Infographic: Awareness Works Practices

This infographic shows the relationships between the three life-areas I discuss in my book: Core Works, Personal Works, and Body Works and the Practices connected to each area. I've included brief descriptions of the Practices to give a sense of what each entails. If you have questions about any of the Practices simply post a comment below. 

The Holistic Vision of Health

One thing becomes apparent as you look at the many health concerns present in today’s society: two different visions of health exist, and they constantly conflict. A couple of recent examples illustrate this ongoing struggle:

• The Food and Drug Administration denied a petition to ban BPA from all plastics (interestingly several major food manufacturers, such as Coca-Cola, are responding to the pressure by phasing out BPA in their products): FDA denies petition to ban bisphenol A - Los Angeles Times.
• There has been a public backlash against ‘pink slime’, a nickname for beef products derived from the unwanted leftovers of cows. Producers extract this meat through a centrifuge, and then treat it with Ammonium Sulfide to remove contaminants: Pink slime - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Not surprisingly, you can note that both of these controversial products have been widely distributed, and are present in many foods and food containers. Only now, after the general population has used and/or consumed these items for years, has the health risks associated with these come to light (though European countries’ scientists recognized these problems years ago, as both of these items have been banned in many countries).  What world view so dominates our society that these items get introduced into our world first, and then only later does there appear a reaction against their negative health effects?

This world view can be best termed ‘mechanistic’, where people and the world around them consist of distinct ‘parts’ that we can change as we desire. In this vision of life, rationality and scientific achievements reign supreme (with humanity being the pinnacle of all creation). The material world exists to be controlled and manipulated by us for our purposes. As scientists tirelessly work to master nature, they confidently launch their latest inventions into our environment (for example, genetically modified organisms, or the newest birth control device), not understanding or anticipating the full consequences of such actions.

In contrast to this, a holistic world view holds that we participate in a vast web of life, contained both within our bodies (scientists have recently estimated that as many as 10,000 varieties of bacteria reside in our bodies) as well as externally on our ‘Mother’ Earth.  Since we exist within this unimaginably mysterious and complex eco-system, we must recognize the limits of our knowledge and try to live in tune with our world.  We must move cautiously and deliberately before we bring ‘advancements’ into our world, considering such essential things like sustainability and environmental impact.

Awareness opens up an important channel for us to begin to bring ourselves into alignment with nature, both within and without. Through awareness we can learn to tune into the messages of our own bodies, learning how to support our bodies’ intelligence to promote health and wellness. As we use awareness to observe our outer world, we can begin to inquire into how we choose to live, becoming sensitive and open to the life that surrounds and envelops us.

A great book on Awareness and Well-being

In Awareness Works I discuss our observing awareness (the ever present ‘I’) that witnesses our bodies, minds and the world around us. I put forth the idea that becoming grounded in this awareness can bring with it a sense of peace and wholeness, in other words a state of enduring well-being.  This well-being can occur regardless of your circumstances, or the state of your body and mind (an important consideration given the fact we ultimately can’t control any of the above).  As an obvious example, even if we spend endless amounts of time on our health this still won’t prevent our bodies from falling apart as we age.

While my terms describing our ‘core’ as awareness may be unfamiliar to some of you, I have tried to distill the essence of what I have seen and read and experienced over the past forty years. Certainly, over millennia many have taught that becoming established in our ‘essence’ (beyond our limited minds and bodies) brings wholeness and well-being. One of the most recent examples of this comes from a German Canadian named Eckert Tolle. His book, The Power of Now has been one of the most popular books in recent years on this subject.  He presents this message in a clear and easy to read way.  Don’t be put off (not everyone would be) by the term ‘spiritual enlightenment’, which for many of us can seem to be fairly exotic or abstract.  As you read the book you can see he’s just talking about examining life as it presents itself to us, and where this inquiry may lead us.

Eckert Tolle’s ‘power of now’ comes from arriving at a space of presence, of awareness, to bring about psychological freedom. He expresses this journey of inquiry in a beautiful, assessable way that I hope you will find helpful. I’ve enjoyed reading his work, and if you’re interested in understanding or working on more on the ‘core’ work of cultivating awareness, then I highly recommend his book. 

