Have you ever been looking for something around the house but just cannot find it? It can be so frustrating! Then it happens, panic sets in as you need that ‘missing item’ and you need it now! Finally, knowing there are consequences of not having it in hand, you give in and give up. You’ve been defeated.
Later, once it’s too late to recover your sense of lost dignity; you are surprised to discover it was right there in front of you the whole time. The problem? It was ‘outside of your awareness’.
With our free will in mind, we have options as to which road to go down upon discovering that our awareness was askew. There’s the road named Humiliation; the road named Negative Self Talk; the road named Somebody Moved It, and less popular but more fitting is the high road of Realization that we did the best we could in that moment in time. Often our hurriedness is a symptom of the world we live in and the conditions in our own lives.
Just last week, my daughter requested to borrow my blue neck pillow for her flight to Mexico. I knew exactly which closet it was in because I put it there. To my dismay after searching three times, I couldn’t find that darn thing. What was going on? While searching for it, a bright orange but less desired pillow I own caught my eye. I think you can successfully guess which pillow she left with. Two days later as I was tucking away a pair of jeans into a shelf in that very closet, sitting in my direct line of sight was the blue neck pillow I had been searching for! How could this be?
We often focus on a narrow path of what we ‘expect’ to find. I knew the blue pillow was somewhere in the closet. But, I also knew exactly where the bright orange pillow was located in the closet and that’s where my focus went.
Why are we focused on one thing and not another? Can you look at your life and see how you are conditioned to accept certain things and not others? We often hear people say ‘just be open to it’. What does that mean? Well actually that is the topic for my next blog post. For now, it can be as simple as being open to trying a new food you’ve not liked as a child, or as complex as trust and be open to the premise that everything is energy. I am asking you to consider the latter.
As an experiment, I invite you to try this awareness exercise. Next time you are in a car choose a color to put your focus on. Tell yourself you are only going to notice royal blue. Just become aware of it. Soften your gaze, become aware of your breath, and simply look and watch to see what happens. I think you will be amazed at what you pick up on. You may notice for example, how the blue cars become pronounced and more obvious than other colors of cars. Your awareness may expand to not just the blue cars, but the blue in every sign you see, the blue in the billboards you pass etc! Suddenly blue seems to come into your awareness everywhere you look. The point of doing this is to anchor the idea that what we put our focus on is what we notice.
I propose we all practice expanded awareness. That we allow ourselves to see what is available to all of us. By shifting our awareness and creatively understanding that we are all in this together, I hope more of us see the beauty of our natural world and discover our connections. We have the gift of perception and the ability to use our intention to increase our awareness and shift our perceptions to an expanded place of magnificence.
Try this exercise! It is fun!
