Self-Awareness: Life Is a Hero's Journey -- By Valencia Ray, MD

We human beings love stories. One of the all-time favorite themes is 'The Hero's Journey'. Adventure stories and lessons from fairy tales were, and still are, at the top of my list of favorite movies, books, and conversations. This is why movies like "The Hobbit," "Lord of the Rings," and even more contemporary movie settings in the 'adventure' genre are so popular. Too often we only live vicariously through the movies and lives of others. We see this journey in others, yet remain blind to our own personal hero or 'shero' journey.

A facet of self-awareness is recognizing that we are all on this journey. Our lives are an adventure of self-discovery, other-discovery, and life-on-earth discovery. This includes the work we do in the world. Do you perceive your work as a hardship or a place to uncover your true potential? Do you see it as stressful or simply a challenge to expand your vision for your life? How you perceive yourself and your experience will determine how you respond to it-to your life.

We are all a hero on a journey, and our journey defines our message. Take notes along the way so you can then share your lessons.

I see a lot of unhappiness coming across the airways. I hear messages about what's wrong with us. There are an awful lot of people at the office, as well as generally, scrambling to 'fix' themselves in some way, shape, or form. Here's a novel thought: do you ever think about the fact that you are simply on a Hero/Shero Journey?

Just pretend for a moment; use your imagination. What would your attitude be if you saw challenge as an opportunity to grow your mind, your heart, and your will? What if you focused on what you have learned and live in a state of gratitude instead of fear? Courage is overcoming this fear in our minds, which is where it begins and can end.

Unless a wild animal is chasing you or you are really in a state of threat from external aggression, stress and misery are generally self-inflicted. We have not realized the power of our own mind. Hence, most people are not very self-aware at all. In fact, research reveals that 95% of what is running the vast majority of people's lives is out of their conscious awareness. We can now change this. We can learn how to optimally operate our amazing brain. It is much easier now than even a decade ago. And we have incentive to do it.

We need to rise to the occasion at the office and at home. Our creativity and constructive influence depends on this self-awareness. Our leadership skills and relationships depend on it. Even our health depends on it. And so does our future.

Here are 5 tips for facing and embracing your own hero's journey to reaching more of your own true potential. This is what our journey is really all about: unfolding who you really are at your core, that place of gold and greatness within you waiting to be expressed. Personal growth and expansion happen through experience and in relationship to others, not sitting locked away on a mountaintop.

#1. Muster up your Courage. A hero or 'shero' must have courage to slay the so-called monsters in their path. You will be uncomfortable. Pack up and go home if you think you won't be challenged.

#2. Get a Clear Vision. Where do you want to go? Your brain and mind need a clear target or else you will wanderer through the forest of life, stumbling and lost. You will be an easy target for distraction for other people's agendas.

#3. Be Willing to Ask Questions. Ask the Universe questions like, "Why, How and When?" Timing can be everything, so be patient. Patience is power. And taking action takes courage. You need persistence and passion, patience and perseverance. Stop thinking you already have all the answers. Retrain your brain to act more wisely.

#4. Be Willing to Make Mistakes. Fear of making mistakes is way overrated and is a big example of lack of self-awareness. Mistakes are just about learning. The sooner leaders and society get this, the sooner we can embrace change and growth. Denial (in this case pronounced 'Da Nile') can then just be a river in Africa instead something that floods and drowns out your gifts and true talents. Lighten up!

#5. Celebrate your Successes. Pause and give yourself a pat on the back instead of berating yourself to go do more - and more and more. It's a hollow victory if you can't slow down to savor and enjoy the fruit of your efforts.

Life truly is a journey. There is no destination. I have consciously lived through several-and am in the midst of yet another-hero journeys. I've become comfortable with change. I'm stronger, happier, and wiser. I'm more confident and peaceful because I reached for self-awareness. I accept myself and love and like who I am now, not 'when I get there'.

Self-awareness is true power, not that wimpy bully fake stuff that is pushed off as power over others. It takes courage to own your power - the power of your own mind. Know who you are. Be YOU, Magnificently! Enjoy your journey.

Valencia Ray, M.D. teaches business owners and corporate leaders how their amazing brain can actually hijack personal power -- not in the abstract, but in the context of integrating business and personal life. Dr. Ray, a board-certified eye surgeon and medical business owner for over 20 years before selling her practice, shares her own life changing process. By sharing her story, she helps others to expand their vision and learn that by living with purpose and confidence, it is possible to have a more integrated, healthier lifestyle - with less struggle, more inner peace and more abundance.

