Have you ever written anything like this in a journal? Or have you just thought it, day after day? I have to admit to thinking this and pushing uncomfortable feelings away not just day after day but year after year. Why would I ever want to sit with uncomfortable feelings that aren’t clear?
I can answer this question today, with the benefit of hindsight, but when I first became aware of ongoing and increasingly uncomfortable feelings that were equally unclear, my response was to drink them away. This worked for a long time until it just didn’t work any more. No matter how much I drank, I couldn’t blot out the internal dissonance – the dis-ease that was telling me that I needed to do something – to change something.
Awareness is the first step in the change process and, at the time, I had no idea how much I was about to change. I suppose that was a good thing because my ignorance kept me from retreating in terror and allowed me to investigate further.
So, here’s the answer to my lead-in question: “Awareness leads to what?” It leads to the beginning of a cycle of beautiful momentum, if you allow it. If you investigate that which you’ve become aware of, if you sit with the feelings of dis-ease and invite in a sense of curiosity, you’ll most likely learn that your feelings haven’t killed you and that you have the power to heal yourself.
…………..
“The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
Megan Woodward Moyer 