Listening to Self
3.1 Listening to Self as Awake, Aware, Conscious
To be awake, enlightened, and fully conscious is not the typical response most people provide to the question, “Who are you?” Yet, consciousness is an essential part of our human nature. Paraphrasing medical doctor and researcher Larry Dossey, “awakedness” is pure awareness, consciousness, part of the Big Self, the Great Spirit, the universal mind.[1] Dossey provides evidence from ancient and modern sources that we are more than our individual minds, that we are part of One Mind.[2] Our conscious awareness is beyond the limits of the body, personality, memory, beliefs, feelings, social roles, and genetics. A greater understanding of this awakened aware consciousness is essential to understanding what it means to listen to the self in the SONG of life.
Wheel of Self Awareness Listening Meditation
The importance and relevance of listening with our conscious awareness is illustrated by Daniel Siegel’s “Wheel of Awareness.”[3] The wheel is a method to link the different elements of the content of awareness into an integrated whole. The hub of the wheel represents what we can know within awareness. The spokes that go out from the center of the wheel represent our conscious focus of attention as represented by areas or sectors on the rim of the wheel. The sectors are divided into various “senses.” The five senses are the outer world, the sixth sense is the body, the seventh sense represents mental activity, and the eighth sense symbolizes relationships. Finally, awareness can “bend back” on itself, aware of the feeling of awareness.
Wheel of Awareness Practice
Allowing awareness to follow along the rim of Siegel’s wheel of awareness is a meditation in listening to the self. In the wheel of awareness meditation, each sector of the self on the rim is reflected on in turn. In this process of listening, the various aspects of self are integrated into a coherent whole. After completing the wheel of awareness meditation, Siegel recommends reflecting on additional questions for further understanding:
How did it [our awareness on any point of the wheel] first come into awareness? Does it come suddenly or gradually? . . . once it is in awareness, how does it stay there? Is it constant or vibrating, is it steady or intermittent? And then how does it leave awareness? Suddenly, or gradually, or . . . if it is not replaced by another mental activity, what does the space feel like between two mental activities . . . [4]
Practicing the wheel of awareness meditation, and reflecting on the post meditation questions, provides a deep engagement of listening to the self in the SONG of life.
Listening to Self with Open Focused Attention
Les Femi and Jim Robbins present another perspective of the self using the language of attention. Conscious awareness consists of attention, the contents of attention, and the witness of both.[5] When brain activity between attention and its contents is “out of phase,” self