I’ve been noticing in recent weeks how often I respond to things habitually. I’ve been taking moments through the day to check out my assumptions, and to question what I am actually experiencing. I’ve realised that my assumptions and my experience sometimes don’t match. This is a common experience, because we tend to see/hear/feel what we expect to, and to look for evidence of sameness rather than noticing the novel.
Sometimes we are not that accurate when describing what it is we that happens to us. We may use words to describe how we feel that give a judgement, rather than reporting actual sensory specific information. We might say ‘I am bored’ yet when we investigate how we know this, we find actually we have low energy. Or, we eat a meal and yet label the feeling we have as hungry, despite being able to feel the sensation of a full tummy. On closer inspection we might notice a sense of emotional emptiness, or of feeling unfulfilled.
These mis-attribution errors can lead us to carry on the same behaviours and habits without question, and to continue to get results and experiences that we don’t want. Bringing conscious awareness to bodily experience and to what we can sense with our five senses, can be very helpful to give the information to set the record straight.
I’ve enjoyed my voyage of discovery this week, my curiosity is heightened, and I feel a little more awake. Where in life are you on auto-pilot and what do you want to bring awareness to?
