Try this technique.
Unsplash-Patrick Malleret
By Sarah Jeanne Browne—
“Where attention goes, neural firing flows, and neural connection grows.” ~Dr. Dan Siegel
Dr. Dan Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. His book, Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence, discusses how to use what he calls “The Wheel of Awareness” as a meditation technique. The Wheel of Awareness can improve your wellbeing and help you to become more aware. When you practice it, you find yourself becoming patient, understanding, compassionate and more whole as a person.
The Wheel of Awareness is about how your mind experiences life or consciousness. It’s being intentional with your awareness and letting whatever comes up during the practice have its space and say.
What is Consciousness?
How are the mind, brain and consciousness connected? The brain is an organ in the head, but there is more to it than that. According to Siegel, mind is your “subjective experience of life.” This is unique to each person. It’s how you receive and process information. Consciousness is the awareness of being aware. It is becoming the observer to your thoughts and experience, as well as the experiencer.
Consciousness is also how you relate to yourself and the world. It creates overall wellbeing and connection. There is a flow of energy and information that the brain organizes and can be optimized for greater harmony.
Open Awareness
The Wheel of Awareness is about “open awareness.” There is research which shows that those who meditate with open awareness have a higher level of gamma wave activity. Open awareness gives you more meaning and joy. You feel more connected to everything and to yourself. It creates a powerful pause between experience and reaction where you can become mindful. Without it, you have a perceptual filter of the world which causes you to perceive from a limited point of view. That’s because neuroscientists call the brain an “anticipation machine.” You are always looking for the next threat, in a state of defense and experience confirmation bias or seeing what you believe to be true more often than not. This creates anxiety and depression and an overall poorer state of mental health with negative thinking patterns. Everyone has a negativity bias too, which means you are more prone to see the bad and the good. See why “open awareness” can be such a powerful tool? It stops you from being limited. Mindfulness makes you limitless.
Benefits
Dr. Dan Siegel says “Integration is the linkage of differentiated parts, like connecting the left and right sides of the brain, or embracing and honoring differences and cultivating compassionate linkages among people.” The Wheel of Awareness is all about integration.
Studies of the brain have led to the conclusion that wellbeing comes from having an integrated brain, or parts of the brain connected and active. Meditation enables you to have exactly that. The parts of the brain activated according to Siegel are “the prefrontal cortex, corpus callosum, hippocampus and connectome.”
The more integrated your brain is, the more aware you are, the better you feel. Your heart function is improved. Your stress hormone, cortisol, is reduced. Your immunity becomes stronger. You’re less at risk for cardiovascular disease. It improves cholesterol level. Inflammation is decreased. It helps telomerase function, too. Open awareness combats depression, anxiety and emotional dysregulation. Your interpersonal skills grow, and you have better connection with others. This aids in resilience and bouncing back from any setback. Meditation in general activates the vagus nerve, helping you to counteract your body’s flight or fight system with more clarity and calm. Your emotional intelligence enhances, you become more empathetic and have greater overall wellbeing.
The good news is that any age group can learn this practice. You can teach it to kindergarteners as well as adults. Finding common humanity through connection with yourself and the world in this practice is the goal. You experience life in a more positive and purposeful way once you have developed open awareness.
Backdraft
Since you are becoming fully aware of your being and your connection to all things in this practice, some backdraft may come up such as repressed feelings, trauma or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s natural to have things you have avoided come up. It’s human to feel. Don’t be alarmed if you do not feel serene through the whole process. Instead, use your breathwork such as the box breathing technique to pull yourself back if you need to. Box breathing is about breathing in four counts. Inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, exhale out for four seconds, hold again for four seconds and repeat the process as needed. This regulates your autonomic nervous system (ANS). Grounding is part of the practice as the first segment of the rim that you can come back to at anytime. If things get too heavy, focus on the senses. Pay compassionate attention towards yourself throughout the practice.
The Practice
For the Wheel of Awareness practice, you imagine an outer rim and a central hub to a wheel. You can find a diagram and more information about it here. The rim represents what you are aware of, and the hub is the experience of awareness itself. The hub is also known as the plane of possibility, while the rim is plateaus of probability or peaks of certainty. In the rim are four segments:
- Senses
- Body
- Mental activity
- Connection beyond ourselves to the world such as social connection
When you do this practice, you imagine yourself in the central hub. You are in the experience of awareness. What you bring here matters. Be open minded to what you can receive. Use your breath to find stillness in this state. As you take deeper breaths, go deeper into awareness.
Then you send a spoke of intention (also called spoke of attention) from the hub to the rim.
You go through each segment of the rim, so again- senses, body, mental activity and connection. You become aware of each aspect of your total being, in segments, in turns.
Start With Your Senses
When you start with the senses, this is also called grounding. What do you see, touch, hear, taste and smell? Think of it like an “I Spy” game. This will bring you fully present. Connect with the moment, with what is around you. Breathe it in. This will help you to remember what’s really important.
Body
Next, do a body scan. In therapy, they will often ask you the question, “Where do you feel that in the body?” Sometimes, you hold tension throughout or have an increased heartbeat due to anxiety. You may feel like you’ve been ignoring your hunger due to stress and busyness. Scan your entire body from head to toes. Release tension as you do. The point of this practice is to become aware of what your body is telling you. The body holds wisdom.
Mental Activities
For mental activities this includes your thoughts and emotions. Anything you believe might come up. Your memories might flood through your mind. You have dreams that may come up. It is also the attitude in which you face this life. In breathwork, you typically use breath to remove distraction. This is so it brings you back to focus on meditation. When you become aware of your mental activities for this segment, you do the opposite. You let it flow, let thoughts come and go. You become the observer. Ask yourself,
- What does this awareness feel like?
- Does awareness come and go in spurts?
- How long does a thought stay present?
- What associations are you making which each thought?
- Do you recognize any patterns here? .
Don’t judge what happens here. Invite it into your being. These are parts of you too, but no thought or feeling defines you. Stepping back helps you to realize that. You can take back control.
Connection
Focus on your connection to the world around you. Your friends, family, acquaintances, neighborhood, state, country, planet, universe…Set an intention towards that connection. Your compassionate state will also lead you to self-compassion. Whatever you put out there will come right back to you. Send love to others and yourself. There is also something called the Loving-Kindness Meditation if you want to expand this exercise. It is about finding deeper belonging in which you can heal.
This about feeling your place in the world.
- Are you making a difference?
- Are you helping others?
- Are you making the planet healthier and better?
- Where does your compassion lead you?
Let this direct your mindset as you find true belonging, and you think about what you are here to do with the time that is given. Find selflessness in the stillness of this meditation practice. Altruism leads you back to yourself, trading ego for empathy. When you feel connected, you also feel happier and hopeful. Afterall, we are all “one” – just on different journeys looking for the same things. We are all connected by common humanity. As long as there is suffering in the world, there is something that can be done. You can be the person to do it. Your story and your struggles all lead you to this place of love which is ultimately what we are all here for.
Close the Practice
To close this practice, enter the hub of awareness once more. Imagine the spoke going to you instead of the rim now. Simply become awareness itself. Rest here a bit until you are ready to let go. Take deep breaths as you do. Open your eyes when you are done.
Sometimes, being simply aware can open you up to mindful living and more meaning. This practice shows you how to do exactly that. The Wheel of Awareness is here for you at any time. The goal is to lead your life with open awareness and to be mindful as you make decisions. Most importantly, it leads you to experience peace.
Sarah Jeanne Browne is a speaker, writer and activist who has been published on Lifehack, Tiny Buddha, Thrive Global and more. See @sarahjbrowne.
