Awareness: The Gateway to New Resolutions

There are times in our life where we want to make change in the way we live our lives. Maybe we feel that there is simply more to our story than what we have previously expressed. We want to contribute more to the world or to our families. The New Year is often a time when this will happen although you can make these kinds of commitments to your goals at any time during the year. At least once per month, we should be prepared for the changes we have been sowing in our mind's eye to come to sustainable fruition.

There are 12 aspects for developing an inner awareness. They fall under 4 categories. The four are: Mind, Body, Spirit, and People.

The 12 are:

1. Self-Active

2. Vision

3. Actions

4. Energy

5. Wellness

6. Temperance

7. Gratitude

8. Faith

9. Order

10. Want for Everybody

11. Impression of Increase

12. Give More than you take

These 12 keys unlock the cabinets in the Awareness kitchen. Your awareness kitchen is where you take stock of what you have in your pantries, cupboards, refrigerator, and freezer - and then you intuit what you need to prepare for your family's meal time.

Knowing what's in your cabinets is key to building an inner-awareness that you will use to propel yourself into the future and then periodically review your progress. The way to follow-up with your goal-setting is to be brutally honest in the way you assess any changes (or things which have remained static). Change is hard. But getting into a flow state is relatively simple. The trick is to get into a flow-state where making positive (and sustainable!) forward momentum is a simple daily hack that becomes second nature. If you can find ways to abstract the simple routines into an ongoing process of renewal and regeneration, you'll easily create the expansion you need. It's the blank spaces to rest and recover - or to review - where we find the moment is perfect for taking stock.

It's easy to become entertained (quite repetitively, possibly almost uselessly) if we are in a time where we are feeling comfortable. If we commit to using those times where we feel comfortable - those times each day where we are preparing for the day to come...we will bring a spirit of sobriety and creativity to a creative process where we are automatically assuming that we've had some amount of shortcomings compared with our vision for ourselves.

It can become easy to fill our cabinets with illusory entertainment and things which on their face appear to be serving our higher ideals but are essentially drugging us with a "rich but limited experience." One would likely equate this analogously to the difference between spending money on experiences vs physical things you can buy. You probably enjoy the experiences more than an jobject you can buy which will wear out or be spent up. That's because memories are made during the experience. The experience becomes an abiding theme that you can mentally and spiritually subsist off for days and days. And of course experiences have a way of strengthening relationships with other people, reminding us of the larger nature we are part of, and getting more in tune with our inner world.

If we are honest about what we are placing our attention on, we might find that more often than not, we are seeking a drug-induced high. We might spend a little too much time browsing facebook or watching videos or playing on our smartphones. When do we ever create the space for intentionally opening up to the hard reality of the state of our soul? Please don't take any special meaning of my word choice here. I simply mean the moral compass of the Human Being and the state of his or her journey through the Planet Earth.

I would think it's fair to say that the vast majority of people who are feeling stuck in their personal development are simply being too optimistic. There is such a thing as being overly optimistic. Looking at the world through rose-colored glasses might seem like the most optimal state of mind because then you are (ostensibly) seeing the highest ideals you'll be able to achieve. You're seeing the wide open spaces of possibility.

It's fine to be super-optimistic about the future but one cannot have a good manifestation of their awareness if they are acting on merely a rehearsal script for the future all the time. It's good to be prepared and future-oriented but it can be hard to enter into the flow-state without the weight of the board underneath you. In other words, you need the present moment to be your surfboard. Make the present moment your Pinterest board. One can learn new tricks by watching surfboard videos. One can enjoy the process of surfing. But each morning you need to condition your boyd and mind to be ready for the day of surfing. You must strengthen your core and legs so you are ready to pounce over those wave fronts as you skim over the crystal water. Life is beautiful in its mysteries, its complexities, and its opportunities. But what are you *doing?

Awareness is an intuition as well as a disciplined mindset that keeps you in the groove. If you can get your inner vision to track along with a flow-state that is actually happening with your experience around you, you'll be in the prime spot for you to prepare for the changes ahead and to master the shifts that are necessary for you to adapt to the changing terrain.

Life lends itself to those who are willing to react quickly and positively with the changes around them and maintain integrity throughout their journey. Building these core values while generating those changes from a place of *simple* honesty and commitment will give you a nice clean cabinet sapce to arrange your foodstuffs. The consciousness can only filter properly if you are giving enough airtime to the reality of your situation.

"A word to the wise is sufficient."

If we can draw from the stream of information as we are moving rather than as we are remaining stagnant, it will contain information about our personal journey. Otherwise it will only be theory. It might seem like we are filling ourselves with unquestionable truth - but real truth cannot so easily be put into words, let alone be put into good use by words alone.

To satisfy our needs and pursue happiness is the meaning of life. To be of service to others so they can do the same is saintly. There is a certain kind of false contentment that just shreds the soul of a person. It's common in people who are internally confident but haven't communicated through real interaction with other people how they meant to enact their vision for their future.

Desires have to be worked for and fear of facing our true self is why most people pretend they are satisfied. In order to build the funnel for a rocket ship, you have to face the laws of physics and your own engineering reality. The bottleneck is where the most pressure is but also where the most thrust is generated. Learn to love the core.