Why is
Living Consciously so important? Every day, we make choices to be responsible toward
reality or evading it. Even if we are not aware of those choices, they do add
up and create the reputation we have with ourselves. Sometimes there are some discomforting
facts we are faced with, and we make a decision to ignore them. “I know that I’m
not eating healthy, but I don’t have time to think about that right now.” “I
know that there are issues in my relationship, but maybe they’ll work
themselves out…” “I know that I am spending too little time with my children/loved
ones/friends, but one day that’ll change…” By evading these facts and ignoring
them, we are in essence betraying ourselves.
Living
consciously is not just about seeing and knowing reality for what it is, but it
also means acting on what we see and know. Staying “unconscious” can seem very
inviting – we don’t have to deal with the problem, we don’t have to face
uncomfortable feelings, we don’t have to make any changes – but at what cost?
Deep inside we know that we are ignoring something important, and it is our
self-esteem that suffers as a result.
Looking back
on my life, there certainly have been periods when I found comfort in staying “unconscious.”
I didn’t want to deal with my personal life, so I decided that I would lose
myself in my work. Being a workaholic may have been socially acceptable because
I was “focusing on my career”, but the truth is that it is not very different
from escaping into any other form of addiction. The purpose is the same: To
escape anxiety and pain.
How do we
practice Living Consciously, so we don’t betray ourselves, but increase our
self-esteem and personal effectiveness instead?
Dr. Nathaniel Branden, the author of “The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem”,
suggests daily sentence completion exercises. First thing in the morning, simply write one of the following sentence stems and
then keep on adding different endings (at least 6), as rapidly as possible,
with no pauses to “think.” Don’t worry whether a particular ending is true or
significant – any ending is fine, just keep on going.
Here are
some stems to work with:
If I bring 5 percent more awareness to my
activities today…
If I bring 5 percent more awareness to my
most important relationships…
If I bring 5 percent more awareness to (fill
in a particular problem you are concerned about – for example, your
relationship with someone, a barrier you’ve hit a work, your feelings of
anxiety, etc.)…
Do this every day for a week and on the
weekend, reread what you have written during the week and write a minimum of 6
endings for the following stem:
If any of what I wrote this week is true, it
would be helpful if I…
Try it out and let me know what you discover! =)
For more information on the sentence
completion exercises, check out:
