S5 Ep7: How Do Choices and Decisions Tie Into Self-Awareness?

Why are choices and decisions so powerful? What you’re never taught in school is how to be yourself. You’re taught to read, write, communicate with others, and be part of the machine of your given society. You’re never taught how to know yourself, basic psychology is only covered when you reach college (only if you bother with college and take any path along that line), and self-learning is not something you’re taught. The truth of this life is that you are not just a cog in the machine. Rather, you’re a human, being. You’re capable of some pretty amazing things. The gurus, demagogues, and supposedly elite of society aren’t better than you and me. They are not more worthy and deserving. They’ve just broken away from the herd, tasted power, and decided to hoard it for themselves and treat the rest of us like sheep. They’ve done what they tell you can’t and shouldn’t be done to maintain the false control and power they perceive themselves as having. Recognizing that you have the same power is imperative. Accessing it is easier than you realize. It’s simply a matter of employing active conscious awareness and making choices and decisions. Mindfulness is all about choices and decisions Leaving the rote, routine, and subconscious living behind can be done by working with active conscious awareness. To use active conscious awareness to make choices and decisions is a matter of mindfulness. To begin practicing mindfulness, you just need to be present, here and now. Action often implies the physical. The truth is, it’s not literally what you do as much as it’s choices and decisions that you make. If you’ve not been a regular maker of choices and decisions, you’d be amazed at how often you have opportunities you don’t consider. Even the most minor choices and decisions build strength to make larger and more impressive/more important things in your life. Actively choosing and deciding is how you can gain what little control over your life experience is available to you. Yet that seemingly little control is the key to being who, what, where, how, and why you desire to be. Choices and decisions empower you Most of the “power” claimed by leaders, gurus, demagogues, and the like is utterly false. The first step in taking the wheel to drive your life and choose your path is to exercise choices and decisions. Turn off the autopilot, and don’t let yourself follow rote and routine and habit. Instead, choose and decide things. Actively and consciously apply mindfulness to make more choices and decisions. This is the most empowering thing you can do for yourself. You are the only you that is, and you are not just here to exist and survive this life. You’re here to experience, explore, grow, evolve, and thrive. Choices and decisions are how you gain control on any level. You, and I mean you, are worthy and deserving of this. This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool: Today, take a moment to write down every choice and decision you make. No matter how large or small, write it down. At the end of the day, mark all the choices and decisions you normally disregard as unimportant or make almost entirely by rote and routine. Repeat this process tomorrow, and see if you add any new active, consciously aware decisions to your practice. Once more, at the end of the day, mark all the choices and decisions you normally disregard as unimportant or make almost entirely by rote and routine. Examine if this has a positive, negative, or neutral impact on your self-awareness. Continue to work with this as necessary. Author Website Email Instagram Facebook LinkedIn TikTok Blogs: titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com Cover artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations