Awareness

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Zombie?

Are you walking around in your everyday life like a zombie, only doing what you need to do and wanting to escape?  Yup, me too. 

I was so fed up with my life that I escaped into horror movies (that’s right, horror) every single night for at least 6 hours.  If the kids came into the room, I just barked at them to leave me alone because they were interrupting my movie.

What they were actually doing was bringing me back into reality, a place that made me so unhappy that I did not want to exist, even for a moment. 

Someone very close to me is a recovering alcoholic.  They had been sober for 10 years.  Little did I know, consciously, that was no longer the case.  They had been drinking again while at work and it was affecting me at home. 

I saw little signs here and there, but I chose to overlook them, not deal with or even question them.  Before I knew it, I was getting more and more depressed, sad, unhappy, but I didn’t know why.  I couldn’t put my finger on it. 

Unconsciously I knew there was something wrong, but I chose to ignore it thinking whatever it was would get better by itself.  It was just a phase, some little inconvenience that I was overreacting to.  Once it worked itself out, I would be happy again.

So what happened?

One day the alcoholic came clean to me, and I was so hurt and angry that they could do that after all these years, that I was so overwhelmed with emotion I didn’t know what to do with it all.  Then they suggested Al-Anon. 

Now this blog is not going to be about Al-Anon.  I actually think there might be some kind of rule about that.  This blog is going to be about changing, changing our thoughts, our attitudes, and how we choose to react to problems so that we can be happier and more peaceful in our lives. 

I’m not going to be preachy.  I’m just going to share my experience, strength, and hope.  This will also help me to express my thoughts and feelings as I write this blog.  Feel free to comment and share your experiences and what has helped you.

Awareness!

So the first thing I want to talk about is awareness. 

Awareness is the ability to perceive, to feel, or to be conscious of an event, thoughts, and emotions.  It is like an awakening to what you are feeling or doing and making a conscious decision to stop.  Of course you can’t change things that you don’t have the power to change, but you DO have the power to change your mindset, your attitude, and how you choose to reaction to situations.

Let me give you a small example of a time I became aware. 

As I said before, when my kids came into the room during one of my movies, I would bark at them.  Well one day my son said to me, “How come every time I come down the stairs, you pause the TV and glare at me until I go back upstairs?” 

Wow. 

From that moment on, I really, really tried not to do that.  I would hear him come down the stairs and I would pause the movie and wait for him to tell me what he wanted to say without looking angry.

It doesn’t matter if you become aware of something on your own or not.  The point is that you DO become aware.  My son pointed something out to me, and I consciously tried to change my pattern.  Did I succeed every time?  Of course not.  If I was exceptionally tired, angry, sad or frustrated, I didn’t do so well. 

So how do you become more aware? 

Think about what you do every day.  Is there something you use to escape from your life?  It could be reading, movies, Facebook, or TV, anything that takes you to another place or another time.  The next time you are doing said action, try to remember what you are doing. 

What are you trying to get away from? 

Is it anything that you can change? 

If not, is there a way you can look at it differently? 

I loved movies because I was able to be somebody else for 90 minutes.  I could feel what they were feeling.  I could be someplace other than my living room….even if it was being chased by a serial killer in some backwoods somewhere. 

Once my son brought to my attention how my actions were making him feel, I was able to remember to not get so angry when he interrupted my movie.  I tried to change my attitude so as not to hurt him. 

At the time I still did not know what it was that was making me so unhappy.  I just thought I needed new depression medication.  But little by little I was able to react differently to interruptions from my children by being more aware of my reactions.

Another thing you can do is before the problem overcomes you, deal with it.  When problems come, if we don’t take action to fix it right away and instead of dealing with it, we push it aside and ignore it, they can become bigger and bigger until something explodes and it’s almost too late.

I don’t know if I would have ever figured out what was going on if my loved one hadn’t come clean to me.  I can tell you that everyone was getting fed up with me, and my life would be very different today.  I would have lost the people that I love the most.

I know this journey we are starting together will bring us to a better awareness of ourselves and what is going on around us so that we can make the changes necessary and become more happy and peaceful in mind, body, and spirit.

Please feel free to comment and share your experience, strength and hope.