The Empowered Self Series: Part 3 “Dynamic Awareness – How to shift from autopilot”

Our reality is largely determined by our awareness.  Let’s say you wake up in a good mood, the sun is shining and spring feels right around the corner.  You enjoy the smell of freshly brewed coffee and warm toast; the radio station seems to play only your favorite songs and on your way to work all lights are on green.  You feel in the zone and are confident that your boss will be excited about the new ideas you are scheduled to present to him today.

But at work, as you prepare yourself for a meeting with your boss, you notice a coffee stain on your shirt.  Your confidence starts to waver a bit.  You wonder if your boss will think less of you when he notices the stain.  After the meeting you could be content, because you were able to eloquently deliver your proposal. However, your mind is occupied by one nagging question: Why did your boss yawn twice during your presentation? You doubt yourself again and wonder, when you will be laid off. On top of it, your colleagues went to lunch without you and your spouse forgot to buy your favorite cereal. How come, that a day that started out so well could turn into such a “disaster?”

Every second of our life, we’re surrounded by an incomprehensible amount of information. To make sense of the world and not become completely overwhelmed, we need to filter out a large portion.  However, it would be impossible to consciously distinguish between the small fraction of information that is at any given time relevant to us and the remaining input that needs to be ignored.  Therefore, our subconscious mind employs specific filters to make us aware of the details this deeper part of our mind considers as the most important for us right now. In other words, our view on reality is basically just “made up.”

The problem is that our subconscious mind decides what is critical for us and what can be ignored on the bases of programmings, which usually stem from our childhood.  Let’s say early on in your life you were dealing with judgmental parents or scolding teachers, which left you feeling anxious and insecure.  These imprints created a certain fear of authority figures, which makes you either avoid them or please them.  This explains why in the example above, the stain on your shirt and its potential repercussions with your boss become more relevant to your subconscious mind than all the positive and uplifting input you have enjoyed as the day started. These drastic changes of awareness can happen so quickly that we feel like the victims of our circumstances, although it was a part of a remind that distorted our perception and reality.

Letting our subconscious determine how we perceive our reality is like moving through life on autopilot. But are we the victims of our subconscious programming or is it possible for us to consciously switch these awareness filters?

Listen to my interview on empowerment radio and discover how through the power of dynamic awareness you can choose your reality.