Awareness That Heals Robert J Strock

In this episode, Robert and Dave wrap up their focus on the key practices. They continue to illuminate the link between our most challenging feelings, the situations we face each day, and how to identify the needs to guide us toward healing and wellbeing.
It is important not to get this path confused with being a seeker of perfection. That seeker is really a form of rejection, rather than genuinely making our best efforts in a natural way. We are looking to hold two ideas at the same time. One is being aware of our greatest challenges at any given point in time. The other is moving in a direction that our needs will guide us. This may sound simple enough, but these are major grounded and inspirational steps together. We will virtually never fully arrive, especially if the issue we are facing is not superficial, and that is okay. It is not a realistic aspiration to extinguish these kinds of challenging feelings completely.   
We are being encouraged to ask ourselves, what challenging emotion(s) are you facing right now?  Which are the most significant? As you look to identify them, see which need(s) is going to be most healing and supportive of your well-being. It is vital to be aware of our inner tone to have additional trust and strength that you are going to support whatever needs to be activated both inside and outside. We can learn how to be best friends with ourselves by experiencing our challenging emotions consciously and responding by following through with our most helpful needs. As we can take some steps in that direction we can also help those we love to do the same as we bring this process and awareness into our lives.
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This week Robert focuses on a different set of needs called chronic needs or chronic feelings. These situations can be identified as when you are compromised due to serious things like your health or your partner's health, hormones, trauma, or chemistry. Other examples of these chronic needs can show up in serious gaps in communication with people that are important to you, or in dealing with yourself when you are in your worst mood. Accompanying emotions like shame, inadequacy, or withdrawal are common. We all know at least someone that is in one of these states on an ongoing basis. We ourselves are going to go in and out of these emotional valleys. Robert begins to guide us through the conundrum of how we can best deal when we are in deep.
It is all too easy to think, this is not a mood. This is not a feeling. It is who I am. Being able to see that we have a tendency to identify as our moods and feelings, especially these chronic ones, as who we are is crucial. For example, if someone were to ask you how you were doing today? You may say, this is how I am. Rather, you could identify with your awareness and say, this is how I feel and this is how I’m doing my best to take care of it. The shift is nuanced but can create tremendous space for healing.  If we are able to allow some acceptance, this will lead us to be able to keep inquiring as to how we can support ourselves and will help guide us to suggestions for a new direction. Robert has often referred to this as wisdom guidance which shows us how not to be dominated in a one-dimensional way by our feelings. For many of us, there will be that inner part of us that is driven towards achievement or simply feeling deep anxiety, grief, anger or alone. The best we can do is to keep guiding ourselves. This is not a consolation prize, as it is the peak of wisdom.  What is the maximum we can do for ourselves today?
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Life is full of conflicting information.  We are constantly managing and doing our best to hold opposing emotions and conditioning at the same time. On the one hand, we have feelings that are the least desirable. Alternatively, we have the most desirable qualities of trust, love, and compassion. It is not only important to see these as opposites but to recognize that we are taught to work hard, be disciplined, be successful, be attractive, and have financial means. As we process and wrestle with our conditioning as well as our emotional extremes the paradox emerges. Robert helps us start with the most difficult feelings so we have the best chance to discover what we need. Therefore, giving us the best chance to feel good.
It is never too late to go back and realize that you have been judging yourself or that you have been shut down.  From this awareness, a pivot can occur.  That intention to care can begin to become a definition that you identify with more than what you do or how young you are, or how wealthy you are because that intention to care will help you in all directions, no matter where you are. Join Robert and Dave as they continue to deeply delve into these key practices highlighting moving from internal awareness to communicating with our partners and those we are close to. This includes using the right tone, asking for your needs more than once, and reassessing how important this need is to you.
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This week Robert focuses on the second to last chapter of his book. This step entails moving from feelings to needs. There are many foundational steps required to get to this point. Robert takes some time to review. From these precursor steps, we can make a distinct connection between identifying our most challenging feelings and what needs could be supported that would most help us in any given situation. Each situation is always unique. Every challenging feeling can be supported by a need or perhaps more than one. This really is a formula for caring for ourselves and others. Later in the episode, Robert switches gears from our relationship with self to our relationship with others. 
A good relationship does not mean that all of our needs are going to be met. The key is that you see the comprehensive good nature and love that you share over the years and see it in a balanced perspective. Being the best of friends or in a relationship doesn't mean agreeing on everything. The balance is when you have had enough beneficial times together that you can absorb those disagreements with grace and put it in the context of the whole relationship.  It is important to see if you are someone who is overly critical and perfectionistic or are too tolerant of relationships that aren’t serving your well-being as a whole. It is important to ask yourself on an ongoing basis, What is your greatest need? How is it not being fulfilled? What thoughts, qualities and actions are needed to find greater peace and well-being? Ask these questions together with Robert and Dave as they go through a variety of examples to help model balance in relationships with yourself and others enhanced by in-depth communication.
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This week Robert continues to delve deeply into using life’s challenges as a springboard to living a more authentic and joyful life. It is a normal human reaction to blame others or wish they were different, but wishing someone was different can only get you so far. If we suppress our most difficult feelings or act them out, we are in a kind of compulsive repeating of wounded history. It is a source of alienation, warfare, divorce or isolation. It takes awareness, honesty, humility and accountability to begin to respond differently to a reoccurring challenge.
Join us, as we focus on clarifying how to create external and internal boundaries to best take care of ourselves and others. Perhaps you need to set up a boundary within the context of a relationship. Perhaps you need to set a boundary within yourself to not act out. Perhaps you must decide to no longer participate in certain things because you need to take care of yourself. It is an art to ask “Which type of  boundary can best take care of me in each challenging situation?” When we recognize that we need to become aware of our challenging feelings and combine them with an intention to heal, that is the way that we can set up the conditions for being guided toward internal and external peace.
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The Awareness that Heals is a never-ending cycle of self-inquiry. Even as you may feel you have reached  development of several levels in one area of your life, you may begin to recognize that you, and all of us. are rookies in another. Identifying yet unseen aspects of your life with awareness need to be met with compassion and a sense of appreciation. It takes great humility and courage to look at what areas aren’t yet developed. You are opening vulnerable areas that many of us avoid! Yet, we are being guided to meet these challenges with a compassionate inquiry with a tone of support. This week Robert encourages listeners to take a brief review of The Awareness That Heals process and ask, where am I able to implement these steps quickly? Where am I yet unaware? This work is a dedication to expressing what we feel is difficult and aren’t sure how to move forward. Then, we can focus on what it is that we really need and how we can get there. Ultimately, this is the roadmap for being able to not suppress what is difficult, identify with this being a universal tendency and make that courageous turn to care and move in the direction that will create the most benefit.
Read the transcription and listen to this episode at Awareness That Heals.