We may have periods in our lives where we concentrate more on different parts of ourselves, on various components of wellness. In Awareness Works, I labeled these main areas as Core Works, Personal Works and Body Works. Though we of course ‘work’ on every part of ourselves every day, during certain periods in your life you may explore or concentrate more on one aspect of your life than others, improving your sense of wellness in a particular way. For my own life, as a late teen and early twenty-something, I spent many, many hours engaged in practices aimed at enhancing awareness. I stayed at retreat centers on and off for several years, cultivating awareness.
While not necessary for others to spend such extensive time in Core Works, this experience gave me knowledge of awareness as the core of human consciousness. This Core Works provided the foundation for the rest of my life work and direction, as knowing awareness as the essence of your ‘I’-ness changes your perspective on life. Thus Core Works has provided me with a foundation of well-being that has served me well throughout my life. Though sometimes I stray from this knowledge (as may be human nature-certainly it seems to be part of mine!), the core of awareness still runs through my life.
The next stage of my life engaged me more in the area of Personal Works, on a level attempting to integrate a deeper level of work than typical counseling. I obtained a counseling degree and for many years practiced privately and at agencies. I formed a private counseling practice with a very close friend of mine and for years we led groups and workshops together. I also did extensive counseling myself, as I view counseling as a very useful support for personal growth.
Personal Works sees personal growth as a healthy function of our ‘doings’ on our life journey. While there exists the danger of becoming defended and negative from life’s events (such as becoming cynical, bitter, depressed, angry, or fearful), this same circumstances, as challenging and as difficult as they may be, also offer us the opportunity to develop and mature as individuals.
By intentionally working with my own issues (as proactively as possible) my own counseling enhanced my abilities and insights as a counselor. My counseling partner Meg observed counseling others became more difficult and ineffective if we ourselves didn’t work with our own issues as they come up.
Personal Works over many years made me familiar with my life issues; to consciously act on these issues to develop myself as well as I can. This personal ‘work’ made me realize we’re a ‘work in process’. When I first started personal therapy many years ago, I naively hoped Personal Works would clear up all of my issues, or that some cathartic event would create some great seismic shift, removing some of my more painful limitations. However, these issues did not completely clear up, but I realized we move forward step by step with these, with awareness and compassion for ourselves. This movement, this forward process, enables us to experience improved wellness in our ‘personal’ lives with more openness, more vitality and more compassion for ourselves and others.
Finally, for the past decade I have concentrated more on Body Works, as I researched the reasons and causes of our current health crisis in the West. Ever since the age of 17, when I healed myself of my asthma through natural means and lifestyles (I did get guidance from others in this process), I appreciated the power of natural living. I realized the solution to many of our health problems lay within each of us, not in some miraculous medicine or vitamin. In getting my doctorate, I increased my knowledge of the factors influencing health behaviors, as well as the obstacles preventing us from living in a healthy way. I recognize the challenge we all face in this society to live a healthy lifestyle which brings with it a source of natural wellness for all of us. With Awareness Works, I want to share my knowledge of the ongoing journey to wellness we all travel, offering methods and approaches to encourage and enhance this.