The Benefits of Present Moment Awareness

In a conversation with a client recently, we touched on how the mind, when thoughts are allowed to go unchecked, simply takes over and pulls one deeper and deeper into the current story being played on repeat.  You can find yourself in the story for 15 minutes, an hour, a day, or even a week before you resurface.  You’re left thinking “What just happened?”

By being aware of your thoughts, you begin to get a glimpse of how much time the mind spends in its story.  You can begin to step out of these automatic scripts once awareness is engaged, and practice being in the present moment.

The benefit of a present moment practice is that you are less likely to get pulled into the past or future story your mind wants to focus on. The present moment is the Now, being in the place and power of conscious choice.  What does present moment conscious choice mean for you and in your life?  In every moment, you can choose and create your experience, rather than allowing the story to define who you are.

Being aware of your thoughts, actions, and reactions gives you the ability to switch off auto-pilot and live life using your manual controls—that puts you in the driver’s seat. Every choice has a result, and as awareness is cultivated, one naturally makes better choices because they know they will have to deal with the results.

Any past conditioned thought can be changed to a more positive, life supporting thought. It is a process or system, similar to breaking a habit or initiating a new habit (such as quitting smoking, losing weight, or starting an exercise program). It is a system that can be applied to any situation for true life mastery. We are creating new circuitry in our brains to make different decisions, to experience a different result—better results.

When changing a particularly negative thought pattern or limiting behavior, the process can feel demanding, yet the reward of freedom from its control is so worth it.

Here are some points to keep in mind when applying these changes:

All molds must be broken.
This causes a deeply unsettling condition. An awkward period occurs.
There is an interval of chaos which follows the comfort of the old concepts, before the real state of comfort, that we are the Lord of our Being, is realized.
Most people, when they get to that interval of chaos, give up and turn back to comfort and might live a mediocre remainder of their life. This too, is choice, which we always have.

Points taken from “What the Bleep Do We Know. Down the Rabbit Hole”