Becoming My New Awareness

If anyone who knows me has regularly read my blogs or known about what's gone on in my life, you'll understand that 2008 and part of 2007 have been long and trying times in my life. I suppose they might have been easier for other people if they'd gone through them, but for me, I felt like I had been thrown into the fire amidst so much change and difficulty. But I'd like to believe that having faced so much of my own fear has paved the way for this new awareness that's coming into me now.

Usually when I talk about awareness, it's not in such a complete way. Usually, it's like having more awareness of my breath or about a social issue in the world. In this case, the meaning of awarenes is more of a total personality change. When I feel this new awareness present in me, it's a very focused, confident and present-minded being. The future really doesn't matter to it, and anyway, this awareness understands that the future is built on present moment actions anyway. Sure, this last statement is common knowledge, but this awareness doesn't understand that statement in an intellectual way, but it truly knows it in a more grounded, whole being sort of way that I'm struggling to really define.

Different Eyes
Sometimes when I look around my apartment, it doesn't seem like my apartment, or it seems strange to me. A part of me is saying, "Where is this place that I am?" I've been having moments like that more frequently since coming back to San Francisco after the holidays. It's like many of the old cues and connections to things have dropped away. This new awareness doesn't need them.

No Fear Or At Least A Lot Less of It
When I'm really with this aspect of myself or perhaps I should say new me, I'm not afraid of the future. It's not that my life has become any less hectic. It's probably just as hectic if not more, as I try to figure out a career and am doing lots of project based freelance writing work. But finding the next step seems clearer, and I see even less hesitation in me to take those steps, to go after the things that I want. It's a very empowered phase that moves with a sense of forcefulness and purpose that I've never felt before. In the past, I was confident about things simply from a sense of faith or because I've had things work out well for me in the past (hence relying on an illusion that the past would repeat itself). At times, it was an arrogant confidence that simply thought it deserved getting good things from life, and somehow, that worked at times. But in the last two mentalities, there was a kind of clinging and a fear that I wouldn't be okay and had to present this hard exterior to hold onto what I had and get what I wanted. This new awareness isn't like that, and yet it feels vastly more powerful than any other sense of self I've ever had. And I think it can be this powerful because so much fear has been washed out of me.

While I'm hardly perfect and I still have things that frighten me, I see a lot of the hard work and spiritual growing pains coming to a kind of momentary fruition. And for me, that is deeply gratifying and relieving.