Practice developing mindfulness. Psychology of thinking

04.07.202327.05.2017

The request for a conscious life is born only in a developed person who begins to feel his inner world and pay attention to his experiences, emotions, thoughts, desires and begins to trace the inexplicable relationship between his internal state and his results in the external world. This is a request from a person who not only wants to satisfy his basic survival needs, but also wants to develop and receive true joy and pleasure from life, from realizing himself, from interacting with other people.

Awareness allows you to act effectively and at the same time enjoy life, realizing your potential, noticing problems at the stage of their occurrence and resolving them quickly and effectively. You can only manage what you understand. Therefore, awareness is the key to managing your life! Mindfulness allows you to manage your body, emotions, thoughts, your attitude towards people and your life.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a total and non-judgmental immersion of attention in the processes occurring in our lives (physical, mental and psychological) and their awareness. Awareness is a spotlight of attention directed inward, which illuminates a problem or some process, making it clear, visible and understandable. At this moment, we do not condemn or evaluate a phenomenon, person, feeling, action, but simply observe. Conscious life is real life, life outside of conventions, imposed values, desires and patterns of behavior. To be aware means to see yourself and the world around you as they really are.

What you get by practicing mindfulness in life:

Health improvement. A conscious attitude towards the body will help prevent diseases and achieve health, because by listening to our body, we begin to give it exactly what it needs.
Inner balance and harmony. A conscious attitude towards your emotions allows you to manage them.
Realizing your potential. Realizing our desires, over time we learn to distinguish true desires from imposed ones. And by realizing true desires, we begin to reveal our essence and our uniqueness.
Freedom to be yourself. By becoming aware of our thoughts, desires, feelings and actions, over time we become free from embedded programs, patterns, negative attitudes and become more successful and happier.
Improving relationships with others. Awareness allows you to see a person as he is, and not interact with an invented image.
Opening of intuition. A conscious attitude towards your inner world opens up intuition. Often the body and nervous system give us signals, warning us of possible consequences.
Improving standard of living. A conscious attitude towards your thoughts will help create positive changes in your life, since conscious thoughts give rise to conscious actions.
Brightness and interest in life. Mindfulness makes life interesting, rather than boring and mundane. After all, every moment is unique and beautiful, but without noticing the beauty around us, we plunge into a series of endlessly stretching gray everyday life with dreams of a vacation.
Increased energy levels. By returning our attention to the present moment, we reclaim our energy that we previously wasted on replaying thoughts, situations and experiences from the past or fears for the future.

Thus, awareness allows a person to become alive and real, to do what comes from the soul, and not imposed by anyone, therefore, to realize oneself and experience true joy and happiness from this.

How to develop awareness?

On this path you can improve constantly, collecting threads of attention and over time realizing more and more. You can start with the simplest things, but it’s small but constant efforts that add up to big results.

