Awareness vs. Consciousness

Most of the time you are inside your thoughts the way a fish is inside water. The thinking is happening, but ‘you’ is so tangled up in it that there's no one left over to notice it's happening. The shift to awareness is the moment a part of you steps slightly outside and says, oh — that's a thought.

Eagleman describes consciousness as the small, late part of an enormous machine. Most of what your brain does, you'll never meet. The part that becomes aware is the part that gets broadcast widely enough across the brain to be reported on. It's a tiny stage. The audience is mostly in another building.

Life is Perfect treats awareness as the operator one level up: ‘thought thinking of itself.’ When the thought becomes its own object, you can do something with it. Until then you only are it. Most arguments, most spirals, most regrettable sentences — all the same shape: the speaker was inside the thought instead of above it.

The practice is unsexy. Throughout the day, several times, simply check: am I in the thought, or aware of the thought? Don't try to fix anything you find. The checking itself is the practice. The stepping back is the muscle.