Hi
I have been thinking about how little time we can spare for ourselves in the daily routine. Consider where you are on your personal “to do” list. I guess many will be at or near the bottom – and that is if you are on your list at all! Family, friends, other people, work, household chores ….. All may be important, but then I would suggest you are too.
There are a multitude of self help books, courses and ideas out there – but who has the time and energy to do more than dip in with good intentions, then find that “life” overtakes you?
I would like to suggest a comparatively simple way of becoming aware of “you”. It’s something you can do as you do other things, and so you need not try to carve out a significant chunk of time. Because of that, it’s more likely that once you have got the hang of it you will keep doing it.
The Awareness Wheel – consisting of 5 slices of pie: Sensing; Feeling; Thinking; Doing; Wanting
You can enter the “wheel” at any segment – when you notice something about you (pacing? chewing your nails? reaching for the biscuit? etc) then just check in with each slice.
The slices are:
Sensing: Your five physical senses and your intuition. What are you touching? Seeing? Hearing? Smelling? What is your body feeling? What is your intuition / gut telling you?
Feeling: What are your emotions? Angry? Frightened? Sad? Happy? What depth of emotion? Frustrated or Furious? Nervous or Petrified? Devastated or Low? Ecstatic or Pleased? (and all shades in between.) Feelings words are usually one word.
Thinking: What are you thinking? I will never be able to do that; S/he never calls me; What if there is something wrong? How will I cope? This is awful ….
Thinking is usually in sentences.
You may find that you mix up thinking and feeling.
For example
What are you thinking? “I feel awful”
How do you feel? “I really like her”
It can take some practice to identify these two slices of pie – but even if they are mixed up – they are still there
Doing: Literally that – what are you doing? Are you pacing? Cleaning? Drinking? Eating? Staring into space? Watching TV? Walking the dog?
Wanting: Again, laterally that – what do you want? To stop feeling nervous? To be out of here? To feel happy? To not feel so unhappy?
Again – this can take some practice! When your focus has been others it can feel odd (and difficult) to think “what do I want?”
The letters of the 5 slices do not make up another word (I checked with an online anagram tool!)
So I looked at creating a mnemonic and came up with this:
- Singing
- Freely
- Through
- Dull
- Weather
Why not have a try?
Best wishes
Carey