The simplest practices to increase awareness

Breathing practice. Focus your attention on the inhalation and exhalation, without interfering, just observing. This practice calms, immerses in the present moment, and relaxes.
Conscious eating. When eating food, focus on its taste. Holding a piece of bread in your hands, try to realize how it came to you, how much effort and time it took to prepare it, grow the wheat, collect it, grind the flour, package it, bake it, how much effort and labor was put into this small piece. And what is its value.
Focus on your feelings. To have time to live your life, and not do everything automatically, you can dive into the present moment every hour or two. You can set a timer on the clock. And when the bell rings, leave what you’re doing and immerse yourself in the present moment, asking yourself “What am I feeling now?”, walk your attention through your body, relax tension, and follow your breathing for 5-10 minutes. This practice does not take much time and perfectly restores strength during a busy day and is refreshing.
Ball of awareness. Imagine a transparent sphere in the chest area and focus on it and ask yourself: “What do I really want right now and what will make me happy?” Then start filling this ball with pleasant images. This opens access to the true desires of our Soul. The same practice can be used to determine whether a desire is true or imposed. Place the image of desire in this ball of the Soul and listen to the sensations. If they are pleasant and joyful, then the fulfillment of your desire will bring you joy; if not, then most likely the desire was imposed by someone.
Conscious work with negative emotions. If you are overwhelmed by negative feelings, turn your attention inward and ask yourself, “What am I feeling, where in the body am I feeling it?” Then concentrate your attention there and begin to consciously exhale until the emotion dissolves. Over time, you will be able to quickly dissolve negative emotions with your awareness.
Awareness of your thoughts. If you tend to get caught up in negative thoughts and scroll through them for hours, then try the simple but effective rubber band exercise. Put a rubber band on your hand and as soon as you catch yourself getting involved in negative thoughts, not too much, but noticeably, pull the rubber band back and snap your hand. Consciously shift your attention from bad thoughts, as the famous Scarlett O'Hara said, “I'll think about it tomorrow,” but not now. Remember that thoughts are vibrations that form a field around you and what you think about is what you attract to yourself.
If any person annoys you. Any person responds within us with some feeling or state. For example, we read or listen to someone and feel how something inside us resonates and finds a response. We experience pleasant feelings towards a person. But it also happens that you look at a person, and something unpleasant and irritating is born inside, which does not resonate internally. Mindfully walking through this sensation, find and locate a place in the body and then begin to relax this tension until it goes away. As a result of practice, you will notice that the attitude has changed to neutral and no longer affects you. This works very effectively, and with practice it also works very quickly.
Body awareness. The body always begins to signal us about violations, but we are so absorbed in our own affairs or thoughts that we often do not notice it. Until the strongest signal turns on - pain, which indicates that the destruction is already serious. The main cause of destruction and disease is the compression of body spaces, which most often occurs during times of stress. Constriction does not allow energy to flow calmly and relaxed. This is the same as constantly walking with clenched fists. Blood and energy stagnate and over time problems begin. A very simple bodywork practice can be done before bed. You need to lie down comfortably and begin to slide your attention over your body, find areas of tension and consciously relax them. If the tension is very strong, then you can breathe it out, imagining how you fill this area with light with your breath. This promotes good sleep and health.

By improving in the practice of mindfulness, you can reach a new level of life. When you become aware of your body and its sensations, you understand that you are not the body. When you become aware of your thoughts, you realize that you are not thoughts. When you realize your feelings, you understand that you are not feelings. When you consciously relate to desires, you begin to distinguish the true desires of the Soul from those imposed by society. When you enter the observer state and begin to live in the present, then you become the master of your life, mind, body, thoughts and feelings.

Conscious thinking is a continuous process of monitoring current experiences, i.e. everything that happens in the present time, without being distracted by thoughts about the past or future.

The conscious process of thinking helps a person to find connections between all the events that have happened and are ongoing, to understand the meaning of life, to make an informed choice in a given situation, to make fewer mistakes, to be attentive, etc.

The development of awareness always relates to the specific situation in which a person finds himself, to the activity in which he is involved. There is no one specific way to develop awareness, because this process has its own levels.

The development of basic level awareness is facilitated by any practical actions, by performing which you can learn to control your emotions, be in the “here and now” state, be able to relax, and be aware of your desires and needs.

A higher level of development of awareness is manifested when a person knows his needs, knows how to satisfy them and at the same time takes into account the interests of others, controls not only his emotions, but also his thoughts and feelings, tries to expand the boundaries of his perception, tune in to a positive perception of the world around him.

A conscious lifestyle helps a person:

Realize your fears and causes of troubles, overcome obstacles and change beliefs that have a destructive impact on life.
Become wiser, increase your self-esteem and get rid of bad habits.
Gain confidence in yourself and your abilities, increase willpower and faith in success.
Learn to live in harmony with yourself and the world around you.

Of course, developing awareness in everyday life is an extremely useful and effective skill, the beneficial effects of which are reflected not only in changing the quality of external life, but also in the development and enrichment of the inner world. But what does it take to make your life conscious? How to understand your life?

