something we are good at. Something which makes us stand out even if not in the most obvious or conspicuous ways. It might be that you are good at seeing the big picture or spot the slightest detail. It might be you can catch a new language very quickly or have good interpersonal skills. You might be a good organizer or a group motivator. Whatever it is that shines in you, try to nurture it more and start using it for something outside the habitual parameters. Expand it and use it creatively.

9. Focus your energies on the future not the past. Innovative people don’t stick around much in the past. They prefer keeping their eye on the future – in particular anticipating the future through innovating something in the present. We often tie ourselves and our self-image to our past. We tag our identity to our life history – the story of ourselves. To innovate yourself you need to project yourself forward and place yourself where you want to be in the future with enthusiasm and positive expectations.

No related posts.

Ancient Eastern Philosophy has taught a lot about the concept of non-resistance. This view has been deeply rooted as a cultural way of life as can be most popularly seen in the martial arts for example.

Most internal martial arts such as Tai Chi, for instance, are built on this principle of non-resistance and ‘action without action’ (Wei Wu Wei) or effortless doing. The idea behind this principle of effortless action is that when you don’t resist or work against the energies around you but actually work or flow with them, you become aligned and in equilibrium in such a way as to obtain a ‘soft and invisible power’.

The adept martial artist knows how to use the power and momentum of his opponent to overcome him with out exerting any force or power.

Non-resistance is like the nature of water. The strength of water lies in its ability to flow around obstacles and in its suppleness. Its force is soft yet powerful.

On the other hand, resistance is friction, an act of opposing, blocking or impeding something. It generally implies working against natural forces as opposed to working with them.

Here are a few points which highlight this negative aspect of resistance to give you an idea of how it might affect your daily life:

• Resistance always involves using energy-dissipating action. Did you ever realize how much effort and energy is needed to resist something as opposed to accept it? This is in line with the Eastern philosophy of effortless action.

• It makes us block the flow of life’s energies. Notice yourself when you are passing through a phase of resisting or opposing something such as an idea or part of your life. Your energy is always on the low side. You are out of balance and moody.

• As an effect of the above stress builds up. You start experiencing inner conflict and anxiety.

• Resistance makes us unreceptive to new ideas and intuitions. It blocks our intuitive channels.

• It sabotages our creativity, mental clarity and focus

• It stops us from appreciating the moment.

How to learn to flow without resistance:

• Avoid trying to always be in control. This is a cultural habit more common in Western cultures. We want to be constantly in control of our life, work, relationships, finances, etc. We feel that if we lose control, we lose the race, we lose our life. Of course the opposite is true. When we learn not to control everything we embrace life with more power and consciousness.

• When something unwanted happens to you, be aware of your resistance towards it. Shit happens. Calm down and try to shift your perspective to one of acceptance. Ask yourself “How can I use this?” or “How does this affect the bigger picture of my life?”

• Be open to your feelings without criticizing yourself. We all have an internal critic installed which pounces on us when we perceive we did something out of line. This has the negative effect of making our feelings shy away. By allowing more of those feeling to flow out, we encourage the practice of non-resistance.

• In relation to the above point, when you are having an idea, let it flow without trying to classify it, reason it out or evaluate it. We sometimes tend to over-rationalize ideas which effectively has the effect of promoting resistance to it.

• When you are practicing awareness, meditation, relaxation or simply appreciating a beautiful moment you will undoubtedly be bombarded with a thousand distracting thoughts that divert you off course. Don’t try to resist or control anything. Just acknowledge them and let them flow. The very act of resisting trips your circuits and conscious thought kicks in.

• When you are listening to something new that diverges from your opinions and background beliefs try not to resist it or deny it. Think of expansion and diversity of opinion as being healthy, strong and life affirming.

• Do not deny or resist failure. Recognize it and accept it.

Related posts:

1. Overcoming Fear and Breaking Free from its Tyranny
2. How to Survive the ‘Negativity Pandemic’
3. How to find the Strength to Overcome Obstacles

Photo by timtom.ch

There are many factors that play a determining role in success. The most commonly identified are qualities such as passion, determination, perseverance, good planning, intuition and creativity amongst a few others.

It is to be said, however, that not all success comes from the heart or leads to happiness.

There is success which comes from taking smart decisions, hard work and perseverance together with a pinch of good luck. But this type of success does not necessarily lead to a happy fulfilled life. It might be the type of success that comes from striking the right six figure business deal or from having your name become big in your area of expertise.

This is obviously a great thing but does not necessarily entail what you really want deep inside.

Authenticity and inner purpose

Heart driven success is the ultimate form of success because it goes beyond limited beliefs about cause and effect, desire for money, fear and expectations and most of all, it is guided from the heart.

When you have stripped off the socially induced values of what is good, bad and ugly and listen more to what your heart is saying, you thrive towards your inner purpose. You would have found your authentic self.

