Conscious Attention<–>Space (Emptiness)<–>Awareness are the mechanisms of our mindsight for transforming our internal system of habituation. They are fundamental elements of our direct experience.  The emotional energy (e.g. “reactionary force” or impulse) driving the reaction empties into space as it cannot unconsciously flow its uninhibited cycle. From this empty space, we rest, and our attention energy opens our field of awareness to experience the waves of images, associations, and memories connected with the feeling states & bodily sensations (i.e. emotional imprints) that may manifest, flow, and subside in this awakening process. Through awareness and space, our experience is invited to take its natural course.

In awareness, letting go, shifting, and penetrating (i.e. dismantling) the reactionary pattern will be turbulent at times especially for deeply rooted habituation. Discomfort may arise as habit energy tries to erode our attention and resistance manifests as we struggle not to be seduced by the cycle and by our conditioned tendency to control the situation. The reaction often arises in our attempts to control our experience. To stay with it, our attention needs to gently and compassionately touch the experience with whatever arises, and then simply move on with the process… Touch n’ Go… with abiding attention and open awareness.

Resistance, discomfort, as well as subsequent emotional and physical contraction may be omnipresent throughout this process as our ego and our self-image are often intertwined with the emotional core of the pattern- and as we begin to see our values and beliefs as patterns not as absolutes. This system of habituation has been learned and repeated over and over again entrenching learned values perpetuated by conditioned imperatives of who and what we believe we are…

Feelings of fear & helplessness are spawned as a result of the reactionary pattern’s disconnect from its underlying storyline and emotional core- and as we enter unknown, groundless territory. Anger may arise to mask our fear as we try to control the process- but to attend & abide mindfully, we can neither indulge nor repress our experience. We simply observe & recognize. We begin to shift our outlook as we reform and reframe our relationship to the reactionary pattern—and ultimately penetrate and dismantle its fueling, undischarged emotional core.

Conscious attention is seeing and knowing directly; it’s experiencing the reactionary impulses, feelings, and bodily sensations as they are arising, flowing, and subsiding in awareness- free of emotional and psychological projections (i.e. self-identification). Experience-awareness arises unceasingly. We rest in the breath and the open space (emptiness) of arising created in awareness as energy from the reactionary process empties and reactiveness is replaced by heightened awareness.

To effectively penetrate and dismantle conditioned reactionary patterns, we need to have cultivated a solid, stable base of attention, as well as a higher level of energy flowing & sustaining in awareness than that of the habit energy itself. Otherwise, we will continue to be emotionally hijacked by our recurrent impulses throughout this transformative process- and the reactionary patterns may ultimately intensify by robbing the energy from our free attention. To be effective, this process requires courage, faith, acceptance, and care. Diligence with relaxed readiness… as mental fitness is born from our capacity- from our free attention to work through the mind’s resistance- again & again.

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