Question Authority

In an earlier blog I reviewed the controversial decision by the American Psychiatric Society to categorize normal grief as an illness in the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders- 5th edition (the DSM-5). In that discussion, I challenged their idea that this everyday psychological process should be classified as a disease (due to public outcry since I wrote the blog, the DSM-5 dropped grief as an illness). Now another one of their dubious determinations has come to light in a Time web-article where these psychiatrists have discarded the old DSM-4 categories of substance abuse and dependence, replacing them with mild, moderate and extreme addiction.

I highlighted the term of ‘addiction’ as labels can be very powerful, and I can’t understand what was going through these committee members’ minds as they made this decision. Surely they must have known it would be hard to find a more pejorative term for alcohol or other drug problems than that of being called an ‘addict’. Additionally, as the Time article rightly points out, this new categorizing of alcohol (and other substances’) use results in about 40% of college students being labeled as ‘addicts’! Undoubtedly resulting from this classification millions more in the general public have also joined the ‘addicts’ ranks. How absurd! Even more significantly, all of this ‘scholarly and expert’ opinion occurs in a decidedly ethnocentric way. If you look at how the rest of the world approaches alcohol and other drug problems, only the US treats these problems as a disease/and or crime (jailing vast numbers of primarily minorities for drug related ‘offenses’). This is no small matter, as people accept these ideas and labels as the truth and then act accordingly. Perhaps soon, we’ll see headlines decrying the rise of addiction in our public schools. Don’t be surprised!

But when I reflect on the ‘addict’ question, it also seems to represent a larger matter. With regard to the DSM-5 committee’s decision on alcohol and substance use (the group contains MDs and PhDs), their scientific, rational and objective conclusions contain many implicit cultural suppositions. This rings true for other ‘experts’ as well, whether they are medical, political, or financial: they often tell us how to think and what to believe. In response to this I recall a bumper sticker which simply stated: ‘Question Authority’. We have a choice as to whether or not we accept these outside experts’ opinions and proclamations. We can question their authority, coming to our own conclusions on how to live. Of course, after reflection, some experts can offer us useful information, but we decide what to do with this. Awareness assists us in this journey towards personal self-determination, by giving us a tool with which to examine our own and societal assumptions and conditioning. It gives us the space to observe ourselves and society, so we don’t simply react unconsciously to whatever form of ‘propaganda’ that we get exposed to. This gives us more openness to deal with life’s problems, ultimately freeing us to decide who we want to be.

Going beyond the mind

I recently watched a documentary about American free solo (without ropes) climber Alex Honnold alone on the wall. This rather gangly and unassuming guy climbs the largest and steepest cliffs in the world with just his bare hands and a bag of chalk to keep his fingers dry. In this National Geographic film he soloes the 1000 foot ‘Moonlight Buttress’ in Arizona (a first), followed by the even more impressive first free solo ascent of the 2000 foot North West face of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. Besides the astonishing nature of these feats, his mental state during these gravity and death defying climbs clearly illustrates one of the premises of Awareness Works.


This idea asserts we seek a state of wholeness, of well-being in our lives, infused with peace and freedom, but this can only occur when we go beyond our limited mind to the present moment of awareness. When Alex Honnold climbs free solo he faces certain death if he makes even one small mistake. The sheer intensity of this threat has the effect of stilling his mind. When Alex climbs the North West face of Half Dome, he only really gets in trouble when his mind becomes active, full of fear and doubts. He has to completely stop climbing when this occurs, to take time to work through this, so he can get out of ‘my little prison’ (as he puts it). He can’t resume his climbing until he gets back to a place of ‘not thinking’. So how does Alex Honnold describe how he feels when he climbs, when he’s ‘in the zone’, beyond the ‘little prison’ of his mind?

