Through teaching and coaching, this model of awareness organically emerged, and it is foundational to a whole-being perspective of self-empowerment; and, I believe, to this adventure of spiritual immersion and self-discovery. If we do not attend to all domains of our being, we limit the full potentiality of the expression of our essential nature. Moreover, I believe we are here to be the fullest expression of our essential self. This, to me, is the destination toward which we are heading.
Through realizing how we "be" in all domains of awareness, we cultivate an awakening and responsiveness to the multidimensional nature of our being. It gives us not just a bird’s eye view but perhaps an angel’s eye view of the reality within which we are immersed. It allows us to see that our choice-making process includes so much more than meets our everyday seeing eyes.
As you incrementally engage one step at a time into this adventure of self-discovery through the process of immersion, you’ll see how each domain is operating concurrently with the others: there is no separation between the reality I see, the strategies I put into place, the qualities of my humanness, and the Universal consciousness that I am. This process distinguishes each domain, just like in a biology class where we dissect an onion into transparent layers; as it provides us with opportunities to differentiate what occurs in each Domain, and how each influences and supports wholeness for us in our own unique way.
Understanding the model, Domains of Awareness, will bring clarity to your process. It distinguishes reality, or circumstances, as they appear in our everyday living (Domain of Circumstance), from the way we choose to act, think, and be, regarding our circumstance (Domain of Self-Empowerment). It distinguishes our choice-making from the qualities of humanness (Domain of Humanity) that has us feel inadequate, unworthy, unlovable, and open, wonder, loving, creative and so much more. These are distinguished from the qualities of our being that knows without question that we are Oneness, Creation, Universal Source of All That Is (Domain of Oneness). Witnessing yourself as all of this, all at the same time, allows you to bring attention to any one domain, so as to bring clarity of intention and choice-making to whatever you are wanting.
Through cultivating awareness and practicing conscious choice-making, you will understand how you choose to choose what you choose. This knowledge, alone will empower you to discern your highest truth and the actions required to fulfill your quest. It’s up to you to choose how far down the rabbit hole you are willing to go, and the degree to which you are willing to manifest your fullest expression of your essential nature.
From the Outside In
I am the eternal presence of Divine Grace
Remember, all of this is running concurrently, providing continual feedback to and through each of these Domains. To explore the Domains of Awareness, we begin with the Domain of Universal Source and Oneness.
The experience of the Domain of Oneness, Universal Source of All That Is, God, is primarily ineffable, inexpressible, and indefinable, yet known to us all because it is the essence of who we are. We are Oneness, and the Universal Source of All That Is, is within us. We are vibrational beings, already enlightened, and always potentiality awaiting manifestation. We are creator and created, with a capacity to create far beyond what our small-mindedness will allow. All that is to be done is to remember the truth of these words, then begin to unconceal limiting beliefs and perceptions that cloak this essential nature of ours.
Quantum physics has given us an incredible lens through which to view how we be and who we be within our physical bodies. It is now acceptable, in the current field of science, to see ourselves, prior to our human form, as atoms of existence, aspects of a Conscious Universe. The practice is to see yourself within this Domain of Oneness as energy “ energy that has particular qualities “ qualities that are palpable and knowable by their effects on our bodies. They are more pure and elemental than what we consider to be emotions; they are foundational qualities of being, beyond the experience of being human. Again, in this state, we are pure potentiality as creation and as creator.
Spiritual teachers, for eons, have talked about the stillness, the peace, the bliss, the presence, the unity beyond the veils of our human experience. Through meditation, spiritual and religious practices and prayer, near death experiences, shamanic journeying, orgasms, and other peek-experiences, most of us, at one time or another, have experienced ourselves beyond our physicality; we’ve felt embraced within this stillness. People seek to bring this blissful state into their ordinary life. They are exploring ways to sustain the experience of oneness while continuing to hold onto what they are currently attached to as a human being.
This more expanded perspective of awareness supports individuals in making sense of current circumstances that they find themselves in. By including the Domain of Universal Oneness in our context of who we are, we have access to a much larger bandwidth within which to empower ourselves to explore our magnificence and potentiality. Each of us are on a personal journey, a quest, to unconceal, acknowledge, and live into the fullest expression of our essential nature, and allow serenity, peace, and stillness to be the foundation from which we live our ordinary lives.