Heart driven success comes from having your heart open to your life’s purpose without fear and limitations. It comes from the power of being conscious of your passion that drives you with enthusiasm and joy.

If you are in doubt, ask yourself: what drives you? What motivates you? What makes you work hard without getting tired and unsatisfied? If you had a guarantee of success in whatever venture you take, what would you do?

Aligning with your purpose in life

Heart driven success is powerful. There is a certain energy that flows through people when they are doing what they are passionate about. This comes from the fact that the person is aligned and in perfect sync with his purpose. When this happens, the energies of life flow through him freely without obstruction.

It’s like an unblocked pipe connected straight to the source. There are even some highly motivated and self-empowered people that would describe this energy as literally too powerful too handle at times. It feels as if it is filling every cell in their body and keeps them revved up as they produce work well beyond average quality and quantity.

Success beyond the self

Heart driven success means also, above other things, not to be limited and enslaved by narrow self-interest. It is not shallow. It’s free, unbounded, selfless and embraces broader interests than self-satisfying ones.

This is why some illustrious self-empowered people have given the world their creations and inventions for free.

They are already blessed by the greatness of following their life purpose with heart-driven success, so much so that monetary compensation falls way below that level of satisfaction.

A perfect example is the following TED talk from inventor Pranav Mistry,  who decided to give out his ingenious and mind blowing work on ‘sixth sense technology’ as open source knowledge. Utterly fantastic

Related posts:

1. Follow Your Heart and Life will Follow
2. A Note on Happiness
3. The art of creating meaning into your life

Photo by Josefe aka Hipnosapo

We all have those moments when we feel everything is falling apart or when suddenly too many problems seem to come our way all at the same time. They end up overwhelming us and we find it hard to tackle them all at once. Our mind gets stressed, our body gets fatigued and our problem-solving skills and creativity fails us when we need it most.

The thing to understand is that crisis is not a situation. It’s a reaction to a situation, or rather an impaired reaction to a given situation.

In moments of crisis, emotions run high and this, together with increasing stress, makes it very difficult to have a clear head. This is of course counter-productive as having murky thoughts, if not outright panic attacks, will keep you further away from functioning properly and lucidly finding the much needed solution to the problems at hand.

The solution:

So what can you do when you are in those moments of crisis? How can you keep a clear head and stay focused on finding solutions?

I suggest the following:

1. Get out of the state of shock first: In moments of crisis and high anxiety, your mind is locked in a state of shock. The flight or fight mode of your brain has been activated and a chain of chemical reactions in the body is set off that are often manifest in panic or anxiety. You need to get out of that state. Be aware that you are in that state first. Then be resolute to step out of it.

2. Focus on something: This can be difficult at first but it will help the mind settle and quiet down from its state of panic. Focus on an object (external object or part of your body) for a few minutes or visualize an image and keep your awareness locked on to it for a few minutes. My preferred object of focus is my breath (see next).

3. Do some breathing exercises: Sit straight and breathe deeply. Take four deep breaths and be conscious of them. That is, give your breath a soft attention to it. Feel the air moving in and out of your lungs and air ducts as you inhale or exhale. Feel you belly gently rising and falling with each breath. Keep your awareness focused on the breath. If you feel your mind is wandering off, return your awareness to your breath.

4. Soothing sounds: The mind reacts to sounds in our environment as much as it reacts to sights. We might not be aware of it, but there are sounds which agitate us and make us feel anxious while some other relax us and soothes us. For example, the sound of birds chirping, ocean waves, or gentle rain can have a very relaxing effect on your mind.

5. Take a short walk and take some fresh air: This is a classic for a very good reason. It works wonders every time. Going out for a walk disentangles your mind, changes your perspective and refreshes both your mind and body.

6. Talk to someone: Conversation stimulates ideas to flow. Don’t keep it all bottled inside. If you keep on replaying the problem in your mind it might not resolve anything but actually make you more stressed out and tired. Talking can be therapeutic to some and definitely helpful to everyone because it opens up the bottle.

7. Do some sport and physical exercise: This has the same effect of taking a walk but is a bit more intense. Physical exercise helps the body detoxify itself from the build up of chemicals and toxins caused by stress and over-worrying. Any sport such as running, tennis, squash, basketball, etc is helpful.

8. Chunk down the problem into small manageable pieces: Crisis is a management problem. To use a management-oriented solution, classify your problems into important and urgent. If a problem or task is both urgent and important, it should be given top priority. If it is urgent but not important, get it out of your way but don’t waste too much time on it. If it is important but not urgent, you should tackle it after the urgent ones but spend more time on it. Allocate time to focus on the important problems without distraction or multitasking. Only one problem at a time.

9. Positive self-talk: Language and metaphors are crucial. Your mind acts on what you tell it. If your language (affirmations, self-talk, inner conversations) are positive, in the present tense, and action-oriented, your mind will follow command. Hence you self-talk should be “I am now solving problem A” not “I will try to solve this and this problem but I don’t know where to start or if I’ll manage.”

