Love is conscious feelings. Self-awareness. Awareness of feelings. Awareness of thought. Psychology of conscious relationships

First, I’ll ask a question: are you in a relationship with a man now? Are they completely satisfied with you? Or do you still want to make some adjustments?

Today, humanity is approaching the moment when the psychology of relationships between a man and a woman is ready to move to a new stage. After all, established views on what a relationship should be like in a couple are no longer acceptable.

People are increasingly dissatisfied with love; they do not know how to make their relationships with the opposite sex “work correctly.” And believe it or not, it's not that bad. When something breaks in any mechanism, this becomes the reason for making changes (improvements) to it during repairs.

I believe that such an approach can be successfully used by modern relationship psychology. If something goes wrong in the relationship between a man and a woman, this can lead either to their rupture, or vice versa - to the adoption of measures to “repair”, make changes and save.

Many people in such situations use the advice of a psychologist or relationship coach (which I am). Therefore, here is my advice: “repair” your relationship, bring newness into it, take it to a completely different level! Make your relationship conscious!

How to implement this advice in real life? Read this article to the end and you will understand everything.

Psychology of conscious relationships

So what is conscious relationship?

I focus on the fact that I am talking about the growth of a woman’s personality as a woman, and a man’s personality as a man.

This goal is general and at the same time personal. It unites loving people into a couple.

Currently, most people start relationships only to satisfy their needs (material, sexual and very rarely spiritual).

You may not like what you hear from him. He may also find some of the things you tell him unpleasant. But in the end you will know that each of you is REAL.

Let me repeat a little: we are used to adjusting, pleasing our soulmate, because we are afraid of losing her. But this destroys relationships.

The only option for maintaining true love is to be honest. Identify all the most unpleasant things in yourself, bring them up for discussion with your partner and allow him to do the same.

This leads to a feeling of insight and understanding, a combination that automatically increases love.

4. Relationships as a place for true love

Love is ultimately an experience. The experience of acceptance, presence, forgiveness, receiving heart wounds.

Sometimes we treat love as an end goal. We want to always feel it to the maximum. And when this feeling weakens or disappears altogether, we stop liking what our relationship turns into.

Love is a journey and exploration, in the process of which you come across...

The question will also periodically arise: “What do I want at the moment?” So, the answer at every moment of this path will be different. The reason is your development, your personal growth, which should never stop.

The psychology of relationships between conscious couples is designed in such a way that, based on devotion and experience, love appears and strengthens, and relationships become something no one even dreamed of.

Instead of summing up, I would like to ask...

Are you ready for such actions and changes?

After making at least one of the listed suggestions, your man may isolate himself, close himself in “his shell” or “flare up and start tearing and throwing.” And this could be the beginning of the end of the relationship. But you will understand whether he is really the one you need.

This is exactly how relationships between a man and a woman work - when there are real feelings, then making changes in the relationship is not so difficult.

Thank you for your patience in studying my thoughts on the topic of relationship psychology. I will try to continue to please you with advice on such burning topics.
Still have questions? Let's start a conversation in the comments!

Self awareness

Self-awareness has many different sub-levels, three of which are of greatest importance: body awareness, feeling awareness, and thought awareness.

AWARENESS OF THE BODY AND ITS MOVEMENTS

In the sutras, the Buddha encourages disciples to be constantly aware of their body and its movements. You need to be aware when you walk, stand, sit or lie down. You need to be aware of the position of your arms and legs, how you move, how you gesture, etc. According to this teaching, with awareness, a person cannot do anything hastily, randomly or disorganized. A great example of this is the Japanese tea ceremony.

At first glance, the Japanese tea ceremony revolves around a very ordinary action that we perform every day: preparing and drinking tea. We've all done this hundreds and thousands of times. How is this done in Japan, during the Japanese tea ceremony? There they do it completely differently, because they do it consciously.

Consciously fill the kettle with water. They deliberately put it on the coals. They consciously sit and wait for the kettle to boil, listening to the noise and gurgling of water in the boiling kettle and looking at the flickering flame. Finally, they consciously pour boiling water into the teapot, consciously pour the tea, consciously serve it and consciously drink it, all this time maintaining complete silence. This entire activity is an exercise in awareness. This is an example of applying mindfulness to everyday activities. This attitude needs to be carried over into all our classes. Any business should be based on the same principle as the Japanese tea ceremony: everything should be done carefully and consciously, that is, calmly, slowly and beautifully, as well as with dignity, harmony and peace.

But if the Japanese tea ceremony demonstrates a certain level of mindfulness in everyday life, if it represents a certain type of spiritual culture - the culture of Far Eastern Buddhism, especially Zen, then what similar ceremony or tradition do we have that reflects the mentality of the modern West? Do we have anything that expresses the spirit of our commercial culture?

