Awareness ~ Choice ~ Power
Awareness ~ Choice ~ Power is the model I developed to work with for myself and with others, alongside my principle of Root Deep ~ Stand Strong ~ Branch Out.
The basis of this model is that when we open up our awareness, space is created for wiser choice, increasing our alignment, resilience, confidence, clarity and courage. This leads to improved capacity, relationships, wellbeing and mental health, as well as more easily sourced calm and spaciousness. In essence, it increases our power. And I am talking here about deep power; our life-force – our sense of aliveness, our sense of self, our agency and empowerment.
You may have come across the quote, often wrongly ascribed* to Viktor E. Frankl, that states,
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
This is what I am talking about here. Stepping back to gain awareness creates that space where we find our agency. Through building more of this in life, we access that growth and freedom for ourselves. It is well evidenced that most of us are significantly less self-aware than we think we are. And it follows that if we are not that self-aware, then we are likely unaware of what may be actually going on with those around us. And we can’t change what we aren’t aware of. So, while we remain in a lack of awareness, we remain in a place of low agency. And agency is crucial to our sense of self, our confidence and our empowerment.
Of course, opening up our awareness takes time. It is a process of uncomfortable and honest exploration. It is a practice that we have the choice to engage with, or not, and so, it requires a willingness to step in.
It begins with listening and curiosity, bypassing the programmed and well-practiced reactions and assumptions readily offered by our brains. This is not an easy task! We tend to have deeply entrenched immediate thought and reaction patterns. And learning a new way of responding is doable, but takes commitment, time and self-compassion.”
To explore this further, I invite you to take yourself through my ‘Emotions as Information’ course.
Image: Photo by Yeshi Kangrang on Unsplash
As our awareness builds, we move from a lack of awareness, to ‘awareness in hindsight’. This is where we often criticise ourselves for not catching the moment and being able to respond wisely instead of reacting in a way that didn’t help matters. Our brain goes to “I should have done or said that instead”, which supports unkind inner beliefs about our lack of self-worth. Instead, it is important (and compassionate) that we hold this awareness in hindsight as an important part of our development. If we recognise it as an opportunity for reflection and growth outside of the moment, it becomes useful.
And we then, gradually, move on to awareness in the moment. Again, being able to access space to reflect on our choices in the moment, doesn’t necessarily come straight away, there is still reflection and development to do here as we work towards opening up that space for wiser choice in the moment.
By working through this at a manageable pace, it becomes a far more useful process, leading to sustainable growth, and gives far less space to those critical parts of our brains to pop up and get involved where they’re not wanted.
Then, one day, we find ourselves in a challenging moment, where we feel more spacious, we are able to check in with ourselves, and we find that we have clarity on what is going on in us as well as clarity on the situation, and we recognise that we have options.
We get to choose. We get to choose the option that best serves what matters most, that is most aligned with our values, that is creative rather than destructive, and that makes a positive difference. We come to a point in our awareness where we are able to make a wiser decision in the moment.
From there, by acknowledging that we were able to do that and by reflecting on what happened, how it felt and the impact it had, we ‘lock in’ the practice, and we ‘lock in’ the evidence of our agency and our ability to respond wisely. We consciously give space for empowerment to rise up in us.
Like all self-development, this is an ongoing process, that is not linear. It is harder to access when we are down, when our capacity is absolutely taken up in life, and when we are unwell… But, there is grace in remembering that we are all work in progress until the end of our days.
We get to live our lives from a place of curiosity and discovery.
How lucky are we!
*Just to note – this is a quote that apparently Stephen Covey read in a book, that he felt described the work of Viktor E. Frankl, it was not actually a quote by Viktor E. Frankl himself. (Who wrote the book it came from, is a bit of mystery, according to the Viktor E. Frankle Foundation website!)
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