How to Deepen Your Awareness in Mindfulness Meditation

"You grow in awareness
by becoming conscious
of what is unconscious
in mindfulness meditation.

You have been meditating for years
thinking your mind is still in meditation,
and then suddenly you see
you have been lost in your thinking the whole time
without even knowing it.

Because of our conditioning,
the tendency is to feel down about yourself,
to feel like this realization
that you have been unconscious for so long
means you have failed.

But the realization that you have been
caught up in thinking
for the last 20 years of mindfulness meditation
is a great realization.

Because it means suddenly
you are aware
of what you have not been aware of
for over 20 years.

You take a quantum leap
in awareness because of this.

Many people spend their time
trying to convince themselves
and others how great they are,
how aware they are.

It is not wrong,
we were taught to impress others.
It is ingrained in us to do so.

But in spending so much time
trying to create ourselves
to be a certain way,
we do not see what is actually here.

We have simply created
the idea of consciousness
on top of our unconsciousness.

For awareness to grow
you have to be willing
to observe without judgement.

To allow yourself to be honest
and vulnerable enough
to see what is unconscious.

It can be as simple as
closing your eyes
and watching your breath
and then becoming aware
of everything that takes you away
from your focus on your breath.

The moment you become aware
of the unconscious,
it becomes conscious.

It does not matter
what you see.

It is the seeing itself
that is important.
Blessings,
Kip"