After some thought, I came to the conclusion that such a characteristic of our culture is the business lunch. During a business lunch, you are trying to do two things at the same time: eat food that is tasty for your body and get the job done profitably. This behavior of trying to do two mutually exclusive things at the same time is incompatible with true and deep awareness. In addition, it is very bad for digestion.

If you constantly practice awareness of the body and its movements, then as a result the movements will be slowed down. The flow of life will become smoother and even rhythmic. You will do everything more slowly and deliberately. But this does not mean that we will work less. This is wrong.

A person who does everything more slowly, because he does it consciously and deliberately, can get more done than someone who looks very busy because he is constantly rushing around and overwhelmed with folders and papers - in fact, he is not busy, but just fussing. A truly busy person does everything calmly and methodically, and since he does not waste time on trifles and fuss and remains mindful, he will end up doing much more.

AWARENESS OF FEELINGS

First of all, this refers to the awareness of whether we are happy, sad, or in some in-between state, a dull gray and neutral state. As we become more aware of our emotional life, we notice that the unskillful emotional states associated with lust, hatred, or fear begin to recede, while the skillful emotional states associated with love, peace, compassion, and joy become more pure.

If a person is naturally quick-tempered and easily gets angry, then by developing awareness of feelings, he first of all becomes aware of his anger after anger has become angry. Then, with practice, he becomes aware of the anger during the attack itself. And after even longer practice, he will begin to be aware of anger at the moment it arises.

AWARENESS OF THOUGHTS

If you suddenly ask a person: “What are you thinking about now?”, then most often he will be forced to admit that he himself does not know. This happens because often we do not really think, but simply allow thoughts to flow through our mind. We do not have a clear awareness of our thoughts, we are only vaguely aware of their presence, as if we see in some gray twilight. We don't have directional thinking. It's not that we decide to think about something and then actually start thinking. Thoughts float through the mind in a vague, incoherent, disordered stream. They flow in and out, swirling, and sometimes they just spin and swirl in the mind endlessly.

Therefore, it is necessary to learn from time to time to observe where thoughts come from and where they go. If we do this, we will notice that the flow of thoughts will decrease and their endless chatter will stop. If we persistently train in awareness of our thoughts, then eventually, at certain moments that mark the highest points of meditation, the mind will remain absolutely silent.

All rational thoughts, all concepts and ideas will disappear, and the mind will remain silent and empty and at the same time full. This silence, this emptiness of the mind, is much more difficult to achieve and experience than just silence. But it is precisely that moment when, as a result of awareness, the mind becomes silent, when all thoughts disappear, leaving only pure and clear consciousness or awareness, that marks the beginning of true meditation.

It is said that these three types of self-awareness: the body and its movements, feelings and thoughts - must be practiced constantly, no matter what you do. Throughout the day, and with practice also at night, in the midst of dreams, it is necessary to continuously maintain awareness.

If in this way we maintain awareness all the time: be aware of how our body is positioned, how we place our foot or raise our hand; be aware of what we say, what feelings we experience, joyful, sad or neutral; to be aware of what we are thinking, whether the flow of our thoughts is directed or not - if we maintain such awareness all the time, and, if possible, all our lives, we will see that gradually and imperceptibly, but nevertheless quite definitely, awareness will change and transform our whole being, our whole character.

As psychologists say, mindfulness is the most powerful means of transformation we know. If you add heat to water, the water will turn into steam. In the same way, if awareness is brought to the mental component, then this component will become more subtle and sublime.

The request for a conscious life is born only in a developed person who begins to feel his inner world and pay attention to his experiences, emotions, thoughts, desires and begins to trace the inexplicable relationship between his internal state and his results in the external world. This is a request from a person who not only wants to satisfy his basic survival needs, but also wants to develop and receive true joy and pleasure from life, from realizing himself, from interacting with other people.

Awareness allows you to act effectively and at the same time enjoy life, realizing your potential, noticing problems at the stage of their occurrence and resolving them quickly and effectively. You can only manage what you understand. Therefore, awareness is the key to managing your life! Mindfulness allows you to manage your body, emotions, thoughts, your attitude towards people and your life.

What is mindfulness?

Awareness is a total and non-judgmental immersion of attention in the processes occurring in our lives (physical, mental and psychological) and their awareness. Awareness is a spotlight of attention directed inward, which illuminates a problem or some process, making it clear, visible and understandable. At this moment, we do not condemn or evaluate a phenomenon, person, feeling, action, but simply observe. Conscious life is real life, life outside of conventions, imposed values, desires and patterns of behavior. To be aware means to see yourself and the world around you as they really are.