10. Make a plan: even if you don’t yet have one. When I have some project to finish or problem to solve, sometimes I’m clueless. So I ask: “What’s the point of writing down a plan before I have one?” but then I take a pen and paper and start jotting down some points. Even senseless scribble. Doesn’t matter. After some short time, the ideas start flowing in because you have initiated the process. You have instructed your mind to start writing and so it followed. This is what is meant by positive self-talk in the previous point.

Related posts:

1. A simple visualization technique to keep calm under pressure

I have never done writing for a living yet. My writing has always been mostly for study or passion.

Yet even though I haven’t been under the pressure of having my monthly income depending on the flow and quality of my writing as any paid writer would, my own experiences still brought to my conscious awareness two important and closely linked notions: Inspiration and its dreaded enemy writer’s block.

Writer’s Block

This concept notoriously gained an iconic status having been so widely referred to in the media and arts. We all have collective unconscious images from the movie classics of some writer at a desk in front of an old-style typewriter, an ashtray full of half-snuffed cigarette butts and a paper bin overflowing with balled up papers of unfinished sentences.

Conventionally, writer’s block is understood as that part in a writer’s career where her creative process comes to a halt and her inspiration runs dry due to some psychological blockage or emotional distress. Less dramatically, it is when we are doing a writing job and words and ideas stop coming to our heads. We stop for hours trying to get the thing started again sometimes with no success.

There are two main views on writer’s block. Both views see it as some block in the overall creative process but while one view sees creativity as predominantly or even exclusively a generative process the other sees it as a receptive process.

The difference between the two notions of creativity is stark but very often overlooked. In the former, creativity is thought to be something that is internal to the individual, resulting from a thinking process and involves effort to produce.

In the latter creativity is seen as passively receiving, tuning-in or listening to a ‘stream of ideas’ that are external to us. These streaming ‘Universal ideas’ are always present but we either connect to them and get inspired or just block them out and stop listening to them, hence the writer’s block according to this view.

I tend to subscribe to the point of view that creativity is both a generative and a receptive process, kind of a yin and yang thing, but the receptive part plays a big role in writer’s block which is very often overlooked. I’ll come to this later.

The universal & un-copyrighted source

Lately I have written an article on evolving beings about how we don’t always come up with ideas but rather tune in to a universal web of ideas.

This belief came to me when I started doing my dissertation for a Masters in Philosophy back in summer 03. Although it took me 3 and a half years to complete the course, all the raw ideas for the dissertation came to me in the first 2 months of that summer, most of the time in intuition or in dreams (I very often used to wake up at night jotting down ideas). These ideas were very novel to me at the time although I thought ‘I’ was the one coming up with the ideas.

When I started the research process and started reading piles of books and papers, I started encountering a lot of material not only with similar ideas and concepts to my own but even using the same analogies and metaphors. To my true disbelief I once came across an exact copy of a diagram with the same details I had used to sketch one of my ideas! Now I hadn’t seen it before and the other author could certainly not have copied it from me since my work was unpublished.

It was from that day that I remember starting to believe that people who claim possession of original ideas are unaware of the fact that we do not ‘possess’ ideas but we attract ideas and get inspired if we are listening and tuned-in to them. It was also a lesson in humility for me to come to see ideas as coming from a universal and un-copyrighted source (or shall I say open source?) that we tap into and get inspired. This points at an even deeper philosophical truth that everything in the universe is interconnected and the separateness of self is only an illusion of mind.

Having a creative genius vs. being a genius

Anyway, recently I also came across a very interesting TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the massively successful book ‘Eat, Pray, Love”, in which to my utmost bewilderment and astonishment she talked about her coming to understand the uplifting and ultimately liberating notion that creativity and inspiration come from outside of us rather than within us. (That came as a relief to me knowing my idea wasn’t completely crazy)

In her talk she explained how she traced back the concept of creativity down to the ancient world where the ancient Romans or Greeks used to belief that creative people had their own genius or daemon, a sort of divine ethereal entity or spirit, which inspired them.

This all changed through the onset of the rational Humanist movement where Man was placed at the centre of the Universe. The perspective shifted from people ‘having a genius’ to people ‘being a genius’. This is how it still is. We say “that person is a genius” but not “that person has a genius”. According to Elizabeth Gilbert this was an immensely huge mistake and I cannot agree more.

What happened with this shift in perspective is that people got under the false impression that ideas have to be given birth rather than received and as any mother knows birth is an exercise of force, hard labor and a good deal painful.

Very often, writers who become blocked feel that they have to push themselves more and force the ideas out of themselves. This has often proved to be damaging to a writer’s career, emotionally stressful and in some unhappy cases even tragic.

