Expert tips for increasing your awareness of everything in your environment
By Scott Shephard, owner, Fundamental Martial Arts
Personal protection is as much a part of a well-rounded health plan as a proper diet, exercise, and positive energy. Being alert in your environment can boost good energy and serve as a vital warning, contributing greatly to your safety. Awareness is an often overlooked, yet critical protection skill. Awareness can assist your ability to prevent trouble. We all have room to improve our awareness capacity. Think of advanced awareness as an opportunity to enrich the experiences of your day and as a barrier to common dangers, potentially preventing something serious. This isn’t a suggestion that you become paranoid; just that you become more conscious of all the elements of your surroundings.
If you practice for a couple weeks, widening your awareness becomes natural and welcomed. It is liberating, not a vehicle for paranoia. Here’s the trick: don’t think of improving your environmental awareness as a task. Don’t think of seeking out threats, traps, and snares.
Instead, think of expanding your awareness of everything that’s around you, including the good things! Broaden your vision, what you feel on your skin, what you hear, everything. Notice the stars, the two old people holding hands, the colors of the sunset, puppy dogs, newborn babies, and the sound of wind in the trees.
Your goal is to absorb more good things in your environment. When you do, you will not only enjoy more beautiful experiences, but you’ll also begin deepening the practice of advanced environmental awareness. And, by practicing these skills, if something is lurking, you’ll have an easier time spotting it. The more you begin to absorb the good things around you, the more you will apply the practice and the more able you’ll be to prevent potential trouble.
Try stretching your senses. What do you see? If outside you might say, grass, dog and fence. How about your property, a mountain and the daytime moon? We must strive to deeply tune in our senses. If you close your eyes what do you hear? You might hear the air conditioner, kids playing, and a car going by. Again, stretch! When you’ve stretched and can’t pick up any more sounds, that is where you should normally be operating. Do you hear the birds tweeting and leaves moving in the breeze, or do they just blend in? If we are tuned in only for dogs barking and fire trucks, we won’t hear the pebble being kicked behind us on the dimly lit parking lot.
Effective prevention practice certainly does require extending the awareness of your environment. Let go of tunnel vision. Always listen to your gut and embrace this important, underappreciated gift. Use shadows as they may catch your eye, alerting you to danger. Use reflections, of your car door glass for example, to see what may be approaching from behind you. Also, if any senses are disrupted, consciously connect to other ones. When dark, listen more. When loud, look more. Prevention practice does not guarantee safety, but it does improve what you take into your mind. This is the key to help reduce the possible hazards you may face.
For more information about Fundamental Martial Arts, visit www.FundamentalLivingArts.com or call 928.925.2642.