Recognition And Awareness On The Path To Healing, Part 2

I often feel lost in time. My urges take over as if I had no self-restraint. Pictures and videos are on constant display before my eyes, layered on top of the actual visual field. They create a feeling of fogginess. However, I am unaware of them because the activity I am involved in seizes my capacity to focus. It might be writing, as of now, or reading. That doesn’t sound too complex, but if you break apart the activity of writing, you will find that a lot of sensory input is processed by the brain every second, just as is when not writing. In this given second, you can feel the point of contact of your body with the surface. You’re breathing, hopefully. The breath flows through the tip of your nose. Your chest or belly rises, then they sink again. At the same time, you can hear, smell, feel and see things. Your visual field is constantly active, even with closed eyes. Your body is in continuous vibration and pressure due to blood flow or compression. How do you know you have hands? Can you feel them?

Furthermore, how about your position in space? Are you lying down? How do you know? What are your thoughts? Are they words, pictures, or whole scenes playing out? How do you know you are focused on something? Is it that everything falls away besides that one thing? Isn’t that a feeling itself too? You have to perceive something first to know about it. Lastly, where are you? Are you behind your eyes? Where is the sense of you? All these things are in constant change, like a river flowing. You can feel time passing as you perceive each change simultaneously. All of them are ongoing every second of your life. How is it that we can focus on anything ever? Our brain must have developed ways to cope by intercepting unnecessary sensory input. You must have heard about the infamous dopamine molecule and its close relative adrenaline. Dopamine drives you towards anything external. It makes you pursue things outside of yourself. Such as writing, reading, studying, working, and so on. Your visual field narrows when you have a lot of dopamine in your system.

You zoom in on whatever task at hand. That is why doctors prescribe dopamine-releasing medication for ADHD patients who struggle with extended periods of intense focus. Surely there will be other factors included in the mix. Still, when we feel cloudy and foggy, it stems from our mismanagement of ourselves rather than an innate disability to be aware. After a morning filled with sugar-based foods stacked with a TV-Show and a gaming session, you will be less likely to engage in work, which requires intensive focus. Because you spiked your dopamine repeatedly, you now have a lower baseline of dopamine in your blood, which is the one thing necessary for you to be able to pursue and focus. Lastly, metacognition is the ability to be aware of your thought processes and how they occur. We could consider it a muscle, and I believe that a lack of training can add to the confusion, planning failure, and fogginess.

A zen monk asks a crowd to raise their hands if they are aware and subsequently to raise their hand if they are unaware. The group split itself in half, so the monk asks the person who claimed he is aware, “Are you aware that you are aware?” “Yes, I am,” the person replied. The monk agrees. “Yes, you are aware.” He then moves on to a person who claimed not to be aware and asks, “Are you aware?” The person disagrees, “No, I am not aware.” The monk asks, “Are you sure?” The person is confused but replies, “Yes, I am.” Finally, the monk says, “So you are aware.”

To be sure that he was unaware, he had to assess himself. Then, he had to look for whatever feeling told him he was unaware of and make sure it was correct. That is awareness—clarity between the received signals and their interpretation. Whether on a scale big as life itself or small as a split second.

If you manage yourself in the right way, things get very crisp. Due to the heightened focus levels, you perceive a higher resolution of reality with more detail than you have lived in before. You couldn’t see things back then that are now crystal clear to you. You glance at a tree, and it feels like what you see is closer to the truth than what you saw before. My interpretation is that this is not because your eyes have changed but that your mind is less cluttered, allowing your brain to devote itself to processing that input alone. As a result, you are fully aware of where you are in life, where you are supposed to be, and what your way there is. It is easy to walk a straight line on that path. It seems effortless because all the things that would otherwise side-track you are now exposed to the light your new perception offers you. “Oh, a pitfall. Maybe not.” You breathe in, you take a step, and you breathe out. Repeat. It is ecstatic. This, dear friends, is how you should work. Not because of fear or insecurities. Too many people, including me, identify with their fears. They distrust their capabilities, passion, and discipline. Sure, fears can be great motivators. They will push you when life is about surviving and not thriving, just like when that extra adrenaline shot when trying to escape a predator is of advantage. However, in the long run, it is necessary to let go of that and be able to move forward without trauma pushing you. Only then will you find peace, also when standing still. Be still when you are supposed to be still, and move when you are supposed to move. Enjoy when you are supposed to enjoy, and work hard when it is time to dig in. To pick up on the waves of life and act accordingly are the signs of wisdom and a well-tuned mind.

Thanks for reading,

Hans.