To recognize ourselves within this Domain of Oneness, which is an essential component of our reality, brings about the cultivation of awareness of the transpersonal realm of being “ one that goes largely unacknowledged as valid and essential to understanding our humanity and the potential for transformation.
The transpersonal world allows for portholes into this Domain to open automatically, when the time is right. There is no need to go looking for them. The practice is to be open to what shows up, without dismissing, ignoring, denying or avoiding what is right in front of you, in this moment.
If it’s so wonderful in the Domain of Oneness, why would we want to take on human form and engage in a human experience? What could this possible serve? Through working with this deck, I suspect that you will discern what is true for you and will cultivate your own model of reality that you wish to live into.
Domain of Humanity
As elements of consciousness and Universal Source, we are oneness, aspects of the whole, inseparable and indivisible from it. If you will, we are spiritual beings choosing to have a human experience. We are the essence of the Divine, choosing to experience the exquisiteness that can only be realized through human form.
Incarnating as a human being is just one of many possible roads to travel, in the evolution of consciousness. I believe we incarnate and come through this human porthole as one way to expand Universal consciousness. As part of this conscious Universe, we are aware of the choices we make in taking human form. We are choosing to attend Earth University because we have specific life lessons we’ve come here to learn. I’ve heard it said that this particular institution (Earth U.) is one of the more rigorous learning environments in this particular Universe.
By entering through the porthole of our mothers’ wombs, we participate in a human journey that includes experiencing a remembering of our Oneness with all that is, as well as feeling the totality of the energetic field of human potential, which is available to us only as human beings.
Choosing to birth oneself into humanness requires a choosing to experience all the qualities of being that are associated with humanness. We know, perhaps from past lives, that there is an exquisiteness to fully embodying all human emotions, sensations and states of being. Yet, when faced with opportunities to immerse ourselves in grief, despair, hatred, or shame, we often choose strategies that will take away the discomforts of being human and perhaps cultivate ways of ignoring, denying, and distracting ourselves from the restless, irritable discontent we experience. We forgot why we came here, and we begin to follow rules of the culture we were born into.
Core Essence of Being
Within the Domain of Humanity we experience our core essence of being. What is the core essence of being? It is both the elements of our Divineness and the elements of humanity, the sensations of existence, which includes the experience of being within a body “ the sensations of touch, taste, sight, hearing; the agony and the ecstasy. It includes experiences of every human emotion known to us, including core fears of rejection, humiliation and annihilation. If it’s true that we reincarnate, and that we may participate in hundreds, if not thousands of lifetimes, more than likely we carry memories of not only our unity consciousness, but also the consciousness of other lifetimes, as well as lifetimes of our ancestors and the experiences of those lifetime.
I see this Domain of Humanity not so much as a place within which we think, but more of a field within which we experience core qualities of being human. It’s a place within which we experience qualities of beauty, peace, wonder, innocence, love, compassion; all of those qualities that make life worth living. In addition, this Domain is a place within which we experience horror, repulsion, shame, guilt, anxiety, grief “ all of those qualities of being that we’ve also come to experience, yet, because they are uncomfortable, we have chosen to shun, deny, avoid and distract ourselves from them. Yet, they are part and parcel to our humanity. We chose to know ourselves through them as energetic qualities of being that we yearn to experience. They are the grist for the mill; they are the elements, or ingredients in our life recipe with which each of us will choose to build our own unique realities.
Domain of Personal Power
So here we are, in human form, being the essence of the Divine Universe, already enlightened; the cells of the lineage of our family, all the stuff, all the trauma and exquisiteness experienced over lifetimes, and all of the potentiality of being human in this lifetime, with no owner’s manual in sight. How do we be with that?
We need a choice-maker! Someone who will choose to choose what to choose in order to have things turn out the way they should and avoid having them turn out the way they shouldn’t! The Domain of Personal Power is where our choice-maker resides, where we choose to choose what we choose. We take in all that we are, including all that we’ve been, and all that we’ve got and all that we want, and we make choices that will generate “ what?