Creativity is less not more

Creativity is not about doing something more or forcing something out. It is actually about doing something less.  It is about letting go of certain preconceived ideas and notions and not allowing our conditioned and limited patterns of thought to interfere with the process. This is why lateral thinking is about leaping over normal routines of thought or why meditation is highly recommended in expanding creativity since it encourages us to suspend judgment, cultivate authenticity and keep a beginner’s mind.

Anyone who is engaged in creative work knows that creativity is not a rational process. It doesn’t come out of our more rational and linear left-hemisphere of our brain. When I am actually writing I very seldom think. If I think I stop writing because I stop the flow. I think and analyze only after I finish my writing in order to check, correct and edit.

Every person involved in some creative work knows that at the moment when we are in the flow, the ideas or the visions come from a source we can’t really identify. One thing is certain – it doesn’t come from our rational and conscious thinking.

The part of the creative process in which we are consciously and actively engaged in is the part where we brainstorm and play around with concepts, make unconditional leaps of thought and question the obvious like little children. The rest is pure receptive inspiration which combines beautifully together with the generative aspect of creativity in a yin and yang kind of way.

Accepting our role as creative agents

Here is where Elizabeth’s advice shines through beautifully. In a few words she realized that when writers shift their perspective from thinking of inspiration as coming exclusively from their heads to accepting that part of it comes from an unknowable source and the other comes from their efforts and background knowledge, they recognize their true authentic identity and roles as writers and creative people.

This reduces the pressure of expectation and self-blaming. It makes us more open and in line with our true roles as creative agents of universal ideas. This perspective keeps us on the leading edge of the creative process effectively making us less prone to writer’s block and more in tune with the ever-flowing stream of ideas out there.

Related posts:

1. Music for the Soul
2. How to find the Strength to Overcome Obstacles

photo by h.koppdelaney

Awareness is fundamental to all human activity. It is the basis of all our mental states and processes, creativity, perception, knowledge and culture. Everything starts from awareness. It is the portal between consciousness and the world around us.

Recently I have become more and more intrigued by the idea. The more I learn about it, the more I realize how it pervades everything we do and that by learning to focus it, expand it or redirect it consciously, we can transform ourselves by gigantic positive leaps. It’s the key to greater inner peace, happiness and self-mastery.  In fact there is no possible way one can walk on the path of self-mastery without learning to direct his awareness.

The different faces of awareness:

At a very basic level, you are aware of everything you do. When you walk around, prepare coffee, look for your keys, drive home, read, etc, there is always awareness going on otherwise you do not operate. However, many of these tasks happen on a subconscious level rather than on a conscious one.

When you start learning to ride a bike or drive a car, you are conscious about all your steps and movements. Once you learn the task, it starts becoming more automatic and subconscious. You are no longer conscious of every thing you do while you are driving but you are still aware at some level (obviously so, otherwise the roads would be a catastrophe everyday). This type of awareness however is not very thick and focused.

There is another level where your awareness is more focused.  For example, when you are interested in something, you start paying attention to it which means that you slightly focus your awareness on the object or event.

When you concentrate on something or you are totally absorbed in the task at hand (what psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi called being ‘in the flow’), your awareness is focused like a laser beam on the subject, closing off all signals from the rest of the environment that might distract you.  Your awareness intensifies and deepens on the subject in the present moment. There is a strong sense of aliveness in it because your heightened awareness enriches the perception of the world around you and your relationship to it.

This type of awareness, as observed from studies carried out on seasoned meditators such as Buddhist monks, is linked with a certain coherence in brain wave patterns. In our day to day mental tasks, our mind is somehow ‘fragmented’ and our thoughts point out at different directions. Our brain wave patterns are incoherent.

The diagram above shows the 2 basic levels of awareness

Individuals who have trained their mind through practices such as meditation, have the ability to consciously redirect their awareness to higher levels of consciousness and ‘defragment’ their mind to a more coherent unity. This why meditation promotes calmness, focus, improved memory and heightened awareness, amongst a long list of benefits.

The good news is that this ‘higher-level’ awareness, so to speak, can be trained and developed.

Being aware of your awareness:

The first step to developing higher awareness is being conscious of it. You need to start training yourself to be aware of your awareness. By getting in the habit of observing how it behaves you start learning to redirect your focus from subconscious awareness to conscious and more coherent forms of awareness.

In short, this means being more conscious and pro-active of your usually passive and subconscious actions, beliefs, emotions and reactions to life. This is why awareness is directly linked to self-mastery.

I invite you to try out these short but insightful mental observations. They only take a couple of minutes.  They are simple and can be carried out as many times as you like, anytime, anywhere. The more you do the more you grasp the feel and movements of your awareness (don’t do these steps in one go – try them out each at a time at your leisure).

Here we go:

1. Take time to notice what it feels like to be aware. Stop for a moment to be aware of your awareness. Don’t classify it or judge it, just notice it. How does it feel?

2. Now find any object (could be your own body or feelings) and be aware of it for more than 30 seconds without distraction. Is it any different from being aware for just a fleeting moment? Does your awareness solidify with time?