Developing Awareness

Determine where you should start working on yourself. Take your time and don't grab everything at once. The development of awareness can be compared to the process of developing physical qualities: gradual development where the main direction is general physical training, and there is the development of special physical skills. The main focus here will be the development of conscious thinking.

Mindfulness Practice

The first step to living a conscious life is breathing. Breathing is the basis of life and first you need to learn to be aware of your breathing, controlling every inhalation and exhalation. Strive to constantly control your breathing: anywhere, at any time, in communication with any people, while performing any action. Always pay attention to how you breathe.

Conscious sensations. Make it a habit to be aware of all your sensations throughout the day. Consciously pay attention to the state of your body, what makes your body feel comfortable and what makes it uncomfortable, how this is interconnected with the events occurring during the day.

Conscious emotions. Mindfulness implies control of emotion, and control is primarily observation. Every time you have this or that emotion, just observe. Don’t evaluate it as either good or bad, look at it as if from the outside. Accept her as she is.

Conscious thoughts. Our consciousness constantly conducts an internal dialogue. Therefore, thoughts are the most difficult to observe, but they are the most effective part of mindfulness practice.

If for a few seconds you can simply control what you are thinking about at that moment, you will not notice how deeply you are already immersed in new thoughts. But the more often you remember your thoughts, the more they will be amenable to your observation and control.

The basis for developing mindfulness lies in four conscious actions:

Practice awareness of your breathing, emotions, sensations and thoughts for a month. Consciously observing how you breathe and what you feel is a rather complex process. Most likely, at first you will be distracted all the time and forget about it.

But over time, it will become easier and easier for you to control these processes. Then you won’t even notice how observation of all your manifestations and condition will become part of your life, which means you will be conscious all the time.

Practice developing awareness of specific skills

Awareness of movement– try to feel any of your movements, watch the sensations in your body, take your time in actions. If you are used to doing something quickly or mechanically, now do the opposite, trying to become aware of even any muscle contraction.

Mindfulness of speech– carefully monitor everything that others say and what you say yourself, think about your words and be attentive.

Awareness of values helps you define your ideals, values and beliefs.

To develop awareness of reality try always and everywhere to strive for a full perception and understanding of what is happening around and inside you right “here and now.”

Awareness of activity– strive for flawless execution of everything you undertake. Then it will be easier for you to work on developing awareness of your actions.

Before you commit any action, think over the result, consider it from different points of view and positions of perception, take into account not only your desires and needs, but also the interests of others.

Conscious thinking

Eventually you will come to what can be called conscious thinking. Constant observation of yourself, self-development, changing all your stereotypes, habits, reactions, emotions, thoughts, feelings, desires, actions, speech will give you the joy of a conscious life.

There are few people these days who haven't heard or read about mindfulness. They talk a lot about this, write and send wise phrases to each other on social networks. And it would seem that everyone has long understood everything on this topic. The same is true with types of thinking. We know that positive thinking makes us and the whole world around us beautiful, and negative thinking destroys us. However, it's not that simple. It turns out that knowing and understanding are two different things! These topics are already very familiar to us, and it seems that everything is very simple, and we rarely try to think about what is behind it.

For many, positive thinking, for example, is something like self-hypnosis: “Everything is great, I’m very successful, I won’t think about the bad, I’m happy with everything in my life,” and so on in the same spirit. Negativity, on the contrary, is perceived as a stream of complaints. Often this is where all explanations end. Awareness for us is something like this: “Be here and now, and then everything will immediately fall into place.” Unfortunately, these are very superficial ideas, and I will explain why.

Real understanding of any practice, and awareness and development of a positive worldview is precisely practice, is characterized by the fact that we are able to apply it and apply it in our lives. If we don’t apply it, it means we haven’t fully understood it. So what do you need to know about mindfulness to understand how it works?

