This article was inspired by Involution; Inner Transformation and Self-Awareness
Understand the importance and power associated with involution and how it helps in achieving the ultimate state of self-awareness.
When western and eastern mysticism were blended, a new term was coined: involution — which represents a person’s inner evolution of their soul, mind, and heart.
Basically what this means is that it can help one deepen their inner strength and effectively offer liberation from the restriction created by oneself.
This occurs through the attainment of self-discovery, self-awareness, self-love, self-understanding, and the list goes on. It represents the ultimate form of inner and spiritual growth and development.
Through the help of involution, one can easily get over pain and mitigate suffering, hence being able to enjoy the beauty of life once again.
Involution helps us in distorting and fragmenting our lives and provides us with a passion for what we do, whilst helping us find direction and a clear perspective. It also helps in overcoming one of the most difficult obstacles of life, i.e. breaking out of a dysfunctional loop or, worse, complacency.
Throughout the course of history, people have struggled their entire lives trying to improve their external existence. Even today people still try to get better jobs, materialistic wealth, social stature, and fulfilling relationships.
We spend our entire lives focusing on these aspects and, no matter how much we try, it doesn’t make our lives better, leading us to feel disillusioned with life.
This is why achieving involution is so important. It allows us to evolve from within ourselves, rather than blindly searching for what is missing “outside,” in the physical existence.
Experiencing Self-Awareness through Involution
All of us are confronted with many cryptic and puzzling questions. What is the purpose of our existence? Why do we perpetuate our own pain and suffering? What are we supposed to do with our lives?
Throughout our journeys, each one of us comes across thousands of different answers, creeds, dogmas, and doctrines, all of which claim to cure us of our inner “sickness” and allow us to develop a perspective and direction on our confusing journeys through life.
We all seem to forget one simple — but crucial — factor: for change to occur, it must come from within. And because of this, we keep externalizing our efforts to make a significant change. This is where involution becomes so important for self-awareness.
Involution does not conform or restrict with any particular creed, dogma, or even religious doctrine. It is rather an internal experience associated with the practice of life.
The beauty about involution is that it encompasses all such philosophies. It has been practiced throughout the entire existence of humans, from yogis and the eastern monks, to the fitness freaks, self-helpers, and new ageists of western culture. It is simply the act of seeking understanding, inner strength, liberation, and metamorphosis.
Would you consider yourself to be a self-aware person? How conscious are you about your own thoughts, behaviors, and feelings?
If you exhibit a tendency:
- To be self-defeatist or destructive and continue down the perpetually dysfunctional cycle again and again
- To be unaware of the implications of your actions and words on others
- To feel that you have an unclear or distorted perception of yourself
- To experience difficulty in understanding your own feelings and exhibit poor emotional intelligence
- To act before thinking
Then it is more likely that you are not self-aware and need to dig in deeper within you to understand yourself and your actions.
The following are a few easy ways to experience involution and develop self-awareness:
Self-awareness is probably the most essential factor for initiating inner transformation, because unless you understand who you truly are and why you do the certain things you do, there is very little chance for you to suddenly have the answers to your problems.
Once you understand yourself, you can begin to identify the changes that need to be made in order to achieveinner peace.
It is not difficult to become self-aware. All you need is patience and practice. No matter what anyone tells you, there are no shortcuts to life. In order to tread the path of involution, you must be persistent in your efforts.
Developing Attention
What I mean by attention is that you must be aware of your actions and their consequences. For example, the things you say and how they influence people around you.
When you say these things, what are you feeling and how does this feeling influence your behavior? You need to go even deeper and think about what you are thinking and when these thoughts are occurring to you.
What do you like and dislike and how does it influence your happiness? Just paying attention to your mental functioning will give you wonderful insights that will help you develop self-awareness.
Mindfulness Meditation
Many people claim that they can’t take time out for things they love doing and so they don’t have time for meditation. But all one really needs to do is meditate for no more than five minutes a day.
Everyone who grows to love meditation starts off with just five minutes, but the experience is so pleasurable that most slowly increase their mediation through their own accord.
When starting out with 5 minutes you must make sure that each second counts, by ensuring that the place is comfortable and quiet.
Mindfulness meditation is the practice that allows one to become aware of their inner voice. It allows them to experience it and then grow control over it.
The short term benefits that become apparent are inner calmness and overall stability. It also reduces emotional reactivity and helps you develop a control over yourself.
Just practicing these two little things will put you on the right track to experiencing involution and achieving self-awareness.
This article was inspired by Involution; Inner Transformation and Self-Awareness, which was written by Aletheia Luna is the co-founder, editor and author of popular spiritual website LonerWolf.com. As a transformational mentor and holistic writer, she has helped to guide thousands of people throughout the world on their paths of self-acceptance and wholeness. You can follow her work and private updates on Facebook.
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