3. Are you at all aware of your internal sensations? Try to be aware of your current state of mind – is it relaxation, boredom, curiosity, impatience? What about your feelings? Your energy levels? Is your awareness more inclined towards internal or external stimuli?

4. How about your awareness of the present moment? The awareness of external and internal sensations that unfold moment by moment in the present. Can your awareness hold on to your present ongoing sensations without drifting off in thought or imagination in the past or future?

5. When you observe your environment, does your awareness shift from one object to the next hastily and erratically? Or is it more gentle and observant of each item? Try to move your awareness from one thing to the next and speed it up then slow it down. How does the difference feel?

6. Try also noticing the difference between expanding and narrowing your awareness of your environment. I find it easy to do this on my body before meditation. I focus my awareness on just my breathing first. Then after some time I expand it outwards to include the other bodily sensations such as my hand, feet, head, etc. I also expand it towards my internal feelings and states of mind then narrow it down step by step to my breathing again.

7. Another thing I do when doing mindfulness meditation is shifting my awareness across sensory modalities. From seeing to hearing to touching to tasting (not always), to smelling, and ultimately internal sensations. This and the previous exercise are the most useful steps in developing and expanding your awareness.

When you start getting closer in touch with how your awareness behaves and affects your everyday tasks, you also start to understand how to give it more space to grow. You start finding it easier to consciously direct it, focus it or expand it. This can have big positive effects that you start slowly observing in yourself day after day.

You become more focused when you do something or you start becoming more aware of things you don’t usually do. Your mind becomes more open to ideas and feelings. You become more in tune with yourself and your environment.

You also communicate better because you become more sensitive to the subtle messages in other people’s behavior.

And ultimately you also start feeling expanding as a spiritual being because your consciousness is expanding. Awareness is the food of consciousness. So the more you enrich and open up your awareness, the bigger the natural growth of your consciousness.

In part 2 I’ll be writing about the relationship between awareness and emotional balance and also about how to develop awareness through meditation.

Related posts:

1. Developing Awareness – Part 2
2. The Strength of Non-Resistance
3. Increasing Your Positive Self-Awareness

Photo by Faungg

I think one of the most fundamental questions we come to ask in our lives is “what is the purpose of my life?” which can be transcribed into “How meaningful is the life I am living at the moment?” This is a personalization of the more general and philosophical question “What is the meaning of life and everything?”

These questions often arise when we are going through major life transitions or y-points in our lives where crucial decisions and drastic changes have to be made. When we go through big changes our reality bends and shifts because we are breaking away from our old worldview and leaping into a new one. Big changes and moments of temporary crisis often bring with them deep questions about the meaning of life and our role and identity with the changing world around us.

It is not easy to answer such questions for the simple reasons that the answer to such questions lie exclusively within us and not outside of us. Things and situations in our lives have meaning because we attribute meaning to them. They do not have meaning by themselves but depend on our perspective, reality and system of beliefs. The same thing may have deep meaning for me but can be meaningless to you or it may have different meaning to one person at different times in her life depending on her experiences, motivations, beliefs and perspectives.

But how can we give more meaning to our lives? I’m sure we all asked ourselves this question at one point whether explicitly or otherwise.

Happiness and self-realization depend on how much our lives are enriched with meaning and purpose. A meaningless existence is certainly not a wholesome and happy one.

Unfolding the bigger picture

Very often meaning is equated with knowing our true purpose, our mission and goals in life. This is true at some level. By knowing and embracing our role in the big picture of life, we find a lot of what we experience as more meaningful.

Our purpose however is not always clear to us at all times because it is sometimes cluttered and hindered by negative emotions, misconceptions and wrong sorts of habits and beliefs.

Here are a few approaches that help us deepen and enrich our connections with ourselves and with others, align ourselves with our inner purpose and open our hearts for the joys of living a meaningful and happy life:

1. Pop the question

When things go against plan and unexpected or unwanted situations happen ask yourself these questions: “How can this relate to the purpose of my life?” “How can it help me?” or “How can I create harmony from it?”

By asking these questions we are pointing our awareness to that situation in a way that stimulates answers and solutions as to how it can align itself and be in harmony with the general momentum of our lives instead of letting it stall our motivation. In simple words, it is making a seemingly adverse and meaningless situation into a positive and helpful one, hence meaningful.

Very often, because our actions are not aligned to our purpose and intentions they become aimless, rudderless, unintentional and without power.

Effectively this strips away meaning from our interactions with the world because by being stuck in repetitive patterns of behavior we become like automata instead of consciously creating our lives with intention.

Living consciously and having our actions aligned to our intentions is what ultimately vests our lives with meaning. Hence, when faced by situations that appear meaningless or full of friction, ask yourself the questions above and this will help you consciously direct it to another angle that can bring forward those elements that are in harmony with your mission in life and discard those that are irrelevant or unhelpful.

