10 common mistakes & how to avoid them

Some people get drowsy or feel drained at particular times of the day. When do you feel most energetic or grumpy? You may feel prone to certain situations and struggle to grasp why. Consider these ten common mistakes and how to avoid them;

1) Believe mistakes exist. In truth, all experience is valuable and the concept of mistake is misleading. In essence, you convince yourself you have done something incorrect as a distraction from learning. To decide all experience is valuable shifts your focus from the illusive duality of right and wrong.

2) Choose not to pay attention. Deciding not to notice your behaviour suggests apathy or indifference and also possible unconscious motives. Anyone with this mindset is vulnerable to missed opportunities. Choosing to raise self-awareness empowers you to play a more active role in your destiny.

3) Blame circumstances on timing. How you choose to use the time you are given is what determines the nature of your life. If you hesitate to make certain decisions based on assumptionsabout "the right time," then you areunaware this mindset is problematic. Nothing is set in stone, now or ever.

4) Allow emotions to control you. Strong emotions emerge to reflect feelings about security, esteem and self-worth. People do not always realize that intense emotions distort their perception and trigger reactions that can be counter-productive. To shift in meaningful ways, make adjustments. Emotions can guide, but they are not your decision-makers.

5) Raise expectations. Whenever you anxiously await or anticipate things to happen, you forget about presence and get stuck in a future mindset. To heighten your expectations is to strengthen your footfold in the future. This does not help you as much as if you learn to dissolve yens for specific outcomes.

6) Assume you know everything. Pride, shame, fear of humiliation all surface in relation to arrogance. If you only believe you experience the truth, you are not open to receiving energy in form of other people's truths. Lao Tzu also adds, "Without going out-of-doors, one can know all he needs to know. Without even looking out of his window, one can grasp the nature of everything. Without going beyond his own nature, one can achieve ultimate wisdom... without undue exertion."

7) Ignore intuition. Not listening to your inner voice implies you lose touch with reality. Your mind, body and spirit are not consistently aligned. If they are, youhave unwavering faith in your premonitions and gut feelings. Trust in how to apply abilities is the secret of reconnecting to your core self. Unlock your inner door. You hold the key to intuitive understanding.

8) Allow dilemmas to perplex you. When you permit conditions outside yourself to control you, this distracts you from presence. You may be choosing to learn from a particular distraction, but recognizing it for what it is is the beginning of dissolving it. Choose to be solutions-oriented.

9) Be closed-minded. Not opening up keeps you in the dark about your conditions and what you are bound to encounter. To gain insight into what helps and hinders you, just observe whatgoes on around you. Work to transcendlayers of mystery and clarify what makes sense as you learn what not to do.

10) Get caught up in ego. A focus on material goals, external approval or competition suggests you are fixated on self-interest and measurable results. This kind of mindset invites energy imbalances.  Learning about energy healing and alignment is helpful in relation to psychological patterns. You can employ practical techniques to help detach from ego.

Value the silent assistants

As you go about your daily tasks, the ego mind harnesses your attention to focus you on the doing. The process and details escape you. This is a level of selective awareness. For example, you move a finger but cannot explain how the process is actually done. You flick the switch to turn on electricity without knowing how it works. The what matters more than the how.

As you perceive disruptions in your life, notice you get irritated, compare or judge, you are gaining insight into how the ego renews itself. When you do not love what happens, you create distortions in your energy vibration. To relate to mind and emotions creates dense energy and activates unconsciousness. Even so, a silent assistant knows what you resist.

Life experience offers you ways to recognize levels of awareness and resistance to intuition. A silent assitant guides you to access inner wisdom and invites you to trust your own authority. begin to sense how it feels to get out of your own way and see who you truly are.

Ask, "who am I?" Begin to dislodge firmly ingrained ideas that block a clearer view. The process of exploring reasons why you go against your nature actually invites you to detach from what does not serve you. Learn to consciously let go of the ideas and emotions you adopt to create the illusion of unhappiness.

Some people do not require intense suffering to discern they are not being true to themselves. They may have eureka moments or, simply evolve to attune to the state of being present. These individuals learn to dissolve resistance by breaking through the bricks and mortar that support it. They relate differently to silent assistants, and know stillness.

Every person can choose to value the silent assistants in their lives, those things that trigger awareness. Your beliefs prompt you to label them and determine whether you trust. Notice when you permit yourself to slide into undesirable patterns. 

As you refer questions to the silent, loving voice within, you always get answers that reveal what is vital to your true being.  Call it a guardian angel, higher consciousness or nothing.  Appreciate yourself.  Be kind to yourself.  You are your own best friend, here and now. 

5 Ways to examine your current level of awareness

People hear so much about awareness, they begin to ask how to clarify their own current level.  You may sense certain things and so readily forget others.  This may confuse you. You may ask how many levels of awareness there are and what you can do to identify where you stand.  Consider these 5 ways to explore teh nature and level of your awareness; 

1) Disregard numbers.  This includes age, weight, height, psychological time and other numbers.  Physical measurements you imagine and impose.  They cloud pure awareness. Consciousness is beyond conditioning. Impatience is itself a pointer to what is here.

2) Focus on what you cherish.  Anything that strengthens your feelings of love or appreciation has a positive effect on opening to the awareness that is always present.   Express love at every opportunity. Listen to your heart. In essence, love expands awareness.

