Awareness Comes Before Change

One Safer Thing Life Tip #001

Awareness Comes Before Change

By Troy Alan Cox

I often tell the story of getting trapped at the back of Costco in the cooler section trembling and crying.

While that may sound overly dramatic to the everyday big-box shopper, it was my reality.

Having lived in my yoga studio, essentially surrounded by the yoga world, I had become accustomed to a peaceful environment and, for the most part, people who were seeking quiet and calm.

After closing the yoga studio and trying to reenter civilian life, as I call it, one of my new jobs came with a Costco membership. Wanting the savings they advertised, I went to Costco in 2016 for the first time.

As a highly sensitive person, meaning I'm naturally attuned to sensory input, I was immediately struck upon entering by the volume of sound. Then came the pushing and shoving, the chaotic carts rushing toward me and around me, the long lines waiting for food samples, and the glaring signage. My sense of space and spatial awareness became overwhelmed.

For years I had been practicing a tool called withdrawal of the senses, intentionally reducing stimulation to return to a baseline of inner calm. Needless to say, by the time I reached the back of the store, I was shaking. I stepped into the cooler section and called a friend to talk me out of the store.

I didn't return to Costco again until 2022.

Looking back, the greatest tool I gained from that experience wasn't avoiding Costco.

It was awareness.

I became aware of what causes stress in my personal system. Overstimulating environments simply do not work well for me. That experience reinforced the importance of stepping back and witnessing our own situations from a more objective perspective. If we can step back from the front row of the movie screen of our lives, we begin to see where the friction is really coming from.

I have discovered a huge secret to making change happen faster.

The first step is recognition.

Seeing the warning signs of stress and becoming aware of what we want to change is often the missing piece in every area of life where we desire something different.

Almost all stress can be managed through understanding how our biology responds to it. Most of us try to fix stress before we even recognize that we're experiencing it.

The body often notices long before the mind does.

As a teacher, I know people often arrive carrying the weight of their day. My goal has always been to create a womb of safety for those seeking my help or advice, whether that's within themselves or their work or home spaces.

The safer and more relaxed our inner space or environment becomes, the more transformation becomes possible.

To turn this into a tool you can use today, before trying to solve a problem, spend one minute simply noticing what is happening.

Ask yourself:

• What is happening?

• What do I feel right now?

• What do I need right now?

Becoming aware is the first step toward making change.

In order to do that, we often need to remove ourselves from the situation and examine it as if we were an investigator or crime scene reporter interviewing witnesses from different perspectives.

The further removed we are from the perceived stressor, the clearer the picture becomes. When we're standing in the middle of the situation, we're often too close to see what is actually creating the stress or friction in our lives.

Take some time today to go somewhere safe but unfamiliar and detached from the situation causing you stress.

Write it down.

Look at it as if someone else were describing your circumstances.

Notice your habits, Your thoughts, Your words, Your actions, Your environment.

Awareness is the first step.

You can use this tool in just about any situation in life to create a safer experience.

How do you look at what's causing you stress in your life and see it from a removed perspective first before trying to make change?