# What awareness and mindfulness is

Knowing ourselves is the basis of all [understanding](understanding.md).

- Awareness is the first step to *all* conscious [change](people-changes.md).
- Without self-awareness, our subconscious [habits](habits.md) automatically run our lives.
- A mindful lifestyle also empowers holistic well-being by reducing [stress](mind-feelings-happiness-stress.md).

Staying mindful, or aware, isn't the same for each person, and we have a tendency to specialize with it.

- Non-judgment: gathering information without using [logic](logic.md) on it.
- Acceptance: holding multiple [belief structures](values.md) at once.
- Non-attachment: having no [feelings](mind-feelings.md) about the incoming experiences.
- Compassion: associating with the emotional [hardship](hardship.md) from another's experience.
- Conceptualization: able to physically see different perspectives in [space](reality.md).
- Analysis: able to draw rational connections from previously [understood](understanding.md) information.

We all have inner [conversations](people-conversation.md) with ourselves called "thoughts".

- While they're *always* [logical](logic.md), they're not always reasonable or well-adjusted.

We're constantly bombarded with thoughts, and we don't notice most of them.

- We are the main curators of our mental health, as well as the first to experience its consequences.

We're in constant conflict.

- Each [decision](mind-decisions.md) and [uncertain thing](unknown.md) in our minds is a guaranteed source of inner conflict.
- These conflicts start within ourselves and branch out to [others](people-conflicts.md).
- We [constantly hear new things](information.md) that interfere with our thoughts.

## Risks of staying unaware

There are *very* severe risks to ignoring our thoughts.

- We may over-identify with our thoughts or feelings to the point that we'll believe our [identity](people-identity.md) is in them.
- We may push away or alter unfavorable thoughts instead of simply observing them, which can create denial and delusions over time.
- The thoughts may stay away for a while, but at some point we'll eventually be overwhelmed by their sheer volume or intensity.

Over time, we create [cognitive distortions](mind-bias.md) that disrupt our ability to see clearly:

- Overgeneralization: drawing broad conclusions from a single event.
- Catastrophizing: expecting the worst-case result of an experience.
- Black-and-white thinking: seeing things in absolute good/bad terms with no middle ground.
- Personalization: believing things are exclusively associated to you, even when they're not.
- Mind-reading: assuming you know what others are thinking without concrete evidence.
- Rumination: repeatedly thinking about distressing events or feelings, which can [dysregulate](mind-awareness-dysregulation.md) us.

When we persist in unawareness, we become [dysregulated](mind-awareness-dysregulation.md).

The long-term effects of staying unaware of our thoughts start affecting others:

- Constant fear of loss leads to more stress.
- We experience less [connection](people-why.md) with others and trouble experiencing [love](people-love.md).
- A false sense of crisis can lead to neglected needs.
- Eventually, we can develop consistent [unforgiveness](hardship-ptsd-release.md) and [bitterness](mind-feelings-anger.md).

When we're unaware, we will frequently respond inappropriately:

- If we don't know what causes things, we'll work to [fix something](https://adequate.life/fix/) that might not be broken or can't control.
- Sometimes, our [fear](mind-feelings-fear.md) will compel us to "fix" things that destroy even more than what we had observed.
- And, when we're unaware of *those* consequences, we won't see what we destroy or try to "fix" things further!

We must challenge our cognitive distortions with further awareness.

- Awareness of thoughts: know precisely what you're thinking (e.g., [meditation](mind-awareness-meditation.md), CBT)
- Non-identification: understand you are not your thoughts.
- Curiosity: openly ask if a thought is accurate or helpful.
- Grounding techniques: [come back to the present moment](mind-awareness-meditation.md).

Mindfulness helps us to step back and evaluate the situation, which creates several benefits:

1. Detachment: we can view [our feelings](mind-feelings.md) like they're passing through instead of as concrete truths.
2. Clarity: we can [understand](understanding.md) fact-based concepts with less [bias](mind-bias.md) from our feelings.
3. Choice: we can actively and consciously [decide](mind-decisions.md) the best way to respond to our thoughts without reacting.
4. Wisdom: we can detect early signs of [risk](safety.md) by decoding emerging [patterns](symbols.md).
5. Emotional intelligence: we can possess more [emotional intelligence](power-influence.md).
6. Creativity: more access to our feelings means more capacity for [problem-solving](mind-creativity-how.md).

## Awareness isn't easy

Many of our [feelings](mind-feelings.md) may be undesirable.

- Mindfulness means reframing the "bad" and "good" feelings to "desirable" and "undesirable".
- They are simply indicators of something else, and not anything we must act on.

The more we do, the less we're aware.

- Doing things requires us to pay attention to tasks, which means we're not paying attention to our thoughts.
- When we aren't aware of what we do, we typically develop [habits](habits.md) without thinking about them.
  - Over time, our [memory](mind-memory.md) will discard details until all we have are mental and physical habits.
- [Success in almost everything else](success-1_why.md) requires action more than patience.
  - By contrast, [meditation](mind-awareness-meditation.md) takes discipline through patience.

Gaining self-awareness can often be lonely.

- Nobody else sees or knows our thoughts, no matter how well we [communicate them](language-speaking.md).
- Barring [a higher power](religion-answers.md) directly speaking with us (such as [God](https://theologos.site/gospel/)), we often sense nothing.

## Mindfulness has limits

Without directing toward something else, gaining mindfulness alone will simply be a variation of self-hypnosis.

- Hypnosis means we can gain total [power](power.md) over ourselves, including minimizing our [fears](mind-feelings-fear.md).
- Hypnosis allows us to become very effective at anything we set ourselves to, but that doesn't mean those actions are inherently [good](morality.md).
- With enough self-hypnosis, we can even [influence others](power-influence.md), and that can create *enormous* adverse consequences if we're not regulating what we're doing (e.g., running a [cult](people-culture-cults.md)).

The best use of becoming mindful is to attain "self-directed neuroplasticity":

1. We detect a thought that may not be advantageous for us to have.
2. We redirect the thought to a more productive place.
3. Over time, as we keep doing it, the [feelings](mind-feelings.md) become less severe and we develop [habits](habits.md) that improve our [general wellbeing](goodlife.md).

If things become *awful*, we may need help attaining mere awareness through outside help.

- Prescription drugs such as antidepressants, antianxiety medications (though we can often become reliant on them)
- Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing ([EMDR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_desensitization_and_reprocessing))
- Neurofeedback
- Somatic therapy
- acupuncture/acupressure/EFT tapping
- Cognitive behavioral therapy ([CBT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy))
- Guided yoga/[meditation](mind-awareness-meditation.md)
- Various forms of [writing](language-writing.md)

Further, we must pace ourselves, since too much truth at once may overwhelm us.

However, awareness is *only* useful for detecting problems.

- If the answers *were* within our minds, there'd be no reason to learn or do anything else *but* meditate, since we could just find the answers through introspection alone.
- Effective [solutions](mind-creativity.md) typically exist beyond our minds and understanding.
- The answer comes in [changing our dysregulation](mind-awareness-dysregulation.md), and not simply in awareness of it.