3) Rethink time and space.  Human beings are conditioned to fragment and limit their perception in an effort to pin things down.  Awareness is imperceptible in a traditional sense, yet you can evolve faculties to move beyond three-dimensional thinking.

4) Choose to be alive.  Consider what this means to you.  Decide to notice opportunities and find the courage to experience possibilities.  Permit tears to flow, and allow other feelings to unfold.  Decide you to consciously expand your points of reference. be open to discover what it feels like to know happiness, sadness and other emotions through the body.  Sense they are all interconnected and point to who you are.

5) Recognize perception is relative.  You will only ever grasp things you are prepared to sense and believe. Your level of self-doubt and negative energy determine what kind of reality you manifest and experience.  Work through scepticism, bitterness, and cynicism.

Take several forms at one time

In a book called Seth Speaks, Jane Roberts channels what Seth explains as inherent characteristics of any consciousness.  That is to say, this book suggests any human being is capable of taking on many forms at one time.  Do you underestimate your potential?

For example, your physical body can lie on a bed while your consciousness journeys in a dream form to very different locations.  You can explore astral and lucid dream states.  You can devise thought forms of yourself which could materialize in another place without your conscious awareness.  Are you beginning to discern your hidden strength?

As you evolve to realize your consciousness isn't limited, you also begin to realize that you aren't limited in terms of the forms you can create and project at a given time. The better you get-to-know yourself, the more conscious you will become about what you are doing, what you have the potential to do, and what forms you can control into being.

What would you say if you were able to learn to travel through emotions rather than permit them to control you?  What would you say if you felt much more freedom to explore an experience in ways that used to seem unnatural or inconceivable? What would you do?

Imagine what it will feel like when you no longer wish to hide your emotions, when you no longer fear the truth.  Imagine how your life will change from the moment you know your feelings are discerned through senses you forgot you had.  Choices will make more sense.

How to stop overthinking

Overthinking occurs when you have a hard time turning off your mind. Worry and anxiety creep in. All those 'what ifs' capture your attention.  You anticipate how things could go wrong, and how you could respond to unforeseen situations. Overthinking reflects you judge and self-criticize what you have already done and you justify why.

As you read this, you may know what its like to have thoughts run wild and wonder what to do about it.  They compel you to re-examine actions you have already taken and those you wonder if you should. You may question whether you said the right thing, wonder how people interpreted your behaviour. You may keep going over and over decisions, questioning your own motives and what is best for you or others involved.

Consider your tendency to overthink based on how you reply to these questions:

In terms of dating: Why did I wear that outfit? Why was my make-up smudged? Why didn't he look my way? What must she think of me? What must his/ her friends think? Where can we go that would be impressive? How do I know if I said the wrong thing?

In terms of relationships: What will my spouse say when s/he finds out what I have done? What could my friends/ in-laws think of my choice? How can I be sure they will understand my point of view? Why are they not phoning/ including me?

In terms of body-image: Why does the mirror make me look so fat/ skinny? Where does all the acne come from?  Who actually calls these marks beauty spots? How can wrinkles be taken as laugh lines? Why do I keep gaining weight when I exercise/ eat right/ am always on a diet? Whay am I never satisfied about how I look?

In terms of depression:  How isolated did I feel? What could explain this prolonged loneliness? Why did s/he leave me?Why am I unmotivated? Why am I having trouble concentrating? Why do I feel restless and sluggish? How long does this post-natal depression thing last? Can how I feel be labelled depression?

In terms of work: Why aren't I capable of coping with my job/ schedule and family responsibilities? Why am I not living up to expectations? When will I pull myself together? Why am I so hard on myself? Why can't I get over it? When should I go back to work? Why are they asking me to rethink my role as a stay-at home parent?

As you realize you are overthinking, notice the messages about self-worth, self-love and acceptance that speak to you. Notice whether you are allowing fear and ego to control you.  Notice your word choices and how they may disempower you. You actually have choices about which words to use and which thoughts to think.

As an exercise to see what overthinking is inviting you to see about yourself, write 5 phrases relevant to your situation. What do you over-analyze? Write down the feelings that stand out about each phrase (i.e. fear, self-doubt, etc.) Notice if they feel positive or negative. Now, rather than assume something negative happened or will, assume positive things. Know how you think is shaped by your feelings and whether you focus on the future. Fear only exists there. It cannot exist in the present moment.

As you recognize you tend to over analyze people and situations, this is inviting you to step back and learn about yourself. To notice overthinking acknowledges discomfort about something inside. As you look deeper to discover why, you can tailor your strategies to curtail or stop it.  Why do you do the things you do? Maybe some of these resonate with you? If not, reflect on other possible reasons. Jot those down and reflect.

a) Indecisiveness/ low self-confidence (unsure what you want)
b) Strong sense of entitlement (ego success-driven)
c) Never satisfied/ perfectionistic
d) Seek approval & acceptance / fear disapproval & rejection 
e) Diagnosed with psychological/ psychiatric illness

What if every reason you could possibly give to explain why you over-analyze brings you back to a plea for love? What if everything invites you to be more aware of how you can love Self and others unconditionally?  One perspective is every experience invites you to love yourself more and see yourself as you really are. To overthink suggests you choose to focus on fear rather than love, and you can shift attention anytime.

"We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It`s a death trap." -Anthony Hopkins