As little beings we want to stay connected to our original state “ connected to Oneness, peace, and bliss. As we come through a birthing process, which is anything but blissful, and we are thrown into circumstances beyond our control; is it any wonder that with the assistance of our choice-maker we begin to strategize, as best we can, in order to bring about some semblance of peace and comfort in our bodies. Utilizing the personal power we have, we create the strategies required to make sense, make peace, find peace, keep peace, or dream of peace.
I believe we are choice-makers prior to our inception, prior to our birth, prior to having the mental cognition of what we are choosing. We chose to be here in human form, didn’t we? And, we chose to have a specific human experience that we designed for ourselves. This, I believe, is the foundation of how we choose to choose what we choose.
We are constantly self-regulating in relation to our environment. Depending on our unique individual makeup, each of us chooses particular interpretations about ourselves and the world around us. We then choose particular strategies to manage, manipulate, control, influence, create and facilitate the outcome we are wanting. We become vigilant in our use of strategies to support fulfillment, safety, trust and security, and to avoid vulnerability, failure, shame, rejection and death. However, at some point we realize that our choice-maker, more often than not, has us survive, yet rarely thrive.
Fear-based Choices
Fear is such a huge part of our human paradigm. It’s rare to find an individual who isn’t living through fear-based choices. Our whole birth process, for instance, is filled with experiences of potential death. Of course we would enter this world traumatized and fearful for our lives- we were in a situation where death seemed imminent. We were being extracted from the blissful state of the womb, and we had to empower ourselves through that birth canal with the help of mother’s contractions. We are programmed to fight for our lives.
What is Fear?
Is fear a thought or is it a quality of being? As infants, we are like little computers with all of our sensory receptors working away, providing data. Early on, we are hardwired to detect whether we have to be on guard or whether we can relax, let go, and enjoy the ride.
If we interpret (which is a choice-making process) from our sensory input that there is danger, our bodies begin to release hormones and chemicals that produce a fight, flight, or freeze response. We feel the sensation, an experience of being anxious, on alert, and full of adrenaline, though we don’t understand what’s creating these sensations. These are qualities of being fearful.
We have direct experiences with these sensations (Domain of Humanity). Our choice-maker who resides within the Domain of Personal Power says "Hold on here! We’ve got to do something so that feeling doesn’t occur anymore. It sucks to feel this way!"
There is a belief (which is created through a choice-making process), that if the experience of fear is present, then danger must be real. So, our choice-maker goes about creating strategies that will hopefully eliminate the experience of fear. At the same time that it wants to eliminate fear, it is has to choose to guard against it. If it chooses to guard against fear, it has to choose to believe that fear exists and is always a threat.
Because of this rudimentary relationship we have with fear, we concoct all sorts of interpretations and strategies to deal with fear. Running around like Chicken Little, screaming "The sky is falling" is just one of hundreds of ways to relate to the bodily sensations that our choice-maker has chosen to interpret as fear.
Fear can be an enemy of truth. When we feel afraid we often lose perspective (a choice-making process), making rash decisions (again, choice-making), that may not serve our highest good or our highest truth (Domain of Oneness).
Choice-making, based on an experience we are having in our bodies (and all of our choice-making is based on an experience we are having in our bodies), leads us to choose some fascinating strategies. Fear-based choice-making leads us generally to create strategies that provide relief for moments at a time; however they do not cultivate a fearless environment.
We are swimming in a fishbowl of fear; it’s the paradigm within which we live, and for only moments at a time are we in touch with a reality where fear doesn’t exist (Domain of Oneness). Within these moments we remember who we are as the essence of Universal Oneness. In these moments we experience being peace, serenity, innocence, and joy. In these moments we have access to a reality that presents far more potential and far greater possibility within which to choose to choose what we choose.
Essence-based Choices
If we aren’t making choices based on fear and avoidance, what are we choosing from?
Underlying all of our wants and desires is a quality of experience we are wanting and believe will be ours, when our desires are fulfilled. These qualities of being, as you’ve seen, reside in the Domain of Humanity; they are the essence of our being human.