It might not be the easiest thing at first but as most other things being aware of it and practicing it helps.

2. Get in touch with your Spiritual Side

The Spiritual dimension of the Self is very often neglected, doubted, trivialized and cynically debunked. Our present way of thinking is a historical by-product of a generally materialistic and reductionist era where mind, consciousness and spirit are reduced and flattened to some material process or mechanism.

This has disenchanted our world by rejecting our beliefs in the cosmic forces beyond our current observation and disconnected ourselves from the microcosm of our inner spiritual realities.  But the truth is that we are more than we think we are.

We occasionally get glimpses and insights of our spiritual selves through life changing experiences, deep contemplation or brief moments of clarity but we then forget about it in our day-to-day life.

When we face our spiritual side with attention, courage and acceptance, the extra dimension of our spiritual awareness brings with it a totally new depth and meaning into our lives.

This doesn’t mean we have to turn into monks or ascetics. We just need to at least do something that gets us in touch with this dimension.

Walk in nature, meditate, pray, look at the stars in awe, contemplate, be inspired, practice Tai Chi, forgive and let go of your emotional attachments – are all things one can do to touch the spirit and expand consciousness beyond the seemingly flat world of appearances.

3. See objects as objects

We are deeply attached to things. In our worldview we see things and situations around us as concrete reference points of our reality. Our reality is constructed around the world of objects.  They have meaning to us in varying degrees of depth but this meaning fluctuates over time according to our changing viewpoints on their value and importance.

What we think as an inseparable part of our reality today is only a flash of memory another day. Hence the meaning we attribute and attach to things is volatile, perishable and relative.

This often has the effect of making us lose perspective of the deeper meaning in life. By attaching ourselves to things we anchor our reality to them but since they are always changing their value we sometimes lose our bearing on what is really meaningful in life.

The bottom line is see things and objects as what they really are: things that come and go. Your path in life has a more permanent existence hence more meaning.

4. Say Hi to the Universal “I”

We all have a concept of the self, the “I”. Most of us identify the self with our thoughts which is separate from our environment.

Thoughts however can be fleeting, fragmented, distorted, aimless and self-destructive at times. By identifying ourselves with thought we fail to see the whole picture of ourselves.  In reality the self goes beyond thought. It transcends thought. We get a hint of this in moments of clarity or mindfulness when we can perceive an undercurrent of still awareness – a glimpse of our true being outside of thought.

Also, the conception of self as separate from the universe around us forces us to view life with suspicion and judgment. When things go wrong something or someone is to blame.  The universe seems to be conspiring against us.

Actually the opposite belief should be held that the universe is conspiring to help us because we are an integral part of it. We are an extended reality of the universal consciousness.

When we think that we have the power and the responsibility to change things because we are active participants in the expansion of life and the universe then we will perceive our life with greater meaning and purpose.

5. Love, love and love more

Love yourself, love others, love life. Love is the biggest creator of meaning in our lives. There can be no meaning in life without love. Love enriches our experiences and connections with the world by giving strong emotional significance to all our endeavors.

6. Play hard

Play with things and ideas – be enchanted by the world around you. Do something different each day. Create personal space for your creativity and play. This can have many forms – visual and performing arts, physical expression, childlike games, poetry, music, pottery, crafts, just observing nature, collect items which inspire meaning to you (pebbles, leaves, flowers, whatever), or just silly fun!

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There is a lot of literature to read about the subject of Meditation, its spiritual and practical aspects or the different ways it is practiced throughout different traditions and for different ends. There are tonnes of information and I feel that I would be adding little value if I add more of what is already available and write articles about the subject per se.

I think it is more suitable in this context for me to write about Meditation through my own experiences and point of view on the subject. After all, there are no strict objective rules and know how on the matter. It is much more like a personal journey that one enters or walks along in his own particular path.

Of course there are general guidelines and valuable clues one has to pick up and learn. For example, one introductory book which I’d always suggest is ‘Meditation for Dummies’ – which I think the title betrays the fact that it is a very comprehensive and well written guide which has lots of valuable information for both beginners and even seasoned Meditators. Those of you who have read some of the ‘For Dummies’ series know that most of them have very good editorial quality.

There are also genuine and highly experienced teachers and Masters and it is always highly recommended to be guided by them.  I am not a student of any Meditation teacher. I have chosen to go out for the path on my own. It’s not that I disagree or dislike the idea, it’s just the way I set it out to be. This is my account of it.

The Journey Begins

I started practising Mindfulness Meditation quite recently, about a few months ago. Actually I had started doing some Meditation sessions sparingly and irregularly since a few years back. It was a different type of Meditation I used to do then. It was what I later learned to be called, receptive or insight Meditation.

