"In mindfulness meditation, you grow in awareness by becoming conscious of what is unconscious.

You have been meditating for years thinking your mind is still in meditation, and then suddenly you see you have been lost in your thinking the whole time without even knowing it.

Because of our conditioning, the tendency is to feel down about yourself, to feel like this realization that you have been unconscious for so long means you have failed.

But the realization that you have been caught up in thinking for the last 20 years of meditation is a great realization. Because it means suddenly you are aware of what you have not been aware of for over 20 years.

You take a quantum leap in awareness because of this.

Many people spend their time trying to convince themselves and others how great they are, how aware they are. It is not wrong, we were taught to impress others. It is ingrained in us to do so.

But in spending so much time trying to create ourselves to be a certain way, we do not see what is actually here. We have simply created the idea of consciousness on top of our unconsciousness.

For awareness to grow you have to be willing to observe without judgement. To allow yourself to be honest and vulnerable enough to see what is unconscious.

You can follow this simple mindfulness meditation technique by closing your eyes and watching your breath and then becoming aware of everything that takes you away from your focus on your breath.

The moment you become aware of the unconscious, it becomes conscious.

It does not matter what you see. It is the seeing itself that is important.

Blessings,
Kip