Expanded Awareness (Part 2)

In my last post I went into more detail about Expanded Awareness, what it is and some of the many benefits to practicing Expanded Awareness, if you haven’t already read that post it’s here, I would recommend that you read it first.

Expanding Your Awareness

Expanding Awareness is not just something to be practiced in your meditation space or in the quiet of Nature; you can literally expand your awareness absolutely anywhere, be it in your meditation space, in the quiet of a local wood, in your local park or even as you walk down a busy city street.

It does take time to get to the point where you can slip into Expanded Awareness at will and anywhere, some people will find it relatively simple and straight forward, others will have to practice to get to this point.

How Do You Expand Your Awareness?

Expanded Awareness is a practice that has been around for over a millennia and longer. It has been incorporated into many spiritual practices as well as many different therapies; Expanded Awareness is a part of NLP, DBT and many other forms of therapy.

Because Expanded Awareness is most definitely not a new ‘thing’ there are any numbers of ways that you can expand your awareness, a simple internet search will bring up a host of methodologies.

The method that I am going to share with you is one that I was taught by Ben at ‘Into The Heart of Earth’. If you are interested in learning more about Expanding Awareness and developing a closer connection with Nature, as well as many other spiritual and Shamanic practices then I would recommend that you take a look at the courses Ben is running over the summer. I will be attending these courses so if you can make it then we can meet up.

This guided meditation is only a starting point; there are a number of other exercises that you can do which will develop even further your Expanded Awareness, however these other exercises require closer personal supervision, which is why I am recommended Ben’s courses.

To Begin With

I have included a link to a guided meditation at the end of this article to help with getting you started, but please read the rest of the post before jumping to the end.

Important Point 1

Expanding Awareness is best practiced with Nature, you could find a quite place in a local park if you don’t have access to a wood or the countryside, or even your back garden but to start with I would recommend that you listen to the guided meditation in your personal meditation space.

Important Point 2

Once you have downloaded the guided meditation transfer it to a device that you can plug external speakers into, you must NOT wear headphones when listening to this or practicing Expanding Awareness, the headphones will inhibit your awareness.

Important Point 3

This guided meditation is a very simple process, and once you’ve done the meditation several times you should find that you have no need to continue to listen to it, now you should be in a position where you can follow the process unaided. Once you get to this point it’s time to move from your meditation space and out into Nature, leaving your mp3 player behind.

Getting Started

Follow the meditation in your personal meditation space to start with. Get yourself seated in a comfortable position and completely relax your mind and your body, and then begin. The guided meditation only lasts about 10 minutes but that should be long enough for you to experience your awareness expanding.

The meditation covers three of the sense only, the three most dominant senses in most people.

Sound

First is to expanding your awareness of sound. It is important that you don’t label any sounds, allow them to wash over you, to come and go, the important part is the sound itself and not what is making the sound. So if you hear a passing car; don’t label the sound as a passing car, just allow the sound to come to you, acknowledge the sound and then let it pass by. Remember that silence is also a sound.

Feeling

Second is the sense of touch. Again don’t label anything that you feel, just acknowledge the sensation and move onto to the next feeling.

Sight

Finally is the sense of sight. In Expanded Awareness you see everything simultaneously; in the guided meditation I refer to something could ‘wide angled vision’ this is noting and seeing what is in your peripheral vision, the area around the focal point of your vision. To start with all may see in your peripheral vision is movement, but with practice you’ll start to more and more. Again don’t label what you see, just acknowledge it.

Expanded Awareness Guided Meditation

Just to reiterate, don’t wear headphones when listening to this meditation as the headphones will hinder the expansion of your sense of hearing.

Ensure that you’re not going to be disturbed, turn off any radios, televisions or stereos, anything that could suddenly make a startling noise.

Practice the meditation in your personal meditation space until you are comfortable that you can repeat the process unguided. Once you get to this point move out into Nature, into a wood, the countryside, a local park, anywhere where you are going to be surrounded by Nature.

Finally once you have perfected the process so that you don’t need the guided meditation, practice Expanded Awareness EVERYWHERE, whenever you can. When I don’t have to focus on anything specific I expand my awareness.

ONE FINAL NOTE: DO NOT PRACTICE EXPANDING AWARENESS WHEN DRIVING OR DOING ANYTHING THAT REQUIRES YOUR FULL ATTENTION, IT IS DANGEROUS AND CAN ENDANGER BOTH YOU AND THOSE AROUND YOU.

Expanding Awareness Guided Meditation