For more information and to contact her regarding dynamic, inspirational keynotes, trainings in collaborative leadership and team building, entrepreneurship and coaching programs, visit her website at http://www.ValenciaRay.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Valencia_Ray,_MD

An Article on Self Awareness -- By Henry M. Piironen

  When one neuron in our brains has the capacity to produce thousand connections with other neurons, the amount of possible connections is more than the universe has atoms. As you can imagine, in this complexity the self-awareness cannot be too simplistic to be expressed as being composed of only one factor, but from many.

   1. What is self-awareness? Self-awareness is commonly seen as something that is separate from the thoughts that emerge to our mind. It has also been considered as the area where we are aware of our own existence. And, when the content of our awareness is the substance of our conscious existence, we cannot separate thought, emotion, reason, or innate instincts from the domain of our self-awareness. It is also the area of our being where we reflect the set of our personal beliefs of existence. After our births, we gain these beliefs from the modern content of this realm, and yet, these beliefs can originate from thousands of years from the past. You can reflect your self with the standards of the society, or expectations you have created for you. The self-awareness is also characterized as the experience of our continual being in constantly exceeding present time. In essence, the transient experiences of our self and the experiences we go through.

  2. What is representational self-awareness? We have the tendency to reflect our own being with such representations as what we consider as heroic or what we admire. It is useful to identify self with good characteristics when we are still growing, since they are then more probable to grow into us. Howard Bloom, for instance, who has been compared with Einstein, Newton, Hawkins, and Buckminster Fuller, said that one of the reasons for his genius is in that he held various intellectual giants as his role models. This caused him to mirror, or in his words, to ape their behavior as he considered them as the A-packs. These reflections can however cause anxiety because the person identifies himself or herself with negative self-reflections. And it is only natural, since one is seeing images that are far from being pleasant. They can be hypochondriac in content, caused by all the millions of details of psychological well-being taught to an individual by the media. And if such a state becomes chronic, it is learned behavior, from which one must relearn away. We can also be self-aware in fantasized content and live through fantasized roles in life. We can identify our self with fantasized beings, or identify our self with the fantasized character that has existence only in our own domain, similar to dreaming. The representational self-awareness is what we reflect our own self in the content of representations.

   3. What is emotional self-awareness? There is not a moment when you would not feel any emotion. They appear also in such forms as instinctively sensing that something is good, or there is something wrong. They appear in the form of needs we often base our choices. Being self-aware of emotions intensifies the experience of them. In contrast, if we are in the state when time seems to pass rapidly, focused for example to writing, we are less self-aware of our emotions as our attention is directed elsewhere. The emotions tell us when everything runs smoothly as they should. We experience that we are conflicted with something, causing us to settle or solve matters between others. Emotions and instincts are also something we should trust our choices with, despite the modern tendency to say the rational decisions are the best decisions. The rational decisions have their time and place, but the capacity of the subconscious can be compared with a standard late 20th century computer and a modern supercomputer in processing capacity. Being too self-aware of one's own emotions can also intensify the negative emotions, causing a cycle of intensifying anxiety, leading to anxiety attacks.

   4. What is semantic self-awareness? Semantic can be defined in simple terms as a meaning of something. We can become self-aware of what we are by giving ourselves a variety of different meanings. They depend on the circumstances, actions we have taken, or when we are expressing ourselves with language or intuitively understanding different meanings of what we are through reflections. In both, positive and negative content. We also gain semantic self-awareness from the opinions of others about ourselves again in both, positive and negative.

  5 . What is a physiological self-awareness? Focus your attention to the middle of your right arm, and sense what you feel from it. That is what physiological self-awareness is all about, how we sense our physiology in all its extent. Various relaxation records use this in that they make people self-aware of various parts of the body, and speak on how it begins to relax, thus using suggestion. This may result in effect, if not resisted consciously, to the spoken area to begin to relax. Coordination of the body is based on similar control we have over our body.

  We can increase this capacity by exercising yoga, martial arts, survival training, dancing or for instance different sexual techniques in adult life.

   Henry M. Piironen is the author of "The Power of Transiency (How Thoughts Can Harness the Power of Life, the Universe and Everything)." To purchase this definitive book, visit Amazon Kindle Store now! Already read it? To purchase his other books, click here. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Henry_M._Piironen Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3957956