Have you ever had the experience of buying a car, and then all of sudden it seems like you see that car everywhere? And you would even swear that prior to purchasing the car there were not very many of that model on the road. After all, that may have been one of the reasons you picked it.
Or maybe you have driven on the same stretch of road over and over and over again. Then someone tells you about a business or a restaurant that is along your very familiar route, but you have never noticed it before. You may have even argued with them and insisted it wasn’t there.
The next time you drive by, sure enough, there it is. You can tell it has been there for a while too. Although you have driven by it repeatedly you have never seen it before. But here is the thing, although it has been there for a long time, it did not exist in your world because you had never noticed it.
Take that in… really take that in.
It had been there all along, but because you didn’t see it, because you were not aware of it, it did not exist for you.
Just because you didn’t see it does not mean it wasn’t there. It just means it wasn’t there for you.
However, once someone called your attention to it, you had no choice but to notice it. And the really cool part – once you have a new awareness, it is yours and no one can take it away from you.
Well, you know me, I love a great metaphor. I find it interesting to draw parallels between physical forms in nature and the way that humans work, don’t you?
Not long ago I received the gift of a children’s book called ‘The Oak Inside the Acorn,” by Max Lucado. Well this book got me thinking about the parallels between the physical form of trees and the human awareness.
Prior to reading this book, I learned an interesting fact about trees… or at least I thought I did.
Originally what I understood was that when you look at a tree, the circumference of the width of the branches is equal to the circumference of the width of the roots. This made perfect sense to me because that would make the tree balanced.
But do you know what I have discovered since?
That information is incorrect.
The truth is that the circumference of the width of the roots is actually up to two thirds wider than the circumference of the width of the branches.
So how is that connected to human awareness?
Consider that the width of the branches is equivalent to your awareness of the world around you. A tree with a small branch circumference has a very small view of the world which surrounds it. But a tree with a large branch circumference has wide expanse of branches and has a much broader, larger picture view of the world which surrounds it.
If you want to expand your awareness, first you have to expand the circumference of your root base, by digging deep and expanding your knowledge of self. As you increase your knowledge of who you are and what is important to you, you also increase your awareness of the world around you.
