The Miracle of Awareness
By Clyde E. Gumbs
People spend most of their lives seeking useful information,
advice, tips, and techniques with the desire to improve themselves and their lives. It is their belief that this approach
will lead to their greatest opportunity for effectiveness and fulfillment. The underlying premise of this belief is that if
they can be better versions of themselves then they will have the best opportunity to have the best life possible for them.
The overriding agenda is improvement, improvement, and more improvement.
Instead of focusing on improvement, there are other
people who focus on awareness. They believe that the source of what is possible in effectiveness and fulfillment is awareness.
In other words, if you expand awareness, you expand possibility. If you expand possibility, you expand effectiveness and ultimately
the experience of fulfillment in life. The question that naturally arises is, “What do we mean by expanding awareness
and what does it take to expand awareness?”
As human beings, our awareness impacts our experience
of life and our behavior in life. There are many things we lack full conscious awareness of that occur and exist in our environment
and even occur in our own behavior. Accordingly, the limits of our conscious awareness dramatically impact not only what we
experience as possible in our lives, but also our effectiveness, specific outcomes, and our actual experiences.
For example, imagine that I get a new job and on the
first morning I drive to work, park in the parking lot behind the office building, see people walking around to the front
of the building, walk around to the front of the building, enter the building and go to the office where I work. Imagine that
I do the same thing day after day and then there is a day when it is raining very, very hard and when I enter the office I
am soaking wet. One of my co-workers asks me, “ Why are you so wet?” I tell her, “It’s raining outside.”
She tells me, “ I know that it’s raining outside, but why are you so wet?” I tell her, “I’m
wet because I walked from the parking lot to the front of the building and it was raining hard.” Then she asks me, “Why
did you do that?” I reply, “I didn’t want to wait until the rain stopped because I’d have been late
to work.” Then she says, “Clyde, I understand that, but why did you walk all the way around to the front of the
building?” I reply simply, “That’s how you get into the building.” She looks at me with a confused
look and asks, “Why didn’t you use the door in the back of the building?” I reply, “What door?”
She takes me outside our office, down a short corridor and opens a door and to my surprise what do I see? I see the parking
lot and my car parked in it not that far away from the door. Would she need to tell me how to open the door? No. Would I need
to get better at opening doors? No. Would she need to tell me when to use the door? No. Would I need to have my eyes examined?
No. I just wasn’t aware that the door was there. The first day I parked in the parking lot I saw people walking around
to the front of the building and never bothered to consider that there was another way to enter. I never looked for another
way. I never asked about another way. As far as I was concerned, there was no other way so why bother to look or ask. Although
that door was always there, it was impossible for me to use it as long as I was unaware of its existence. Imagine how many
things we are unaware of that are right there for us to see. Imagine how that lack of awareness limits what’s possible
in our lives.
The Chrysalis Experience
simply and powerfully causes breakthroughs in awareness that expand what’s possible in life. The Chrysalis
Experience represents mastery in utilizing illumination and focused awareness to allow people to experience
unprecedented levels of effectiveness and fulfillment.
