SRS Session 17 | Self Awareness & Personality

In session 17 we explore the opportunity for expansion into our highest self when we become more aware of who we are at the personality level. This meditation includes a guided visualization. The Spiritual Recalibration Series is designed to help you expand your awareness into a new, more open, curious and expansive way of being in daily life. This impactful series comprises 33 sessions, each with a short topic (the recalibration) followed by guided meditation. Meditations include affirmations, visualizations, and brief periods of quiet, musical stillness.

Transcript

Okay,

Welcome back to the Spiritual Recalibration Series.

Thank you for embarking on this series and opening yourself to a new way of being.

My name is David,

And this is Session 17,

Self-Awareness and Personality.

Find a comfortable seat in a space where you can allow yourself 20 minutes or so,

Undistracted,

To focus just on you.

A quick reminder,

To get the most out of this series,

Please be sure you've listened to the Welcome Session,

Session Zero.

Here we go.

We've talked quite a bit about awareness,

Where that's kind of what we're up to here,

Right?

It's just becoming,

As we sit in meditation and we notice our thoughts,

And we come back to the breath,

Centering,

To become,

To expand our awareness of,

I don't know,

That which is beyond our thoughts,

Right?

If we can sit there,

If you can sit there in a concentration technique,

Which is a meditation practice,

Right?

The middle aspect of a meditation practice,

You have relaxation,

You have concentration.

If you can sit and then you have expansion.

If you're in the concentration time where you're using your technique,

Maybe that's coming back to your breath,

Coming back to your breath and a mantra,

Maybe.

If you can notice a thought,

Or a train of thought,

Notice that you're in really thinking about something that you're planning,

A birthday party,

Or something that's gone wrong that you're worried about,

Or thinking about your next tasks,

Or that spreadsheet you're working on,

Or that email you have to send,

If you notice that,

You say,

Oh,

And then you come back to your breath.

Who noticed?

You know,

That's as we become aware of something within us,

Within you,

Beyond the thinking.

That's what we're talking about,

Right?

Awareness.

But there's something else.

So that's kind of in a meditation practice,

But then we're out in life and we're living our life and things happen.

Something comes up,

We get triggered,

Something bothers us,

And there we are in our personality.

So it's kind of interesting to get curious about noticing what we think about,

Noticing what we get triggered by,

Noticing what upsets us,

Noticing what gets us emotional,

Noticing what when we get drawn into our emotions,

That sort of thing.

That is,

It seems,

This has been my experience,

This is my experience,

That becoming more aware of those patterns of this self,

I may have mentioned,

I believe it's Richard Rohr who refers to the false self and the true self.

So like the false self is,

That's also,

I refer to as ego,

Ego mind,

That sort of thing,

All that kind of personality stuff.

If we're not aware of that,

If we don't get to know ourselves in that way,

Then it's really,

Then it makes it really challenging to,

I guess,

To experience that kind of larger,

Bigger awareness that we're talking about.

And also just living our life with the relationships that we have with people and the work that we do and the stuff that we do,

Just becoming more aware of ourselves,

Of our personality,

Of our personality traits,

It can just make things easier,

More fun.

You just,

And yeah,

Easier,

Because maybe we can see,

Oh,

I'm going down that path again.

I came into,

So I don't know if any of you have heard of the Enneagram.

The Enneagram is,

It's kind of more,

I think it's a little more than just a personality test.

You've probably heard of personality tests and things like that in the field of psychology and such,

But my daughters,

They were playing with the Enneagram a few weeks ago and I had heard about it quite a little while ago now,

But I'd never taken it.

So I had to,

So I took it and it was just,

It was interesting how accurate it was.

And I was speaking to a friend who also had recently taken the Enneagram and we had this conversation about,

So it kind of,

So one of the things I can point out,

So for example,

My type,

It gives you types,

There are nine types.

So my type has a worldview and patterns of thinking that romanticize and idealize the future.

Isn't that interesting?

I had to giggle.

I was like,

Oh,

I can put my finger on that,

Yeah.

And so once you become aware of something like that,

Whether it's through something like the Enneagram or just be starting to observe what you tend to think about a lot,

You can notice it and then you can start really to have some compassion for yourself.

