Being and Staying Awake
Being awake does not mean that everything will be pleasant. In fact, when you are awake, the unpleasantries can be more obvious. But awake you can make the best of everything that comes your way, no matter whether it is pleasant or not. You can be happy for no reason. You can appreciate and learn from whatever life brings you. You can work on yourself.
Awake you are aware that there is an alternative to denial and using mind games, drugs, and other distractions to drown out the noise of worry and strong emotions. You recognize that everything is the result of a process, a continuous flow of causes and conditions that you cannot control but can influence by what you think, say, and do.
This alternative requires the qualities of a peaceful warrior - intention, effort, skill, resolve, patient persistence, and courage.
Become Your Guru
The goal is to be your own teacher-coach-guide.
Teachings point you in the right direction, they help you create your path. They give you concepts, tools, and techniques like process awareness, mindfulness meditation, and breath control, which give you the power to see how your body and mind work. You see for yourself how your mindset with its mental models, biases, and beliefs drives your behavior. Then you can keep what is working well for you and give up what is not.
Coaches remind you when you have gone back to sleep. They help you learn and use the concepts, tools, and techniques. You put them into practice to adjust your mindset to reflect reality and support wellness.
Doing the Work
It takes work to break mental and physical habits and cultivate new ways of being in the world.
Persistence is needed to accept the need for patience and personal effort to get the results you want as you skillfully apply your tools. You need courage because it is scary to accept uncertainty and let go of habits and beliefs that have been at the foundation of your life.
It takes resolve to be ok with the strong and subtle feelings like anxiety that trigger reactive behavior and to overcome unskillful doubts while making sure you question and test what you are doing so you know it is leading to awareness and self-sufficiency.
Are You Awake?
Are you aware of the difference between being awake and in waking sleep?
Asleep, you are driven by emotions and the continuous flow of change, you make decisions without objectivity and without thinking about long-term effects; you repeat unskillful behaviors.
Awake you can step back and respond rather than react so you can achieve the greater wellness and happiness you want.
Are you consciously working to increase the frequency and duration of periods of awakeness? Could you be working smarter? Check out The Peaceful Warrior's Path: Optimal Wellness through Self-Aware Living for a guidebook to awakening and staying awake.
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