Travelling from ''bloody'' to beautiful awareness

Several years ago, during the process of dealing with yet another painful situation she was going through, a friend of mine experienced a deep connection with her own feelings and needs. I like to refer to this as a connection with her core self. In that moment of clarity she exclaimed ''bloody awareness!'' She realised, or rather, re-realised that 'the secret' of whether you react to situations and outside triggers or whether you respond to the outside world acting from your core in harmony with your values is very simple – awareness. To me, the difference in quality of my every experience lies in whether I am present in the here and now witnessing my own thoughts, feelings and my responses, or not.

Coming back to my friend, this situation brought her to a realisation that, still more often then she would have liked, she reacted to outside triggers from the point of unawareness. She responded without any connection to what was happening inside of her, (in the very moment of reaction). Hence, with a large dose of humour and relief, and a slight dose of frustration, sarcasm and playfulness she called it the ''bloody awareness''.

Some time after this instance with my dear friend I was in a session with a client. Even though this person was dealing with different situations and emotions, she was going through a similar process of realisation that what made the difference between what she felt and how she behaved in challenging situations was really her state of awareness. In that moment I witnessed in her a very similar mixture of emotions: relief, playfulness and a slight frustration with herself for “not getting it earlier” (old habits die hard - we reproach ourselves for being unaware about our unawareness in the moment of unawareness!). In that moment of shared tende
ess and playfulness I told her about the expression my friend used in a similar moment – bloody awareness – and this really spoke to the client. It seemed to have captured the moment she was experiencing.

Like my friend, the client, and myself, most of us at some time in our process of personal development and growth go through a stage of believing that awareness is something that we either have or do not have. However, since that time several years ago, my friend - and more importantly myself - have moved further on our respective jou
eys of self discovery. As we move along this journey, our understanding of and relationship with awareness develops from bloody awareness to experiencing it as a trusted companion and very dear friend to finally living it as and calling it beautiful awareness, experienced as a precious gift that it truly is.

At this moment in my life I know, and that is knowing of my being rather than the acquired knowledge, that awareness is not something we have and therefore can loose. Rather, awareness is a state of being, it is who we are. Beyond and under all the conditioning, learned behaviours, protection, planning for the future or wanting to reverse the past with our shoulds, deep in our core, in this very moment, we are pure awareness. We just need to allow ourselves to be that. Easier said than practiced, because sometimes my mind still tends to run here, there and everywhere and I tend to run after it. In the midst of this noise and chaos I loose touch with the now and my core, and on the surface I become unaware of my deeper awareness...my true nature. And then I catch myself running, I stop, I follow Buddha's advise ''Don't just do something stand there'' and here I am again in the moment connected to that beautiful awareness.

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