Balancing Mindfulness Within and Without
Nobody lives in a vacuum. Balancing mindfulness within and without provides perspective on this.
The last four years – at least here in the United States – have been tumultuous.
One of the biggest takeaways from all that has transpired has been a new impression of people. We’ve seen some of the best of humanity – as well as some of the worst.
There have been amazing examples of generosity, love, caring, kindness, and compassion. But then, there have also been terrible examples of selfishness, disdain, neglect, cruelty, and animosity. Between the Trump presidency, COVID-19, and other world happenings – the extremes have been right in our faces all along.
We live in a fear-based society. That is partially due to many of our so-called leaders using fear to disempower people for their own control. But it also comes from our egos using fear to protect us from both tangible and intangible threats.
The only way to combat this, and replace fear with reason, is by employing mindfulness.
Mindfulness, at its core, is conscious awareness of the here-and-now. The present. That awareness lets you fully experience where you are at this moment.
It begins with your senses, then reaches into your inner being. Conscious awareness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions are how you gain knowledge of it. That, then, gets you into your psyche/mindset/headspace, your inner being and individual perception of life, the Universe, and everything.
Mindfulness if your inner self informs you about who you are. But it also opens you to conscious awareness of the world outside yourself.
Since you don’t live in a vacuum – it’s impossible to ignore the outside world. Mindfulness provides a means to interpreting your experiences and working with them.
Let me elaborate.
You are a creature of two worlds
Your inner being is your perception of you. It’s how you think and feel about yourself.
Psychology tends to call this the ego. It’s your mindset/headspace/psyche and the midpoint between interacting with the outside world and your subconscious depths.
Mindfulness, conscious awareness, is a matter of control over what you take in through your six senses. Taste, touch, smell, hearing, seeing, and intuition inform your thoughts, feeling, actions, and intentions. That informs your inner being about the world around you.
From there, your inner being processes this and either accepts it, rejects it, or works to change it. Often, your inner being will look to your subconscious and see how what you are taking in aligns with your habits and beliefs.
This is your inner self and your inner world.
Your outer self is how you present yourself to others. This includes your physical appearance and what you share with the world at large. But more than this, it’s how you interact with your world.
This is where labels like introvert and extrovert come in. Friendly and unfriendly, Approachable and unapproachable. It’s not just what you present to the world outside – it’s how that’s perceived.
However, this can get tricky. Sometimes how you think you are perceived isn’t true.
For example – let’s say you have a coworker you’re certain dislikes you. They’re always rather terse and seldom personable. You likely can think of all kinds of reasons why they don’t like you – with zero evidence.
Then, something happens, and you learn they do like you. They are just not a warm and fuzzy person or good with social interaction. Your perception that they disliked you is utterly false.
That’s personal interaction with the outer world. What about the big picture?
Interacting with the big picture
We are bombarded with information daily. Spend a few minutes on any social media site and you’ll be inundated. This can become quickly overwhelming.
When you are not practicing mindfulness – or just distracted or singularly focused on something – that information can sink into your subconscious mind. Before you know it, you’re angry, scared, confused, or utterly uncertain about a thing you have ZERO influence or control over.
Elections, pandemics, economics, ethics, and similar broad-scale notions are the focus of news media, memes, radio shows, podcasts, blogs, and other information sources. It’s very hard not to absorb some of that into your subconscious mind along the way.
Most people – not all – want to be aware of the outside world. These matters are important when it comes to voting, how and where you spend your money, donations or angry letters to be made. Since nobody lives in a vacuum, there are unavoidable and even necessary matters.
One thing it is REALLY hard to accept, for many, is how little control you can exert over big-picture matters. Because it’s little or equal to zero.
You can vote in an election, boycott a company for lousy practices, attend protests, write your elected officials. You can share important info about things like Black Lives Matter, LGBTQA+ rights, living wages and healthcare for all, and such.
And that’s about all the power over the big picture you have.
Recognizing this is a part of inner mindfulness. Knowing yourself, here and now, and how you perceive the world, better show you what’s going on without. Big picture or personal interaction, mindfulness is a two-way street.
Balancing mindfulness within and without
It all comes down to focus and awareness.
Mindfulness of the self is conscious, present awareness, here and now. Yes, there can be an eye to the future and lessons learned from the past – but this is wholly a matter of the now. Because now is the only reality that is truly real.
As Albert Einstein said,
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
When you’re aware of your current environment – inside and outside – you can control, alter, and change it. But if you are too focused on what’s outside of yourself – you can’t be mindful of what’s within.
You need to be aware of the world without. But it’s stunningly easy to put all your focus outside of you. In fact, it’s often encouraged that you do so. This is part of why self-care and inner focus often get falsely represented as selfishness.
But selfishness is not about caring for the self. Not really. Selfishness is unkind, tends to focus on lack and scarcity, and intentionally causes harm or hurt to another. True selfishness is intentional.
Yes, sometimes your actions will cause harm and hurt – unintentionally. But without the intent to do so – it’s not really selfish. Which is difficult to accept.
Whatever paths you choose to walk for your life – mindfulness within and without need to be balanced. Greater focus of conscious awareness of yourself – here and now – will provide surprising insights into the world around you.
It’s important to recognize that it’s not a 50/50 balance. Greater mindfulness within leads to more mindfulness without. That is how you attain balance and gain control over your life.
Nobody lives in a vacuum. Balancing mindfulness within and without provides you with perspective, and shows you where you are – literally and figuratively – here and now.
Can you see how balancing mindfulness gives you more control over your paths in life?
This is the four-hundred and seventy-fifth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Additionally, I desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. My additional writing, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.
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