And so in this case,

So the challenge is to be here and now,

Everything is good and perfect in the here and now.

So when I became aware,

I'm romanticizing something about the future,

Oh,

That's me doing that thing.

And you can also,

You can have compassion for yourself and you can start to have compassion for other people when they're doing their thing,

Their personality thing.

And I was having a conversation with my friend and it seems that we can get focused on stuff that we maybe need to fix about our personalities.

And that's really not so helpful,

I don't think.

We can notice that stuff and get curious about that stuff because it also,

We become aware of what our superpowers are,

What these gifts that we've been given as parts of our personality actually,

Where they really serve,

Where they really serve us and can serve others.

So yeah,

That's a bit about self-awareness,

Getting curious and playful about noticing those patterns.

It's not just thought patterns,

Emotional patterns as well,

Patterns of feeling.

Yeah.

Okay.

So let's just spend our last few minutes here with a little,

A short little practice and we'll spend,

We'll do a little visualization at the end about this idea of self-awareness.

So wherever you are,

Kind of check back in with your posture,

Make sure you're sitting nice and upright.

Just draw your shoulder blades together gently.

If your eyes were open,

Close them gently,

If you're comfortable with that.

Make sure the eyelids are gentle and the eyes are soft behind the eyelids,

Tuck your chin slightly.

So it's not reaching up too much and we don't want to tuck down here,

Just little gentle tuck of the chin so that the neck is nice and straight over the shoulders.

Place your hands,

Palms up or palms down,

Your choice on your thighs at the juncture of thighs and abdomen,

Or a little bit further forward if that's more comfortable for you.

Palms up tends to be a kind of an open and receiving sort of hand posture,

Palms down is a bit more grounding sort of posture for your hands.

So your choice today can be different today than it is tomorrow,

Than it was yesterday.

You choose.

Gently draw your gaze upward toward the point between your eyebrows.

Now that's not a straining upward.

It's a gentle upward glance and see if you can begin to watch your breath.

In your nostrils,

See if you can find the spot where the air is passing,

Cool on the inhale and warm on the exhale.

Sometimes the edge of the nostrils is the easiest place where you can feel it,

Or maybe you can notice it a little bit higher in the nose.

Good.

When you notice yourself thinking,

Thinking about something you were thinking about before this began,

Thinking about how much longer you're going to be sitting here,

Thinking about things you might have on your list to do today,

Thinking about the weekend.

Just notice,

And then gently but firmly come back to your breath.

Notice you're thinking,

Come back to your breath.

You may notice,

Even though we're just doing this for a few minutes,

You may notice that the breath begins to slow down.

That's one of the things,

That's a strategy,

If you find your mind wandering a lot,

A strategy you can use is to become really curious about the breath and grateful for it.

Even though it's just a few minutes,

You may notice the breath slowing down,

Getting softer,

Quieter.

That's good.

As the breath slows down,

The mind can slow down.

Mind slows down,

The breath grows quiet,

Breath grows quiet,

Mind is given permission to grow quiet.

It's a virtuous cycle.

Good.

Just another few moments now on the breath.

Good.

Take an intentional inhale through the nose and a gentle exhale through the mouth.

You can let go of watching the breath.

Again,

Draw your eyes gently,

Your gaze upward toward the point between your eyebrows.

I want you to allow yourself to be in a beautiful garden.

Visualize a beautiful garden,

Flowers around,

Maybe a bumblebee,

Tall flowers,

Short flowers,

And it's simply beautiful,

Quiet,

And content,

And playful.

It's playful,

This garden of playful curiosity,

Where you get to see everything,

Get to see with curiosity,

With awareness,

With compassion.

You get to experience knowing,

And you get to smile,

Knowing all is well,

Knowing you are perfect,

Curious,

And playful about all of who you are.

Now let this visual of the garden go,

But stay for just a moment in this place of playful curiosity.

Good.

You can inhale through your nose,

And then exhale through your nose.

Prepare to come back to the space where you are,

And when you're ready,

You can flutter open your eyelids,

Or you're welcome to keep them closed and stay here for as long as you like.