What will awareness do for you, you ask. What's the big deal?

Awareness is the backbone of self-knowledge. Without it you cannot steer your course. Without it your life is run by accident and circumstance and by others, for whom you are not the priority. Awareness is related to becoming conscious, waking up to your possibilities.

Awareness is not the same as being self-conscious.

The latter results from a sense of insecurity or uncertainty about what's OK. In fact, the avoidance of awareness often accompanies a self-conscious attitude. Why would any person prefer to remain self- conscious, up-tight, and ill at ease? The answer is in the safety and familiarity of the known, however uncomfortable. Recovering awareness feels dangerous. Awareness is about paying attention to the relevant details of one's own behavior.

At its best, awareness is an ongoing process of keeping up to date with how we operate in the world - how we understand the world. We can tap into awareness at any time; it's a matter of attention, like moving in and out of any experience, noticing the landscape, other people and, intermittently, oneself.

Awareness, once lost in the process of socialization, of trying to fit in, or get it right, can be recovered by putting attention on our basic sensations, recognizing the taste of an orange even though the eyes are closed; the feel of wool, the texture of snow, the smell of onions simmering.

Fritz Perls said, long ago now, "Lose your mind and come to your senses."

Elaine Z Mosher PhD

The cases in point which appear in this column do not represent any particular individual or couple, but are a composite representation of people with relevant life issues. Similarities with actual people are coincidental.

©1999 Elaine Mosher

Cases in Point: Archive