A lecture on how awareness grows through stages: from performing a persona, to noticing you're performing, to recognizing how ego blocks feeling, to finally witnessing anger and irritation without judgment. The shift is learning to channel resistant emotions into strength.
When we look at what's the state that most of us live in in life, it seems like it starts out with being unaware that. That we're even unaware. And the priority usually is to create a Persona, an image. To have that image be crystallized into something solid. To have it be a good image. Young, sexy, if possible, or as much as possible, feel good as much as possible. Don't acknowledge you feel bad. And this isn't a conscious process. It just goes on unconsciously. So it's very important that we look at that part of ourselves and realize, yes, me too. I have a way in which I do that. There are aspects of me that are unaware, that I'm unaware. And of course, we all know people that that might be 98% true or 99% true. Then there's what might be called a second level aspect, whatever way we would want to say it. And these aren't necessarily in order. Where we become aware that we're unaware. So just as we might share with ourselves, I'm confused or I feel weak, we're starting to become aware of our own awareness. And actually that might even be aware of awareness, aware of actually something inside us. So, for example, when you really become aware of feeling weak or confused and you can't find the opposite place, you can't find the strength, you can't find the clarity. We're aware of our unawareness. We. We're aware that we can't reach a certain place inside ourselves that we want to reach. That's a huge change and something to be revered. Because then we are truly pregnant with the potential of becoming more alive, becoming lucid. The paradox becomes very, very obvious. The more we can be aware that we're unaware, the more we can really start to grow. Then there's what may be called the third level, which are the ways in which we defend ourselves that are sometimes referred to as ego defense mechanisms. That are ways in which we can disappear from our feelings and our feeling states and even our heart, which is, let's say, compassion or love. So we may intellectualize, or we may. If we feel angry, we may project it on the other person and say, they're the ones that are getting angry at me. Wasn't me. You're the one that did it. And so it's very helpful to have a depth understanding of how the defense mechanism work. Because they're designed unconsciously to not feel, to not be aware of our states of being, to cut us off from a deeper layer of ourselves. Then there's another level where we start to become aware of what might be called our resisted emotions. It includes anger and frustration, irritation, annoyance, all the ways in which we contract. And that's a spectacular awareness because if we're unaware of our resistant emotions, then we're going to really damage other people and the poison is going to stay in our body. And it's not only just aware, it's actually being able to do something with the awareness. Meaning, oh my goodness, I'm angry right now. How do I deal with this? Because you can be aware that you're angry and just keep beating somebody up. That's not what this is really talking about. This is a level where the awareness actually has some practical effect on how you act it out or how you suppress it and hopefully leads you to a place of I want to find a way to deal with anger, not suppress it, not dump it out. But how do I deal with this in a way that can be constructive for me and whoever the other is? It's so important that we meet that level, and frankly, all of these levels with a version of congratulations. Because if we have a judgment that we shouldn't be angry, or a judgment that we shouldn't be where we are, it's kind of like giving it a good chance to be permanent, giving it a chance to last longer. As a matter of fact, ensuring that it will last longer. So as we become aware of the resistant emotions, there's a witness and an emotional intelligence that can kick in that says, I want to find a way to have this. Create well being. And frequently with resistant emotions, it will lead to strength if we learn how to channel it well and it represents false strength when we don't channel it, when we aren't able to really find the kernel of truth in it and express it in a way that's sensitive to yourself and to the other.
