Without a doubt awareness of my thoughts and emotions has been the fundamental key to improving my life.

To change and improve your life you must be aware of the causes that create your life. These are the thoughts and emotional reactions that spring forth in each moment of your life.

In seeing and ultimately breaking free of your thoughts and emotions you develop the ability to craft your own life in the way you think is best.

The seeing of thoughts and emotions I call awareness.

Developing Your Awareness

To improve your life you must first improve your awareness. Indeed it is a life long effort to consistently sharpen this tool.

The use of this tool is directional focus. While some of your attention is turned to the outside world you must always retain some focus on the regions of the mind and emotions (head and body).

Through continued efforts to keep a focus on these areas, the use of awareness allows you to become conscious of the forces that direct your actions and consequently your life. You will see the thought that makes you defend your pride and feel the emotion that makes you run and hide.

To build your ability to both observe deeply and consistently requires effort to both constantly make use of awareness and to believe that there is always more to see, hence increasing its penetration and intensity.

There are two useful analogies for describing the use and improvement of awareness.

The first is that of a torch. Turning on the torch enables you to see things, focusing it on your thoughts allows you to see yourself. To see more of yourself you have to constantly feed the torch energy to increase its power and keep it pointing inwards. This is through the effort of directing your focus.

The second is that of a knife. When you are not aware there is no separation or intervention possible between your thoughts and your actions. By holding a knife in your consciousness you can steadily develop the separation that allows you to learn and consciously direct your life. Whenever the knife is dropped it becomes dulled as your focus loses its edge. However when you exert effort and direct your focus it is like drawing the kitchen knife from its self-sharpening holster, sharpening it with every use.

With awareness you can see the causes of your life. With this you can consciously change it to create a new life full of greater understanding.