He calls the experience ‘peaceful’, ‘mellow’ and ‘free’, words that don’t make sense when our typical reaction facing such extreme risk would be fear and terror. But for Alex, with his skill and athletic ability, pushing himself to these limits actually brings him to a state of pure awareness beyond his mind. When this happens he knows wholeness, he knows well-being. Rather than fame or fortune, rather than risk or adrenaline rushes, this experience of well-being draws him to free soloing. Fortunately for the rest of us who can’t scale enormous cliffs (maybe I could do a couple of chin-ups before losing my grip!), many other pathways exist that allow us to go beyond our minds to know well-being. These efforts (yes they do require ‘work’) form the ‘core’ of our path to wellness.

Awakening our bodies

It struck me that almost everyone I talk to mentions their struggles in maintaining their wellness nowadays. Most people do understand that the typical modern diet has significant health risks associated with it (as its’ high in fats, sugars and salt, amongst other issues), and that they need to exercise and reduce their stress . With varying levels of energy and awareness, they all try to have good health habits. Of course, younger people in general have more vitality, so they may get away with a poorer lifestyle for some time. However, for most of us, by the time we get into our thirties our bad habits start to catch up with us (or even overtake us!). We now begin to feel the effects of our unwise choices. Even more importantly, several significant health risks associated with a poor diet and lifestyle take decades to fully develop, most in ways we remain unaware of. For example, diabetes or heart disease may not be apparent in our lives until our forties or fifties, but by then sometimes irreparable damage has occurred.

A few years back one of my son’s friends filmed a documentary called "May I be Frank", which follows the course of a San Francisco man (Frank) healing himself through a raw food diet. He undergoes a radical transformation in his health as a result of this process. For many of us, the idea of a raw foods diet to heal ourselves seems pretty radical! But we’ve often gotten so far from a healthy lifestyle, at times we must take what appears to be drastic measures to return to health. Besides a raw foods diet, other approaches (such as fasting or a very low fat diet like Dean Ornishes) can also aid the body in its’ recovery from imbalance. These also take a lot of effort, as they require changes that put us at odds with mainstream society, but smaller incremental shifts (such as reducing eating junk food or red meats) may not be enough to bring about any meaningful improvement in health. As a personal example, I’ve always received a great deal of benefit from various types and periods of fasting, but it takes time and commitment to do this.

Equally as important, this film illustrates the ability of our bodies to heal given the opportunity. In Awareness Works, this marvelous healing energy is labeled as ‘the intelligence beyond the me’, recognizing that most of our bodily functions occur beyond our will or capacity to manage them. Frank became healthy because he lived in a way that supported this inner intelligence, allowing his body to return to balance and vitality. One of the benefits of these intensive healing programs involves the immediate feedback that we receive about the condition of our bodies. Initially, we may find ourselves feeling pretty terrible as we change our diet and lifestyle, but with some time we will soon find that our body ‘awakens’ with increased vitality, energy and ease. We just start to ‘feel’ much better! While some of these longer term lifestyle changes may prove challenging in our environment, we will have the daily reinforcement of a healthy body to remind us what direction to take. As we awaken the ‘intelligence beyond the me’ in each one of us, it can guide us on our path to wellness.

The Limits of Coping

I recently had a therapy session with a client who has a very long history of chronic illness. It amazes me how she has persevered to overcome many of the negative effects of her condition, skillfully adapting to limitations imposed by her disease. Yet in spite of all of her efforts, she has been too ill to keep her job, and certain symptoms can’t seem to be controlled. To her consternation and dismay, her medical condition now affects her quality of life. She struggles to cope with the realization that no matter how much she tries, she can’t overcome the effects of her disease. Even though my client has tremendous strength, resiliency and determination, she can’t plan, think or will her way around these circumstances. At times, she says she’s at her ‘wit’s end’ in dealing with her illness.

So the question arises as to what can we do when we come to our ‘wit’s end’? What can we do when we come to the limits of our mental and emotional resources? The answer to this quandary comes not from our minds and personality, not through our attempts to control our life’s circumstances (which ultimately fail), but from an entirely different direction. This direction takes us inward, beyond our minds and emotions, towards a state of ‘well-being’ independent of our external circumstances. Through various awareness practices (such as meditation), we can begin to touch the core of our being as separate from our personality, finding (perhaps surprisingly if we’ve never tried to) a source of well-being within. Since sooner or later we will all find ourselves at our ‘wit’s end’, knowing another path to wellness can prove invaluable.