All of our desires– ALL OF OUR DESIRES– are fueled by the underlying yearning to embody these qualities that are life-affirming, Self-affirming, and are the fullest expressions of our essential nature. At the same time, all of our desires– ALL OF OUR DESIRES– are also fueled by an underlying urge to avoid those qualities of being that we’ve interpreted as negative, frightening, and alienating. We are committed to both at the same time. Our choice-maker is constantly choosing to choose what to choose in service to what we say we want, AND, at the same time, is in service to what we say we don’t want. Our choice-maker is working really hard to create a life that is worth living; one that is safe, secure, and provides all the fun we are willing to have. The life that is showing up in front of you is the outcome of your choice-making. The results are within the Domain of Circumstances.
Domain of Circumstances
Take a look around you what do you see? What do you hear? What is your body touching “ this book, your computer, the seat you are sitting in, your clothing, shoes? What can you sense around you warmth from the sun, a breeze, your cat purring? What are you sensing within you hunger, stiffness, relaxation? What thoughts are you thinking? What interpretations are going on inside your head about the various conditions occurring in your life right now? Is it a Sunday? What meaning do you choose to make of that?
I could ask a hundred more questions that would have you look around and notice the world you are immersed in. It’s a world we give very little thought to. We see ourselves as part and parcel to our environment, part of the human dilemma, part of the unfolding of time and space. This is the Domain within which we exist, and for most of us, this is the only Domain that exists.
Our circumstances point to the choice-making process we’ve participated in prior to inception, when we were just a spark in our Universal Parents’ eye. What we chose, originally, cultivated a whole unfolding of further choices in service to our spiritual evolution. Cultivating curiosity about how we choose to choose to choose, to have our lives turn out the way they do, and how we thus far have avoided it turning out the way we don’t want, will hopefully allow you to immerse yourself in an investigation of you. The pragmatics of this adventure will be that you have greater courage, wisdom and strength to create what you say you want.
Within this Domain of Circumstances, what is present to you, in this moment, provides opportunities for you to discern your truth and choose to choose what you choose in service to being in this moment. What must have been decided by you in the past that would have these circumstances arise now, in this moment? Is what you decided in the past still true for you today? Would you choose differently in order for your circumstances to be different?
Summary
Although each domain of the Domains of Awareness is distinct and separate from the others, all are occurring concurrently. We are always in the Domain of Oneness and Universal Source, in our Domain of Humanity, in our Domain of Personal Power, and in our Domain of Circumstance. Distinguishing the relationship we are having with ourselves, in relation to Universal Source, with our own humanity, with our own personal power, and with our current circumstances is what will occur as you begin to cultivate awareness of who you are and how you choose to choose. Through this distinguishing process you will cultivate awareness of pre-existing beliefs and interpretations, and will be liberated to choose to choose differently, only in service to what you say you want. Without including the Domain of Personal Power, the Domains of Humanity and of Universal Source, you ignore a huge pool of resources that you continually draw from, yet isn’t utilized. The more we cultivate our awareness of the vast, rich and deep wealth of information immersed in the totality of ourselves, the more effective and fulfilling our lives will be. You will empower yourself to shift your world because you are able to think outside the preverbal and proverbial box: the Domain of Circumstances.
It’s not as though this conversation isn’t going on inside you without your knowledge or consent. It actually never stops! It’s just that your hierarchy of commitments may obscure the ongoing conversation you have with this higher wisdom to the degree that it’s barely a whisper among the clamor of circumstances, survival needs and pleasures sought. It is my hope that through this process you will empower yourself to sort through your commitments, deepen your self-awareness, and discover yourself in each of the Domains of Awareness.
If you are sincerely committed to creating a life worth living, please feel free to contact me: rosie@theparadigmshifts.com.
Dr. Rosie Kuhn is a preeminent thought leader in the field of Transformational Coaching and Leadership Development. She is available for Speaking Engagements, Coaching Sessions for Individuals, Organizations and Executives, as well as Trainings. Her books can be found at Amazon.com. And, be sure to check out many of her other blogs as www.theparadigmshifts.com.
