Episode 11 - Knowledge Vs. Awareness

In this episode, I’m talking about the difference between knowledge and awareness.

If you wonder why you “KNOW” what to do, but don’t do it, then I’ll share with you the missing link to making powerful change in your life using the beautiful work of awareness.

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Knowledge vs. Awareness Podcast 

I want to talk today about the beauty of awareness and how awareness, true awareness differs from knowledge, intellectual knowing. I believe that when you get into awareness, the realm of deep awareness, you are actually entering the realm of consciousness, of seeing, and of realization. And I believe that whenever you are looking to make lasting change in your life, when you are transforming in any way, you must start with awareness.

Most people start with action.  And so they may intellectually know something - they may know what to do, what action to take and they can write it on a piece of paper right. But, when it comes to actually taking the action, they struggle, or they start and they do it for a while, but they can’t seem to make it stick. 

So, what I am teaching today, is the key to making change stick. It’s really the key to getting what you want in life, it’s the key to BEING who you want to become in your life, it’s the key to really making powerful change and continuing to grow throughout the course of your life and I know if you’re listening to this it’s because that’s what you want. You want to grow you want something more out of life, you want to create a life that is emotionally rich and a life that you truly love from the inside out. 

MOST of us know what we need to do to change our lives, to get to our goals, to make a change. Like I know a lot of you who are listening to this have things that you want out of life - and let’s say I was talking to you and you told me that you wanted to have a loving healthy relationship or you wanted to lose weight, or you wanted to even just feel better - and I were to ask you - Okay what do you need to do to get there? You could probably tell me. Because you KNOW - you know what you need. Your intuition knows. Your soul knows right?  So knowing is NOT the solution. Knowledge is not what we need to get from where we are now to where we want to be. Knowledge is a seed. It’s the beginning. It’s not a bad thing. 

But knowledge is not enough.  We’ve got to go a little deeper with it. I believe knowledge is the BEGINNING of awareness. It’s like dipping your toe into the ocean right - you get a little taste of the temperature but you don’t get washed - you don’t get baptized by the water. Awareness is like just going in and going under and you’re just sort of soaked in it, you’re washed by it, you experience it very powerfully and very deeply and as a result of THAT the change is inevitable. THAT is awareness. Knowledge is dipping your toe in.

The definition of awareness according to the beautiful wikipedia is the ability to directly know and perceive, to feel, or to be cognizant of events. More broadly, it is the state of being conscious of something.

Being CONSCIOUS of something. THAT, my friends, consciousness, is not the same as intellectual knowledge.  CONSCIOUSNESS, AWARENESS, that is power. That is transformation. And that is what we are looking for.

And as I said before, when we are going after transformation, which is really the process of changing how you see yourself, allowing your true real self to emerge from the ashes right? Awareness needs to be the gateway. Because when you start with action, you are unarmed with awareness. And it’s really like going to battle unarmed and unprepared. But when you start with awareness, with consciousness, you are prepared with clear vision, you are armed for the battle ahead to go in and really conquer your own inner world. 

So Im gonna list here some differences between knowledge and awareness:
1. Knowledge is surface level, awareness is deep

2. Knowledge is not yet fully conscious, awareness is fully conscious
3. Knowledge is all in your head, awareness is a fully body experience 
4. Knowledge is explained, awareness is FELT 
5. Knowledge leads to sporadic, inconsistent change, awareness leads to organic, powerful lasting change. 

And the last one, point number 5 is the one I want to spend some time here unpacking for you. Because it will really change your life. 

The reason that awareness leads to organic, powerful, lasting change is because awareness has nothing to do with action. Awareness has nothing to do with action. Awareness is about your beingness, your consciousness, and your identity.

I work with women who are so used to rumination, obsession, pressure, and self-judgement. And I used to be this way as well. I measured my worth, my healing, my success by how much I did. How much action I took. And it sort of infected my life in every single area. This pervasive parasitic approach to life that was so action based and action oriented. Where, I got stuff done, and I achieved success but it was so exhausting because the feeling that was motivating it was pressure and this joyless slaving sort of approach to life. And what I discovered and what I often tell my clients is THERE IS NOTHING TO DO. There is nothing to do. Become aware. Become fully aware.