What you get by practicing mindfulness in life:

• Health improvement. A conscious attitude towards the body will help prevent diseases and achieve health, because by listening to our body, we begin to give it exactly what it needs.
• Inner balance and harmony. A conscious attitude towards your emotions allows you to manage them.
• Realizing your potential. Realizing our desires, over time we learn to distinguish true desires from imposed ones. And by realizing our true desires, we begin to reveal our essence and our uniqueness.
• Freedom to be yourself. By becoming aware of our thoughts, desires, feelings and actions, over time we become free from embedded programs, patterns, negative attitudes and become more successful and happier.
• Improving relationships with others. Awareness allows you to see a person as he is, and not interact with an invented image.
• Opening of intuition. A conscious attitude towards your inner world opens up intuition. Often the body and nervous system give us signals, warning us of possible consequences.
• Improving living standards. A conscious attitude towards your thoughts will help create positive changes in your life, since conscious thoughts give rise to conscious actions.
• Brightness and interest in life. Mindfulness makes life interesting, rather than boring and mundane. After all, every moment is unique and beautiful, but without noticing the beauty around us, we plunge into a series of endlessly stretching gray everyday life with dreams of a vacation.
• Increased energy levels. By bringing our attention back to the present moment, we reclaim our energy that we previously wasted on replaying thoughts, situations and experiences from the past or fears for the future.

Thus, awareness allows a person to become alive and real, to do what comes from the soul, and not imposed by anyone, therefore, to realize oneself and experience true joy and happiness from this.

How to develop awareness?

On this path you can improve constantly, collecting threads of attention and over time realizing more and more. You can start with the simplest things, but it’s small but constant efforts that add up to big results.

The simplest practices to increase awareness

1. Breathing practice. Focus your attention on the inhalation and exhalation, without interfering, just observing. This practice calms, immerses in the present moment, and relaxes.
2. Conscious eating. When eating food, focus on its taste. Holding a piece of bread in your hands, try to realize how it came to you, how much effort and time it took to prepare it, grow the wheat, collect it, grind the flour, package it, bake it, how much effort and labor went into this small piece. And what is its value.
3. Focus on your feelings. To have time to live your life, and not do everything automatically, you can dive into the present moment every hour or two. You can set a timer on the clock. And when the bell rings, leave what you’re doing and immerse yourself in the present moment, asking yourself “What am I feeling now?”, walk your attention through your body, relax tension, and follow your breathing for 5-10 minutes. This practice does not take much time and perfectly restores strength during a busy day and is refreshing.
4. Ball of awareness. Imagine a transparent sphere in the chest area and focus on it and ask yourself: “What do I really want right now and what will make me happy?” Then start filling this ball with pleasant images. This opens access to the true desires of our Soul. The same practice can be used to determine whether a desire is true or imposed. Place the image of desire in this ball of the Soul and listen to the sensations. If they are pleasant and joyful, then the fulfillment of your desire will bring you joy; if not, then most likely the desire was imposed by someone.
5. Conscious work with negative emotions. If you are overwhelmed by negative feelings, turn your attention inward and ask yourself, “What am I feeling, where in the body am I feeling it?” Then concentrate your attention there and begin to consciously exhale until the emotion dissolves. Over time, you will be able to quickly dissolve negative emotions with your awareness.
6. Awareness of your thoughts. If you tend to get caught up in negative thoughts and scroll through them for hours, then try the simple but effective rubber band exercise. Put a rubber band on your hand and as soon as you catch yourself getting involved in negative thoughts, not too much, but noticeably, pull the rubber band back and snap your hand. Consciously shift your attention from bad thoughts, as the famous Scarlett O'Hara said, “I'll think about it tomorrow,” but not now. Remember that thoughts are vibrations that form a field around you and what you think about is what you attract to yourself.
7. If any person annoys you. Any person responds within us with some feeling or state. For example, we read or listen to someone and feel how something inside us resonates and finds a response. We experience pleasant feelings towards a person. But it also happens that you look at a person, and something unpleasant and irritating is born inside, which does not resonate internally. Mindfully walking through this sensation, find and locate a place in the body and then begin to relax this tension until it goes away. As a result of practice, you will notice that the attitude has changed to neutral and no longer affects you. This works very effectively, and with practice it also works very quickly.
8. Body awareness. The body always begins to signal us about violations, but we are so absorbed in our own affairs or thoughts that we often do not notice it. Until the strongest signal turns on - pain, which indicates that the destruction is already serious. The main cause of destruction and disease is the compression of body spaces, which most often occurs during times of stress. Constriction does not allow energy to flow calmly and relaxed. This is the same as constantly walking with clenched fists. Blood and energy stagnate and over time problems begin. A very simple bodywork practice can be done before bed. You need to lie down comfortably and begin to slide your attention over your body, find areas of tension and consciously relax them. If the tension is very strong, then you can breathe it out, imagining how you fill this area with light with your breath. This promotes good sleep and health.