First of all, let's conduct an experiment to see how aware we can be right now. Try this: pick up your watch and, while watching the minute hand, try to maintain a sense of yourself and focus on the thought: “I am so-and-so (your name), and at the moment I am here.” Just think about this, follow the arrow, continuing to be aware of who you are, what your name is and the place where you are. Perform for 2-3 minutes. The exercise seems ridiculously simple, but try to do it conscientiously and you may discover that it is not so easy to do without distraction. We may find that for even such a short period of time, our mind is not able to fully concentrate. And if we observe ourselves in everyday life, we will see that we often think, act, feel and speak automatically.

Our level of awareness is constantly changing. People, according to experts who have devoted their lives to the study of human awareness and spiritual transformation, can have four different states of consciousness. However, an ordinary person who does not carry out any work in this direction is predominantly in the two lower states, and does not have access to the two higher ones, due to the ingrained habit of his usual state. Only sometimes bright flashes of higher consciousness are available to him, but he is not able to hold them, because he does not know what to do for this.

What are these four states?

The first state is our usual night sleep, in which we spend a third, or even half of our lives. The body is motionless, and consciousness is at this moment in its lowest state, we do not remember ourselves and are not aware of ourselves. Some people have lucid dreams, but this is not the case for most.
The second state is the one in which people spend the rest of their time, considering it active and calling it “awake” or even “clear consciousness”. But in fact, it’s easy to see that this is not the case and that basically we are not very aware of ourselves, but often behave according to the stimulus-response principle.
The third state is the result of working on oneself and is called self-remembering, or awareness of one’s being. Most believe that they already have this state or can be in it at will. But a simple example of struggling with some bad habit, how it is not easy, how we put off many important things for later, speak in a fit of anger or resentment, and then regret it, tells us the opposite.
And the fourth state of consciousness is called “objective consciousness.” This is what is called "enlightenment", that is, the ability to see oneself and the world as they are. Most religions and ancient teachings set this state as their highest goal, which is achieved through long and intensive work on oneself.

Most people are “sleeping” and are not aware of their actions, thoughts, words, and what this lifestyle is leading them to. This is the only reason why such things as bloody wars, hatred, nationalism, pollution of the environment in which we live, suicidal habits, senseless consumerism, and many other trends that are incompatible with common sense are possible. And if the fourth state of awareness is available only to those who completely devote their entire lives to it, then the third state is what we can achieve and what we should have already now. But due to the wrong way of life, this state in us is extremely unstable.

Ask yourself how easily you control your body, how easily do you control your emotions, especially in a stressful situation, how easily do you control your thoughts? The more you can do this, the greater your ability to become aware of yourself. If you have a desire to somehow move forward in this direction, then, as you probably already guess, you will need to work at all levels. That is, physically, emotionally and mentally.

It is impossible to describe all types of practices in this article, so for a more detailed study I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the works of those people who have achieved success in this, but I would like to offer some of them as exercises in mindfulness.

So, at the level of the body, these can be any actions that are unusual for it, since the usual ones have long become automatic and put us into sleep. Try for example the following:

Whatever you normally do with your right hand, do with your left.
In your home, walk from one room to another with your eyes closed or backwards.
Master dance movements of different styles, folk dances are especially good.
Try martial arts, yoga, especially balance asanas.
Learn to completely, one by one, consciously relax all parts of the body (shavasana and yoga nidra are good for this). And try to make sure that in everyday life you only strain those muscles that are currently involved. When writing, do not strain the muscles of your face, neck, or shoulders. You hammer in You hammer in a nail - you don’t need to strike with your whole body, spend on it only that part of the force that you need.
Experiment with established motor habits: try changing your gait - walk faster or slower than usual; don’t sit cross-legged if that’s what you’re used to; eat food mindfully, without being distracted by conversations and gadgets.

On an emotional level, practice not expressing negative emotions without any reason. It's about observing yourself at the moment when such an emotion appears, and trying to do something about it. Don’t suppress it, because it won’t lead to anything; it will definitely pop up later, namely, find a reason not to express such an emotion.

