Transition to Awareness

What if the Aha Zone is a transition point from one level of awareness to another? For example, one of my ancestors questioned their instinctive behavior and realized an aha moment that started a new trend – the use of fire. By questioning their instinctive fear of fire, they learned to control their fear. This realization that fear could be controlled led to a leap in awareness.

Instinctual Me

Instinctive me defends itself against environmental threats and asks, “What threatens me now?” It’s also concerned with needs. “Are my needs being met?” results in two simple questions:

1. What need is not being satisfied? (What’s wrong?)
2. How do I get what I need now? (What must I do?)

Cognizant Me

Cognizance adds relational awareness and asks, “What happened?” This results in an awareness of what, where, when, why my environment appears to relate to me as it does. Recognition of cause and effect.

I have one such relationship with time, for example. In instinct, I serve the demands time imposes upon me – like circadian rhythms. Once I recognized that there was a way to measure time, I could change my behaviors within it. At some point, someone came to an “Aha” moment in which they realized that one could measure time. There is a significant difference between the acknowledgment of time and the cognitive use of it.

This relational awareness offers me much more insight into my world. Because of the power of instinct, I tend to put relationships into service of defense, like blame and war. Cognitive questions tend to connect me with others in a meaningful way. Such questions as, “How do I get what I want?” tend to result in behaviors that take my community into account. Cognizance adds opportunity for more questioning:

1. Why do I feel as I do? (What does this experience mean?)
2. Who am I in relation to my environment?

Visionary Me

Visionary me asks questions like:

1. What’s next?
   1. What am I not perceiving yet?
   2. What could this experience mean beyond what I think it does?
2. How might we evolve?
   1. How might what I do now affect the future?
   2. What might a future appear like than how I imagine it now?
3. Why do I matter?
   1. What is my purpose in the grand scheme?
   2. Why does my contribution matter to the whole?
4. Who am I?
   1. Who am I beyond the context of my world?
   2. What is beyond my perception of my personhood?
   3. Who is the who that I am?
   4. Who else might I/you be than who I think I am/you are?

Beyond Me?

What may lie beyond these limited-awareness aspects of me?