One of the coaching tools I use is called the model it was developed by Brooke Castillo. And there’s very similar coaching tools out there. But the model is a way of seeing very clearly for yourself how your thoughts create your results. It starts with circumstances - circumstances are things which you can’t control - Circumstances are facts. And they are neutral. 

And then we have our thoughts about our circumstances. And then we have how those thoughts make us feel and then we have the actions we take from that feeling and then we have the end result. So it’s circumstances, thoughts, feelings, actions, results.

And it really gives you a clear picture that all circumstances in your life are just neutral things that happen and then how we think about those circumstances is what creates the results we are experiencing in our life. Whether your results are good or bad they are all created by your thoughts. And so, when people first see the thoughts and feelings that are creating their results they often feel very judgy of themselves, they feel ashamed of themselves. And then, they will try right away to change it. 

And that’s always the question I get from my clients when we first break down their models. They say WHAT DO I DO?!?!? They say I ALREADY KNOW THAT MY THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS ARE CREATING MY RESULTS I KNOW IM DOING THIS TO MYSELF BUT WHAT DO I DO ABOUT IT. And my answer is always do nothing. There’s nothing to do. Especially in the beginning of the journey. There’s nothing to do. There’s nothing to change. 

And this is the deception and the lie of knowledge. We want to skip over things that we already know - we try and skip the thoughts and the feelings and just jump right to the action - to change the action - or we try and change the circumstances, or we try and change the result. But here’s the problem with that. The awareness isn’t deep enough.

And, often times when I work with my own models - my own thoughts that are creating my own results. Sometimes, I will look at the model, and I will cry, and I will sit with it. And I will feel the feelings. And I will let it all just marinate. Sometimes, depending on the model I’m working with - Iwill let it marinate for WEEKS literally weeks. Okay. This is awareness building. There is no rush. There’s nothing to be done. You’re already worthy and love-able regardless of the thoughts or feelings that you are thinking and feeling right. 

I ran a workshop locally in my city last month, and we were working the models together in the workshop with the students, and one of the students was really feeling in despair about her job so her cirucmstance was that she hated her job. And her thought was it’s too late for me to change it. And her feeling was despair and her action was that she just woke up and got through the day and grinded through it and sort of you know just felt every day was a struggle. And so her result was that it was too late for her to get a new job so she didn’t try to change careers right because that limiting thought was it’s too late. And so I showed her how she was creating her reality and she said so what do i do. And I said - do nothing. See this model. Really see how this is what is running in the background in your life. And stay with it. Don’t try and run around and change it just yet. See it. Allow it to come through you - the realization the baptism right that you are the one that’s creating this. Because the deeper the awareness is, the more change it will create and the longer the change will last because change is not easy right - as you know. It takes commitment and it’s sooooo easy to quit. And if you’ve sort of just got the intellectual knowledge without the deep awareness that is what will happen. You will quit. Because remember awareness is a whole body thing.

So we don’t want to rush to change. We don’t want to rush to action. That’s just another way we avoid our thoughts and feelings and nothing changes by avoidance. And awareness is NOT judging and shaming yourself and beating yourself up. Judging and shaming and beating yourself up is banned it’s not allowed hahah. We don’t indulge in that. We just see, we just become aware. Deeply aware that we are the ones creating our results with our thoughts in any particular area of our life whether those results are good or bad. 

And you know, whenever I hear from my clients - I KNOW THAT, why aren’t I doing it? It’s because you may KNOW it but you’re not AWARE - the AWARENESS hasn’t gotten into you enough yet to really start the change process. It hasn’t sunk into your DNA.

And you will be in the process of deepening your awareness for your entire life. This is life long work. I get the awareness that my thoughts create my results constantly. Over and over, and it becomes deeper and deeper, and the deeper it gets, the more my results improve in my life, the more emotionally rich and emotionally healthy I become. 

So, here’s the homework I am giving you. I want you to write out a model for yourself. Circumstances, Thoughts, Feelings, Actions, Results. Write one circumstance. Write one thought. Write one feeling. Write as many actions as you want. And then write your result. And just work with deepening the awareness. Work with resisting the urge to self loathe and blame and shame and harm yourself in that way. And don’t rush to change. REally see. PRactice seeing, practice becoming conscious. And you will be surprised with this practice, how much change organically emerges in your life.