Awareness is You, and You Matter

September is Suicide Awareness Month, so I would like to reflect and discuss the core of what makes each person beautiful, incredibly unique, and limitless: awareness. Starting with me, then propelled towards you.

When I think about everything that has happened to me, how and who I am to this day, and what made me weaker and stronger in different aspects of the person I currently am, I give credit to my experiences. After all, it is experience that shapes us and helps form our identities.

However, we do not often think about what creates experience itself. Experiences don’t just happen to us without reason; we CREATE experience, because we give reason for why everything in our lives happened to us. HOW we process everything that is external to ourselves is how we give life meaning.

Perception is precious. Your perception has the power to create experience, whether it be good or bad. Every choice, every action, and every decision you make inherently becomes the reality of your external world. That is why self-care, self-talk, and the basic thoughts you say to yourself is crucial in forming beliefs.

Wherever you invest your focus on, make sure they consistently help you become the person you wish your future self would thank you for.

From a very young age, we were conditioned to earn love and avoid pain. Those were the 2 main concepts that molded our basic personality. In essence, personality is based on how other people perceive us. Little do we ask ourselves,

how do we perceive ourselves when no one is watching? Are we more or less authentic, true, and comfortable alone in the way that we are when we are surrounded with people?

We are not our personalities. We are not our thoughts. Our thoughts and personalities help others define and understand and put meaning to who we are, but the core of who you truly are is ineffable. It is like an ocean, or a universe. There is inherent worth within you that does need any explanation. You are limitless of the potential that you might not even see at this moment. So we must choose people who choose us. As corny as it sounds, let us choose people who help us feel like the main character, or whatever character we want to be in our story. Because when we do so, we then choose the path towards joy, acceptance, and love.

At the current age of 20 years old, I realize that love must not be earned, because it is naturally unconditional, selfless, kind, and comforting. Whenever I have personally tried to EARN love, I felt like I had to impress and throw away my authenticity. Earned love just feels conditional and limiting. Instead of earning love, which I was taught growing up, earning respect now feels better to lean towards.

While compassion is given for free, respect has to be earned.

Because respect essentially turns into fondness, and fondness may then transform into love. And respect is one of the foundations for true connection.

As for avoiding pain, I now realize that it takes immense and commendable strength to do the contrary, for even vaster results. Therapy taught me to safely dig into the core roots of what caused my pain through self-care practices and the power of routine, in order to wash it all away. The pain I have felt is a part of my past and will always be acknowledged.

Healing is not about having any problems at all and living a fully happy life; it is about your problems no longer having the power to overwhelm your mind, and the power to overcome the limiting thoughts you have through your own awareness.

Coming full circle — awareness is your personal tool for perception to form experience. Experience is primarily the meaning you create out of external stimuli that occurs to you. All implicit and/or explicit meanings are essentially products of perception. And that’s what makes each day feel different or the same, exciting or boring, surprising or anticlimactic. That is why you like some people and you don’t like others, or you like how you feel one moment and then become repulsed by the next.

The entire spectrum of feelings are birthed through you. At the deepest part of ourselves, we are simply awareness. We have the power to change our narratives, however and whenever we want to. And we are and will always be powerful.

Your focus is your reality, and your awareness is your power. That makes us, us.

From the tiny grains of your handmade sand castle on the shore,

to the biggest boulder you sit upon amidst wide luscious forests,

from the trickling of the sky’s tears on your car window,

to the most massive waves you see from a mile away underneath the sun’s rays,

From the steam of your hot beverage on a cold winter’s day,

to the cool wind you feel at spring or autumn’s dawn,

it is finally clear to see how connected everything truly is. Including our own selves.

And because we are all made up of particles that we call matter, it is impossible to deny the fact that you matter.

If you are having suicidal thoughts, please reach out to someone you can trust. Once you are aware that you are not your thoughts, you are invincible. It all starts with you. Keep on being the strong person you are. <3

- Kat <3

IG: @plantifullylivin

@katrinazara