By improving in the practice of mindfulness, you can reach a new level of life. When you become aware of your body and its sensations, you understand that you are not the body. When you become aware of your thoughts, you realize that you are not thoughts. When you realize your feelings, you understand that you are not feelings. When you consciously relate to desires, you begin to distinguish the true desires of the Soul from those imposed by society. When you enter the observer state and begin to live in the present, then you become the master of your life, mind, body, thoughts and feelings.

Expression of gratitude

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I am enormously grateful to the many people who have contributed in various ways over the years to the creation of this book and to the development of the ideas expressed in it. For all of us, the real teachers are those whom we consider special people. We are taught not only by their positive contributions to our lives, but also by the difficulties they create for us. Personally, I have learned a lot from my parents, my wives, my three children, and from others whom I consider to be special. I've learned a lot from ways that have worked (or haven't worked) to fill my relationships with love, whether that love came from me or someone else. I thank all of these people from the bottom of my heart, because without them, without them, without them, without them being and being positive or negative, I would not have been able to understand the lessons that contributed to the creation of this book. I give special thanks to my family members who allowed me to spend time writing this book instead of spending time with them.

I also want to thank the hundreds, and perhaps even thousands of people who became my patients and told me about their lives and their relationships; most of them perceived me not only as a doctor, but also as their friend. They taught me many things about human relationships and how the principles outlined here helped them make significant changes in their own relationships. I also learned a lot from those patients who could not open up to me and who were not able to experience joy at the end of our course. I also thank those who attended my lectures, seminars and classes, who asked me provocative questions and questioned my ideas.

They forced me to think everything through, for which I am grateful.

I want to thank my wonderful editor Lauren Marino, who helped me even while she was busy organizing the Penguin Group's new subsidiary, Gotham Books. She persistently and persistently offered her help to make this book “the best.” Thank you, Lauren, for believing in me and what I write about in this book. I'm glad I came with you to Penguin Group.

Initially, my manuscript was divided into two parts: theory and practice. I hesitated for several months, not knowing what to put in the book first. And I am very grateful to Billie Fitzpatrick, who was able to take my manuscript and masterfully combine these two different parts in a mixed format, which made the book even better. It was a pleasure to work with her.

Many thanks to the president of Sounds True, Tammy Simon, who invited me to record a six-cassette audio course, “The New Physics of Love: The Power of Mind and Spirit in Our Relationships,” where I presented similar material to the audience. Preparing to record this course helped me formulate and organize the ideas contained in this book. Her co-workers Sarah Wheeler and Randy Rourke also provided me with tremendous help. Thanks to them. It was Tammy who introduced me to my future agent, Kim Witherspoon, saying, “Why don’t you meet her? I think you'll like it." And I really liked her from the very first meeting. Kim was not only an excellent negotiator, but also helped in a variety of ways to bring this manuscript to print.

Thanks to the many colleagues and friends who read my manuscript at various stages of completion and provided the most insightful and encouraging comments: Dr. Clemens Lowe, Dr. Kenneth Frank, Dr. Kenneth Porter, Janet Ettel, Michelle Rosenthal, Dr. Barbara Bloom, and Frank West, with whom I spent many hours on lunch breaks discussing the concepts contained in the book. He gave me permission to use examples from his personal life in this book.

I would also like to express my deep gratitude to two people, now deceased, who greatly contributed to my awakening and, consequently, led me to write this book. I thank physicist David Bohm for those inspiring and educational meetings that resulted in my epiphany—a change in the way I view the world and my place in it. I began to understand our common interdependence. Thanks also to Dr. Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist who survived the horrors of the concentration camps. I thank him not only for his books, but also for the interactions he gave at Boston University as a visiting lecturer. He helped me see how much our thoughts and our attitude towards life matter - sometimes meaning worth living! I don’t know if I would have gone on this journey if it weren’t for Dr. Frankl and Dr. Bohm.

I also thank other teachers who have become a source of great inspiration for me: the Bible, the teachings of Buddha, the Yogananda Kriya Yoga program, the writings and teachings of Sathya Sai Baba and himself, Kabbalah, Meister Eckhart, Carl Jung, Rumi Krishnamurti, the treatises of St. Germany, Maharishi and especially the book Teaching Miracles, which is the most comprehensive and in-depth work on psychospirituality I have found. I also thank many others, which there is not enough space to mention here.

But first of all, I want to express special gratitude to the Spirit that exists within us, without which we are powerless to do anything.