The thing about this type of Meditation is that it is not based on focusing the Mind or anchoring the awareness but on setting the mind free and accept whatever feeling, intuitions or images come up. Often, after some time, the mind would spontaneously break free from its more rational and conditional patterns of thought and immerse into a more metaphorical, intuitive, and insightful stream of consciousness. I think this has to do with a shift to right-brain dominance, the part of the brain which is responsible for metaphor, creativity, intuition and holistic understanding of ourselves and our surroundings.

Recently, I got back to a more committed and resolute approach to Meditation. Having been deeply touched by the concept of Mindfulness, I started exploring one of its paths through the practice of Mindfulness Meditation.

Mind over Chatter

Mindfulness Meditation is a type of Meditation that is straightforward in essence but because of years of conditioning, the mind finds it quite difficult and unnatural to grasp at first. It’s like when as newborns we feel quite at ease in water but after some years that natural affinity is deprogrammed and the next first encounter with swimming in water feels rather unnatural at first. It’s the same thing with Mindfulness.

The key to Mindfulness Meditation is being in touch with your present moment. It’s about having your awareness in the present and not having your mind drifting on a never-ending train of thoughts. Of course, this is the tricky part and those of you who Meditate know very well what I am talking about.

We have what some Buddhists call a Monkey Mind constantly jumping around from one branch of thought to another. For those of you who have never tried meditation, I suggest doing a little thought experiment and try to keep your awareness focused on an object, a picture or your breath for just five minutes. Can you keep your mind free from chatter for five minutes? Probably not because naturally a thousand thoughts will come rushing up and all we need is just hop onto one of them and in no time we’re drifting away thinking about how long I haven’t phoned my friends or what to cook for dinner or fantasizing about some holiday somewhere and so on.  That’s OK. We are all naturally subject to that but the good news is that we can practice to leap over this hurdle.

It takes patience and commitment. I am still learning my way through it little by little. However I can say with solid confidence that it is worth every single minute of it. The results are immeasurably too beneficial to undervalue.

Beware of the unchained Awareness!

Generally in Mindful Meditation practice, you turn your awareness away from floating in a haze or in thoughts and towards something like your breath, your bodily sensations or fixed on some mental image.

I like to start by keeping my awareness on my breath first, just observing the inhaling and exhaling and how it feels in my nostrils, lungs and belly, then widen my awareness to also include bodily sensations such as the way my fingers feels touching each other or the way my hands feels on my lap or the way I perceive the position of my body in space. The key is to stay in your present.

If my mind starts drifting off, I redirect my awareness back to my breath again without judgment as if nothing happened.

There can be two main distractions. One comes from outside in the form of noise, hence quietness is a prerequisite, and the other comes from your monkey mind which protests like a bored little child and tries to sabotage you by talking you out of your meditation session (literally though discursive thought and vocalization).

Of bubbles and Anchors

Another thing which can be of an obstacle is expectation. When I first started mindfulness meditation, I had a certain expectation of what it is about.  For instance, I thought that the goal is to reach a state of thoughtlessness and a total dissolution of mind (Wow!). Expectation can barricade your inroads into your meditation by letting your mind expect an outcome rather than letting it arise on its own.  When my first real success in mindful meditation happened (it was Christmas day) , I was surprised to find out that it was quite different than I expected.

It happened something like this: As I was expanding my awareness from my breath to parts of my body there was a point in time where my awareness ‘locked’. The analogy is to an auto-focus lens that very quickly goes in and out of focus until it locks on to its subject. That is exactly the way it felt. Thereafter it was an incredible confident feeling of rock solid focus and calmness. The strange thing was that thoughts were still arising, although much less in number, however they were completely not affecting me. Like soap bubbles they were quickly bursting out of existence.

The analogy this time is that of an anchored boat. The awareness feels like an anchor and the monkey mind is the boat floating above. It sways a little but cannot drift off because now it is chained to your awareness.

Upgrade your mind with Meditation

Mindfulness Meditation has been a life-changing practice for me and hence can potentially be so for anyone. It’s hard to describe all of the benefits I gained from it in a limited space but I will try to bring out some of the main ones in brief points below:

• More focus and moments of Mindfulness in the everyday things I do
• Less fragmentation of thought and more wholeness of being
• More calmness and much less stress and anxiety
• Improved analytical skills & memory
• Enhanced creativity & problem-solving skills
• More Happiness and appreciation of life
• Insight into the fact that my being is different than my thinking and doing
• Greater inspiration
• More motivation
• Brief moments of bliss hours or even days after a good meditation session

The list goes on and I must reiterate that I am still in the beginning of the journey. The prospects look good and I would recommend Mindfulness Meditation to anyone more than anything else.

I think of Meditation as being a natural programming language that we can use to hack our minds but very few people do so because we are not born with an operating manual for it. Learning Meditation is, in a few simple words, accessing that manual and using it.

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I always wondered about the deep connection between humans and music. The origin of music is unknown or at least we only have a very vague idea as to how far its stretches back in time, mainly through the findings of rudimental bone-made musical instruments found in early cave dwellings.