What emotions can be considered negative? These are rude, overwhelming and destructive manifestations. Irritability, anger, fear, despondency, self-pity, hatred, envy, jealousy and the like. Emotions often arise very quickly, so in order not to give in to them, you need to prepare yourself in advance. Think about how justified their presence is for us, whether they bring us benefit, give us health, a surge of strength, or, on the contrary, destroy us. Some are proud of their explosive temperament or consider a tendency toward depression to be a beautiful sign of a refined nature. These are all facets of the acquired worldview, which would be good to reconsider and find out whether this is really so.

It will be very useful to check everything from your own experience, as Jnana yoga (the path of wisdom) recommends. Try not to allow yourself, for example, to become depressed or grumble about the weather, the situation in the country, the state of the economy, and see in which case you feel better. Will it take away your strength or add it?

Working with negative emotions at the highest level involves their transformation into positive ones. This is a special skill and is not given immediately. The practice of Ishvarapranidhana, or dedicating everything to God or the Supreme, is an effective way to achieve serenity and conscious complacency. If I devote all my actions, thoughts, feelings to the Supreme, this means that I trust him. And if I trust him, then I have no reason to experience negative emotions. Everything happens as it should. This is an example of how worldview can influence our external manifestations.

And finally, work with thinking! Awareness at this level will manifest itself in the choice of a positive or negative way of thinking, the ability to control internal dialogue, not dwell on thoughts in the past or in anticipation of a better future, and training to be in the present.

What exercises can be used here? Again, there are a lot of them, but I’ll give you some of them:

Try to immerse yourself mentally in every action you do. Ask yourself, how can I do this even better? Why am I doing this? What will this lead to? Will this be useful or harmful to someone?
Stop mental dialogue about anything if possible, especially if it is grinding out past grievances, missed opportunities or fruitless dreams. Meditation with concentration on breathing is good for this. Just watch your breathing, slightly stretching your inhalation and exhalation, and do not pay attention to the thoughts that come. Also, just try to notice such moments of internal dialogue and interrupt when you catch yourself doing it.
Try to say and feel “I am” every hour (minute by minute) throughout the day. Try not to miss the right moment. Then examine how many times you managed to remember and do this short practice on time.
Examine your negative beliefs and replace them with positive ones whenever possible. Look at what, for example, a thought such as “I never succeed in anything” leads to. Does it inspire you to do something or does it justify doing nothing? Keep track of “other people’s” assessments of you, how much you need it and how much it helps you live a good life.

By studying ourselves and the content of our main thoughts, we will come to the conclusion that both positive and negative thinking are rooted in one or another view of the world. It is enough to shift your focus in one direction or another, and the picture completely changes.

Compare “The whole world is just soulless matter that has no Creator, objective purpose and meaning. Life is simply a physical process where the fittest survive. With death everything ends, which means you need to take as much pleasure from life as possible. After me there might be a flood." And “The entire universe is a rational being, spiritualized and cherished by the Supreme Spirit. All living things and all people are connected to each other, since everyone is a piece of the Higher Consciousness. If I become better, kinder, cleaner, then everything around me changes and blossoms. I will never harm anyone, neither in thought, nor in deed, nor in word, because everything is a reflection of myself, and I do not want harm to myself. Everything happens in accordance with the Higher Will, so nothing can happen to me that would not benefit me and from which I cannot learn something.”

In which case will a person feel happier and more peaceful, capable of great achievements, in the first or in the second? How will each of these beliefs affect the world around us? Which one is more conducive to the manifestation of awareness in us? As my favorite character from the movie Mahabharata says: “Think about it”!

Consciousness cannot directly analyze the thinking process. But what happens in itself, including during thinking, consciousness can analyze. To my awareness, the process of conscious thinking appears as follows.

The leading consciousness, in charge of speech and logical thinking (hereinafter referred to as “awareness”) asks itself (its brain) a question and waits, the person thinks. What is happening at this time - awareness does not know.

After some time, the answer appears in awareness in the form of a thought (if the result of the brain’s work does not reach awareness, then there is no thought).
Consciousness evaluates this answer, if the answer does not suit it, it asks the next question, etc.

