Aware of awareness?
I’m not trying to be clever. This is a question I asked myself and didn’t know the answer. I didn’t even know if the question was profound or ignorant. Either way, I wanted to know and dove into a rabbit hole of investigation. It’s my happy place where I translate whatever I research into something I can incorporate into my life and, hopefully, into making a meaningful difference in people's lives.
I already knew that one needed to be somewhat conscious to even experience awareness, so the first step was to grasp a deeper understanding of consciousness and awareness. Not an easy task. “Consciousness is what makes any experience possible,” says Deepak Chopra. Basically we experience our physical world as physical. It engages all of our senses which makes it subject to our minds and time. Awareness, on the other hand, is unlimited, spontaneous, holistic and occuring moment to moment. It is also unaffected by the body, mind-space, events and experiences. The other concept I use in this post is the pause. I use it more like a pause button that opens the door to awareness and one needs to be conscious to know when to use it. So how do consciousness, awareness and pause fit in our lives?
The following story is made up from a conglomeration of personal and hypothetical experiences to illustrate the point of this blog.
The instant I was awake I knew why. My head was a stuffed-up marshmallow, my sinuses were blocked, and my chest felt like my rib cage was coiled into tight spirals and every breath was a painful squeeze. I’d had a cold for a month that just wouldn’t go away, but I certainly didn’t let it stop my schedule of full time work and symphony rehearsals. We were getting ready for the Christmas Gala event that had become a well-attended holiday tradition in our city. It was also a fundraiser for the food bank's Christmas Dinner that was prepared for the hundreds who attended each year.
I was conscious that my body was ill and I recognized the signs of pneumonia because I’d experienced it twice before. Before this bout, I wouldn’t let anything stop me from doing what I wanted or felt obligated to do. Whether it was work or a symphony rehearsal, I pushed through it. This time, I was only conscious of my body screaming at me to just stop! I called in sick to work and let the conductor know I wouldn’t be at next week’s rehearsal even though I suspected I might need another week to recuperate. I was also flooded with harsh judgmental thoughts about why I let myself get this sick again. (Pause button pressed.) That’s when a flicker of consciousness streaked through my whole being as words started to form in my mind. Why you got sick again isn’t important right now. You need rest. That message was followed by an expanse inside I can only describe as a health state. That state was powerful and stayed with me as I finally fell asleep. (Awareness door opened.)
Let's back up a bit to what happened before I got a cold for some insight. The Fall Rehearsal season was busier than usual for me. The music was exhilarating but I needed to work on a couple of technical passages that were brutally difficult. I practiced those passages every night. At work, I was also a volunteer member of a committee that was responsible for educating the workplace about abuse and collecting data on any complaints received. Any complaints that needed further involvement were referred to the Action Committee. There had been a number of complaints from a certain department and I was asked to take the lead in collecting data.
Long story short, the abuse was passive aggressive, vile and directed at a couple of people. The department saw those two people as a threat to their efficiency. They were proud of their record of getting things done with minimum effort and maximum speed, but the two people had serious reservations about the quality of the department’s work and were vocal about why. The rest of the department had begun closing ranks and were excluding the two workers from everything they could get away with. There were toxic whispers and clandestine meetings organized to try to get rid of the threat the two people posed to their comfortable and well-greased department.
That’s when I stepped in, and now the animosity, rage and hatred built up over weeks of unbridled toxicity were directed at me as the department thwarted my efforts to collect data. For weeks, I did my best to reassure everyone that I was impartial and was only collecting data for the good of the whole company, but it only got worse. Day after day, I dreaded going to work. I started to get headaches. I requested that another person from the committee join me to help, but no-one wanted to join me. I developed a runny nose and a cough.
I finally contacted the Action Committee and gave them what I had. I let them know I couldn’t collect any more data due to the extreme conditions that existed in that department. The Action Committee requested a meeting with all parties identified in my report immediately. That’s when I started being shunned in public places in the company like the gym, the cafeteria, the break room, and the washrooms. I was targeted with overt whispers, looks and innuendo that had the effect of isolating me from my co-workers. The heaviness and pain I felt was horrendous. I was the target of their clandestine warfare and I did nothing to stop it sooner because I thought I was just doing my job.
Eventually, I stopped going to the gym and ate my lunch at my desk. I’d sneak upstairs to use the washroom and leave the building before or after the others. By the second month, I had an awful cold. A month later, I recognized the signs of pneumonia that were flooding my body again. I didn’t recognize, however, how the stress of the department’s actions and my response or lack of response could affect my entire being.
Even if I wasn’t conscious and not aware, I had a choice to take the break I needed to avoid getting sick. I could have thought about the situation and concluded logically that the situation was untenable. It was toxic even before a complaint was made and the appropriate and logical step would have been to inform the Action Committee immediately. In this story, I had some false beliefs that were impeding my ability to respond clearly and logically like “I need to fix other people’s problems”, “I must work hard to survive” or “I can’t trust anyone but myself”. Perhaps I liked the power I had in the company to collect data. Whatever the reason was, I inserted myself into the problem and the result was an assault on my entire system. No wonder I was sick.
Let’s return to the concept of the pause. The pause signals your choice to stop something that’s unhealthy and reminds you that your circumstances do not define you. Ideally, in the above story, stopping or mitigating the severe emotional and eventual physical stress would have helped my body fight off any infection before it got to a critical illness. Awareness is a powerful state capable of helping your body return to homeostasis or a state of balance. It is the space within us where we can exist without thought in the wholeness with all that is. Meditation and mindfulness are a couple of ways we can practice awareness, but those subjects could be a whole other post. There’s a ton of information on meditation, mindfulness and their benefits. I encourage you to find one that suits you and do it daily. Consider it as necessary as healthy eating or breathing.
Workplace abuse is real. If you’re in a similar situation, please don’t think you can solve it yourself. You need to be heard, understood and protected. A place to start is this article by Tamara Ramusovic, What to do if you are Being Bullied and Harassed at Work, A Legal Perspective. In BC, if your employer has not taken steps to respond to your report of bullying and harassment, you can contact the WorkSafeBC Prevention Line at 1-888-621-7233 and speak with a WorkSafeBC prevention officer.
References:
Vinod D. Deshmukh, Consciousness, Awareness, and Presence: A Neurobiological Perspective, Received 2022 May 4; Revised 2022 Jun 1; Accepted 2022 Jun 2, Copyright : © 2022 International Journal of Yoga, PMID: 36329768, read on Nov. 19, 2023
Deepak Chopra “How can you Wake Up to your Highest Intelligence?” The Doctor's Farmacy with Deepak Chopra
Dr. Mark Harmon, Preamble, “How can you Wake up to your Highest Intelligence?” The Doctor's Farmacy with Deepak Chopra
Remez Sasson, What is Nonduality? Definition and Meaning, SuccessConsciousness.com/blog/spirituality/what-is- nonduality/
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