It would also be interesting to know at which stage of the human evolutionary process the appreciation of music emerged. Although we know that other creatures such as higher mammals can respond positively to sounds and music, it is a distinctive mark in humans to really have an aesthetic affinity to it. This is mainly because of our higher and more complex cognitive makeup.

The brain being an intricate pattern-matching organ can recognize subtle sequences and variations in sound waves which are then consolidated and matched to a broader pattern or rhythm, eventually giving rise to that subjective feeling of aesthetic beauty, joy, elation or whatever emotion matches the musical style or our present mood.

Music and Consciousness

It is because music imparts these subjective and qualitative feelings or emotions that it is automatically linked to Consciousness.  These qualitative experiences cannot be described objectively by the languages of Science but only recalled from a first-person point of view.

What Scientists can describe are only the physiological effects of it such as the detections of neuron activations during a brain scan or the release of endorphins (pleasure inducing chemicals) in the blood. Besides that the experience remains within the confines of the subjectivity black box in our heads.

Notwithstanding that it cannot be truly measured or described scientifically, our deep relationship with music is a universally shared perception which is known and celebrated across cultures since time immemorial.

The Music of the Spheres

The other side of the coin is that Music has an objective and universal existence.

The ancient mathematician Pythagoras believed that musical notes can be translated into mathematical equations. He and his followers believed in something call ‘the harmony of the spheres’, where the planets and stars moved according to mathematical equations which corresponded to musical notes in a grand symphony.

This point of view is another way of saying that the beauty of music is not only in the eye of the beholder but rather in the mathematical harmony inherent in itself and this harmony can resonate within our soul. The mathematical structure of music has a rhythm of its own (pun intended)

Music as a tool for Self-Development

Music has been used for different reasons throughout its history. Its main use was always for entertainment but other uses have been recognized as well such as spiritual practice, healing and therapy, meditation, political and commercial campaigning, celebration or protest, funding and world compassion, courtship and even learning.

Music can also be a very powerful tool for self-development and this aspect of music is rarely talked about in personal growth books or resources. Here are what I believe to be great uses for music along the path of inner-growth:

• Learning: When I was doing my thesis for the Masters programme, I used to listen to Bach a lot. Although I always enjoyed classical music, I never had an affinity with Bach before so I used to find it a bit curious why I used to unknowingly choose Bach for background music while I studied. The answer came a few years later when I was watching a video by famous hypnotist Paul McKenna about learning. He stated that listening to Baroque music such as Bach’s or Vivaldi’s while studying is extremely helpful since their music is based on 64 beats per minute. Bach’s music has a kind of  ‘mathematical and rhythmic fluency’ in it which makes part of the brain ‘follow it’  and ‘lock on to it’ subconsciously while at the same time keeping itself from wandering off and therefore more concentrated on the task at hand. I had the same feedback from people who have listened to Bach while studying. I now appreciate his music more than just for study accompaniment.

• Meditation: No doubt that just as there is music which tunes-in your mind for studying there is music which help you out in doing meditation. There are many background music CDs out there for Meditation or Yoga. Although I believe that some of them are very good, I don’t use any of them. What I use for my meditation is a CD that I have been keeping close to my heart and spirit for many years till present. It is a CD called ‘Zen Garden’ by Kokin Gumi. It’s divine and every time I hear it I swear I have an instant shift in consciousness. Listening to it, one has to agree with Pythagoras that some music is in divine harmony.

• Mood Enhancer: This is a no-brainer. We all know that music can lift up the spirit in those moments when we’re feeling a bit down or depressed. I must say, however that this doesn’t always happen. One must be cautious because there are times when for example someone is heartbroken because of a relationship ending and he or she ends up listening to some love song which talks about heartbreak and the like. This is a very common thing. It’s so common that the whole music industry thrives and survives on it. There’s nothing wrong with those type of songs per se. What happens is that in those moments when someone is suffering a heartbreak, it strengthens and amplifies the feeling. It becomes the soundtrack of the moment which the person identifies with himself and his/her suffering. It becomes our soundtrack which wrongly reminds us how victimized, unlucky or sorry about ourselves we are. It is best to find more uplifting type of music in those situations. Music that can inspire you, encourage you or motivate you in getting back on your feet again.

• Creativity: Music, being a performing art, has always been related to creativity. We always presuppose that music has been composed and created out of an act of inspiration and a sublime creative process.  I think this is a widely accepted notion. However I also think that music can also trigger off a creative process in the person listening to it. This has to do a lot with the left-right hemispheres of the brain. As you might know, the left side of the brain is more responsible for logic, linear thinking, linguistic processing and understanding things in detail. The right side of the brain is more responsible for holistic understanding or seeing the big picture, intuition and insight. Research has shown that exposure to background music promotes what is called interhemispheric activity which in simple words means there is more ‘talking’ between the two spheres. This greatly increases creativity, enhances the creative process and the other aspects related to it such as problem solving.

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