Or the answer comes that there is not enough data to solve the problem, and the person suddenly understands, “realizes” that he does not have enough knowledge (or capabilities) to answer this question. And the solution to the problem is postponed for an indefinite period of time.

Thus, the ROLE OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE THOUGHT PROCESS IS GUIDING AND EVALUATING, EXPERT. If consciousness is an expert, it means that it thinks, analyzes, but differently than the part of the brain whose work it evaluates. We can say that awareness is the operator of the computing center (cerebral cortex).

Obviously, awareness neurons work on a DIFFERENT PRINCIPLE than neurons in the cerebral cortex (since doing the same work twice is pointless). For example, according to the “like it - don’t like it” type.

I like what suits the requirement best. What fits is suitable, and this can be determined by overlaying it on a finished sample or by butting it together. But evaluation by superimposing on a ready-made sample (“standard”), which was once determined by trial and error, is the work of instincts, where the “like-dislike” principle is also used (for example, searching for food, avoiding danger). Probably, checking with awareness of a ready-made thought also occurs according to this principle.

This process can take varying amounts of time. But ready-made thoughts that come to consciousness, NO MATTER THE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION THEY CONTAIN, arise so quickly that a feeling of instantaneity is created.

The movement of proteins, ions and mediators is relatively slow; it is doubtful that it causes a feeling of instantaneousness with any large amount of information. Only the occurrence of a potential difference on the membranes of neurons, and the electromagnetic wave accompanying this process, can be instantaneous.

But if ready-made thoughts came to consciousness through electromagnetic radiation, then with separate hemispheres, one half of the brain would know what the other was thinking. But this is not the case.

This can be schematically represented as follows. For example, when consciousness asks itself a question, a potential difference arises on the membranes of its neurons, and the calculating neurons of the cortex receive an impulse that forces them to work. And when the answer is ready, a response impulse comes and the potential difference disappears. Consciousness senses this as an instantaneous arrival of a thought. And if the potential difference disappears completely, he feels relief and joy (the answer is - I like it). If the answer is incorrect, the potential difference does not disappear (the answer is “I don’t like it”).

Or if the answer is logically correct, but in general it is not, the potential difference disappears only in one of the consciousnesses, for example, the logically thinking one. The man is happy. But something inside him - the SECOND CONSCIOUSNESS - feels that something is wrong in this answer, it does not know what exactly, but the second consciousness clearly does not like the answer.

Then the logically thinking consciousness clarifies the task, the ions on its membranes are rearranged differently, and again an impulse goes to the calculating cells, forcing them to look for the correct answer. This whole process requires a lot of energy, the consciousness feels tired, the solution to the problem is postponed, the task to the brain is canceled, the potential difference disappears.

Or, with a strong desire to solve a problem, a feeling of dissatisfaction and even suffering, the energy of these emotions at the “subconscious” level forces the cells of the cortex to continue to search for an answer even when awareness is resting (sleeping). And in the morning (or at night, if the question is extremely important) it gives him the answer.

But THOUGHTS APPEAR in awareness not in the form of words, but in the form of an instant wordless concept, i.e. IN THE FORM OF CODE. This INTERNAL code is the same for all nations, in contrast to the external code - words. And when communicating, this code is the same as the code of animals. It is thanks to this internal code that animals understand us quite well (telepathically).

In order to convey your thought to other people, it must be formalized in the form of an EXTERNAL code - expressed in words (or other signs). If a thought is not expressed accurately and clearly enough, a person may not be understood or misunderstood. Expressing a thought-concept in words as accurately as possible is not always easy, and often quite difficult, and it takes time and energy.

UNCONSCIOUS THINKING

Human unconscious thinking is similar to that of all animals, but naturally at a higher level. Here the role of awareness is only in the feeling of desire to achieve a goal. Everything that is needed is calculated by the brain at the request of awareness, but without its participation. In such cases, the brain communicates its conclusion to awareness in the form of “intuitive” advice (without logical explanation), a sensation, or an emotion. The above example of "automatically" going down a cliff demonstrates unconscious thinking.

