One of the foundational principles of YOU.logy is fostering a mindful presence throughout our day-to-day activities. As much as my early meditation practice provided a glimpse into this capacity, I seldom felt like the skill was neatly traveling with me as I went into the world. In fact, I remember expressing frustration to an early mentor about how I was still feeling highly reactive to people and circumstances.
Much like rising bread, with the right conditions and enough time, slowly my awareness expanded and developed structure. And while I cannot point to an exact moment when it started, some time over the last decade, I started noticing the Universe seemed to be sending me messages.
I know. It must sound like psychological intervention is necessary. But this new awareness has led me to feel safer, quite looked after, and loved.
At times, the messages arrive so unfettered it feels like someone struck the carnival “High Striker” and rung my consciousness with absolute clarity.
In more stressful times, I have been known to plea for a skywriter and beg for far less cryptic strategies.
Despite the occasional angst, this awareness has opened a world of wonder and magic and has helped me foster an unprecedented level of trust. I now recognize my answers will always present themselves – I just need to pay attention.
Maybe some examples would make this feel far less outlandish. One of my first experiences came when a visitor at the gallery was sharing a story about their friend. Within the story they had included a sassy quip about boundaries. Its clarity and timing were so exactly suited for a situation I was currently wrestling with that I almost said aloud, “Are you an angel?!”
Another time, I was listening to a movie, and it was as if one line uniquely encapsulated and amplified itself to capture my attention. Other times I have had an opportunity to witness an animal in nature modeling a survival strategy that seems divinely timed to remind me I have the same innate wisdom.
Carl Jung identified these occurrences as synchronicities and said, “Synchronicity is an ever-present reality for those who have eyes to see.” Well, I decided to have eyes to see.
As a way of broadening my awareness, I recently challenged myself to spot one thing every day that presented itself as a much-needed lesson. It has awakened a very playful part of me. But I am not going to lie. It demands a kind of presence in life that I often cannot maintain.
Obviously, we are a very distracted people. With devices in hand, most of us are nowhere near where our feet stand. This is our number one hurdle to mindfulness. But if chosen, it is also a pretty easy one to counter.
Far less easy to counteract is the fact that we interact with life more through learned concepts and far less through direct experience; an insight present in Acharya Prashant quote, “When you teach a child that a bird is named ‘bird,’ the child will never see the bird again.” To further complicate things, we often interact with these concepts based on the context in which we were first introduced to them.
As children, most of our attention is spent observing how life works so we can effectively find our way in it. This instinct does not encourage questioning, it almost insists on efficient comprehension and conformity. In fact, this type of learning blunts our senses, undermines our natural curiosity and in many ways eliminates a matter of personal choice. It is a formula that functions in large part, by observe, mimic, and repeat.
“When you teach a child that a bird is named ‘bird,’ the child will never see the bird again.”
For the skeptics among us, let me ask you this. How do you celebrate your major holidays? Are these activities and traditions you enjoy? Did you choose them? Did you, yourself, create them? Or are they things you have always done since your childhood?
When we start to recognize how much of life has been scripted by these early unquestioned experiences, we start to see how much of life’s wisdom and beauty stands hidden in plain sight; blinded by the context and concept in which we first experienced something.
Adopting the Buddhist concept of a “beginners mind, YOU.logy challenges us to let go of preconceptions and go into the world with an open mind and an eagerness to observe and gain a personal understanding of our experiences.
So, when I started the practice of just being an observer to life, it was almost comical what I would find standing right in front of me, just waiting to be noticed.
The Lesson…
Several months back, while trying to retrieve my work email messages from my home computer, I was halted in the process and instructed to download an app to my phone. After a frustrating half hour of following riddle like instructions, I had received a temporary six-digit code that gave me access to my work inbox.
At the time, I was so fixated on the goal itself, (yet another challenge to mindfulness), I had not paid any attention to the name of the app or the messages it was communicating.
After deciding to leave the position, I recently found myself considering removing the “unnecessary tool” from my phone. I laughed out loud when I finally recognized it was called the Authenticator!
It was also in that moment that I recalled the language it used each time I tried to access my email. “We don’t recognize this device, let’s make sure you are who you say you are, please enter the six-digit code sent to your mobile device.”
How many of our social situations would benefit from a similar prompting? It made me wonder what type of internal authenticator I could download into my own awareness.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if I were being particularly contentious with someone’s view or behaving in a way that does not reflect my best self, and something pinged and said, “we do not recognize this, let’s make sure you are who you say you are.”
How delightful would it be if I were at work and knew a policy existed as the “best practice” for a particular situation, but my instincts said differently, and I had a necessary internal pause that required a unique code of discernment before I could move forward?
And how brilliant would it be when I am abandoning my own preferences out of fear they will not be accepted, if my inner authenticator alerts and warns me, “we are not recognizing your preferences here, are you saying what needs to be said?”
Our computers are built to safeguard our true identity, but do our social systems do the same? Do we ourselves know how to do this? What inner Authenticator tools do you use?