Zones of awareness

Awareness is a word that most of us are familiar with. We use it colloquially, in our day to day lives. We also use it professionally within the mental health sphere. Given this, it’s likely that we all have slightly different ideas as to what awareness is. James Bugental, an existential-humanistic psychologist, likened it to our ability to experience life at its center—”that is, I need to feel my “I-ness”. That’s what inner awareness is about. It’s the experiencing of I-ness”. Mariah Fenton Gladis, a Gestalt therapist, said it is “the ability to identify the phenomena of one’s existence in any given moment”. Fritz Perls, one of the founders of Gestalt therapy, once said that awareness is the “spontaneous sensing of what arises in you, of what you are doing, feeling, planning”. I would say that my definition, at least for this discussion, is a synthesis of these three definitions. Awareness refers to our ability and our capacity to experience and identify what is happening for us right now—sensations, emotions, thoughts, etc—fully. It refers to the degree that we are in contact with the experience we are having in the here-and-now.

Right now, as you read this, what are you aware of? I invite you to take a moment and see what comes up, see what becomes figural for you, see what commands your attention. Perhaps you can make explicit some of the things that bubble up in your experience by saying “I am aware of ____”. For example, right now I am aware of the soft and muffled breathing of my cat near me. I am aware of the sound of running water from said cat’s fountain. I am aware that I feel itchy on my back. I am aware of the smell of incense burning. I am aware that I am almost kind of monitoring myself right now. And I’m aware of this sort-of fluid process through which parts of my experience comes to me and my attention, and then it leaves, making room for something else. It comes and it goes, like a wave.

Awareness can be broken up into three categories, or zones as we will call them. There is the ‘outer’ zone, the ‘inner’ zone, and the ‘middle’ zone. Let us direct our attention towards the ‘outer’ zone to begin.

The ‘outer’ zone consists of that which is around us, our surroundings. We know of and engage with this zone through our senses. Think back to my cat’s breathing that I mentioned or the running water, both are examples of our senses, in this case hearing, informing us about the world around us. Our senses are as follows: taste, touch, hearing, smell, and sight. All of these senses are means through which we make contact with the external world—that which is outside of me. They help us orient ourselves and navigate through the world.

Now, the ‘inner’ zone. If the ‘outer’ zone consists of that which is around us, then the ‘inner’ zone is its opposite: that which is inside of us. Rather than rely on senses, the ‘inner’ zone employs the use of two different means of knowing: body sensations and feelings (read: emotions). Think back to my mentioning of the itchy feeling I was experiencing. This is a bodily sensation that is informing me of my current experience. The same can be said for any various feelings, be it anger, sadness, anxiety, guilt, shame, so on. All of these feelings are a well-spring of knowledge, despite their, so often being the case, unpleasantness. These feelings help us become aware of and stay in contact with our internal world.

The ‘middle’ zone is a little different. It exists between, as the name suggests, the ‘outer’ and ‘inner’ zones. This zone consists of all mental activity: thinking, planning, judging, comparing, remembering the past, anticipating the future. It is a zone of our fantasies, a zone of our interpretations. For a lot of people, this zone is a zone that is familiar. This zone is home. Fritz Perls said that a lot of us get stuck here, and as a result of that, we lose touch with both the ‘inner’ and the ‘outer’ zones. We lose touch with the world around us and the world inside of us. We exist in solely our minds, hence his quote “lose your mind and come to your senses”.

I mentioned earlier this sort-of fluid process of the comings and goings of my awareness. In truth, I think for many of us this is how we experience awareness. This is how we experience ourselves. I imagine while reading this your own process has been one of flux, an ever shifting movement. Perhaps you became thirsty while reading this and drank some water (‘inner’ zone). Perhaps someone rang the doorbell and you decided whether or not you wanted to get up and go see what that was about (‘outer’ zone). Maybe you’ve gotten this far into reading my thoughts and they have sparked some thoughts of your own (‘middle’ zone). Maybe you’re now chewing them over and deciding whether or not you want to integrate them into your own way of thinking.

Towards the beginning of this writing, I invited you to take a moment and see what rose to the surface in your experience. I invited you to attend to yourself and see what you became aware of. Now, I want to invite you to play some with these ideas that we’ve talked about today. If your natural process already moves you to and fro, if you find that you are already moving through these zones organically, what happens for you if you make it intentional? What happens if you spotlight a particular zone, then another, and another? All they are equally accessible? Are some easier to be in touch with than others? Are some harder to be in touch with? Are some muffled or dull? Does it take more energy from you to play like this, rather than let your natural process happen? What do you notice that is different about you and your experience? You can try making it explicit by saying “I notice ____”.

Thank you for reading. Cheers and take care.