Another famous example. When a person wants to cross the street, he stops, looks in one direction, then another, sees a car, immediately understands that it is far away, and he will have time to calmly cross the street. Or he realizes that the car is going too fast, and with his poor health he will not be able to reach the required speed to cross the road in time.

What happens? In a second, the brain calculates the distance to the other side of the street, the distance to the nearest car, its speed, the possible speed of its body and the need to cross right here and now. Consciousness knows nothing about these calculations, they are not conscious, only one thought appeared in it, which the brain gave it: stand, walk or run.

Many everyday issues are resolved at the level of unconscious thinking. One might say, everything that does not require conscious thinking. Solving everything at the level of conscious thinking is difficult, time-consuming and irrational. Unnecessary waste of energy. Awareness receives a ready-made assessment or recommendation for action, which is easily accepted on faith and easily obeyed (as in the automatic descent from a cliff described above). And indeed, there is no reason for doubt in these cases; unconscious thinking is based on direct knowledge.

Sometimes in life you may feel that you are systematically bumping into the same obstacle, overcoming which deprives you of strength and energy. Problems and difficult situations look like clones, and you cannot break out of a persistent vicious circle. Try to destroy this destructive pattern and start improving your own life. And this should not be a desire for material wealth, but rather a desire for freedom (emotional and physical). Look for sensations, not things.

One of the most important things you begin to realize once you start down the path of change is the realization that you have the power to make your life better. Right now, at this very moment. Not with more money, a new house, car or a better figure, but with a change in thinking. You begin to see that no matter what happens on the outside, you can choose what you think and feel on the inside, and when we appreciate the power of that self-awareness, we can dramatically change not only our day, but our future.

You probably know the phrase “getting out of bed on the wrong foot”? If you believe in it, then you will spend your entire day feeling like an unhappy and unlucky person for whom everything is falling out of hand. Who's to blame? But it all started with a thought directing actions that brought the wrong results. Being able to be self-aware is a powerful way to give direction to your actions, resulting in happiness and success.

Use these five tips to become more self-aware. This power can help you achieve more personally, professionally and emotionally.

1. Stop underestimating yourself and feeling like a victim.

Many people sin with this attitude towards themselves. Have you noticed how you are confident around some people, but around others you feel like a loser or a profane? Pay attention to these feelings. It is now your responsibility to change the way you perceive people and how you feel around them. You may doubt whether people are your friends, and this affects your choices of actions and level of trust. You may have had strict parents and teachers who instilled fear in you. Just become aware of your feelings that have been “living” with you for a very long time.

2. Respect, accept and value yourself

If you don't respect and value yourself, how can you get what will make you happy and self-sufficient? That's right: by not perceiving yourself as an individual and not understanding your own emotional and intellectual potential, you deprive yourself of the chances of progress.

3. Realize your own worth

Even if you learn to respect, accept and value yourself, you may still find that you have some kind of emotionally negative “hooks” towards yourself. Now you need to learn to hear and listen to your personal value in order to know yourself even more and do only what is truly important to you. If you overcome your negative way of thinking, you will win in life. Explore on a subconscious level what is valuable to you and how valuable you are.

4. Reframe your negative thoughts

Once you have learned to accept yourself and understand your worth, you may still find that negativity noticeably impacts your ability to be self-aware. When you habitually do not have particularly high self-esteem, it is difficult to analyze the stream of thoughts swarming in your head. Now your task is to engage in their global restructuring. Listen carefully to your negative thoughts, beliefs and feelings. Don't try to change them, just acknowledge them. What's next? You will learn to recognize them and snatch them from the general flow, and then transform them into positive ones.

5. Engage in more active self-development

So, we know that mindset influences our success, but most of the time we use this tool at a very superficial level. While any level is better than nothing, it's still worth exploring this science a little deeper and becoming more self-aware. Expecting results by reading motivational affirmations is clearly not enough. Yes, with the help of conscious thinking you can achieve true happiness, creativity and success, but all this must be supported by active actions.