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 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

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