1. The Noticing Game - Untethered Soul Group

25 Apr

by Rob Smith

Before I get into what constitutes 'the noticing game,' I just observed that the font that automatically came up for this document is "Liberation Serif." :~) There are truly NO coincidences! :~) :~)

So, what's this noticing game that I've been encouraging people to play for, well, basically forever? Our 'master cat herder' :~) and good friend Mark Anderson asked me to provide some details about this game, which I am glad to do. There's an old saying in spiritual circles, "recognition is 90% of the solution." This applies to lots of other areas of life also, but I'll limit this discussion to the spiritual aspects.

As I'm sure you're aware by now, the vast majority of people pay VERY close attention to their thoughts; not only that, they think they ARE their thoughts! In many cases this leads to outcomes that are not, shall we say, very life-supporting. This is because the thoughts they are paying attention to are the result of them not being able to 'handle their heart;' in other words, when energy from our old conditioning(s) (called 'samskaras' in Sanskrit) tries to come up and be released, we don't let it. And the reason we don't let it is because we stored it inside precisely because it was 'uncomfortable' in some way, and it still feels that way. So rather than be willing to 'become comfortable with being uncomfortable' as Mickey puts it, we turn to our human minds to see if we can figure out how to change people and situations outside of ourselves to make ourselves feel better. Which seems to make sense, because if the people and situations outside of ourselves "matches our mess" (as Mickey says) then we WILL feel better.

The problem is that if this works, it never works for long.... because people and situations outside of ourselves are ALWAYS changing, and we will be unable to keep everything just the way we need it to be to always feel OK. So, sooner or later (and usually sooner), we will get 'triggered' again and have to go back to the same old method of working outside of ourselves in an attempt to fix our inside disturbances. At some point we have to come to the awareness that this never works, at least not for very long, and become willing to try something entirely different. This realization is often the beginning of our spiritual journey.

So, now to specifics. One of the most powerful, yet simple, things you can do now that you're on the spiritual path is to play the 'noticing game.' This game is so simple that many people dismiss it as being trivial, not worthy of their time and energy. Quite the opposite, without this game (or something similar) you won't get very far spiritually, in my opinion. When I first thought of this practice, I decided to call it a 'game' in an attempt to make people be more willing to give it a try. I'm not sure if this tactic has ever worked, :~) but in any case, if you are willing to practice this technique consistently and persistently (the two most important aspects of spirituality, IMO) you WILL reap some very large benefits from it.

Here's how you do it. Make a resolution that, from now on, you will do your best to 'notice' whenever and wherever there's a 'disturbance in the force,' which is nothing more than you start noticing that you are feeling some type of 'non-peaceful' energy or thoughts that have arisen in your awareness. So, what do you do next? If you're new at this, you don't have to do anything else! Just doing the 'noticing' is very powerful, because two things are happening as a result of the noticing. One is that you will most likely find that the 'disturbance in the force' does not last nearly as long as it would have if you had NOT noticed it.

This is because the disturbance can't notice itself, what is doing the noticing is your Higher Self, also known as the 'witness' or the 'beholder.' So now you've brought a new element into your psyche, and this new element (which was there all along but you just weren't aware of it) will 'short-circuit' the disturbance and it will subside much quicker than it would have otherwise. In addition, as you keep playing this game, you will find that it takes you less and less time to notice the disturbance -- at first you might get all caught up in it for hours or even days, but eventually it will be minutes and then seconds, which basically means you spend a LOT less time fretting about this or that (yay!!)

The second thing that happens as a result of noticing is that, because you are bringing your Higher Self into the picture, it (your Higher Self) will start becoming a bigger and bigger part of your awareness.... which is really what 'self-realization' is all about!

Once you gain some mastery with the 'noticing game,' you can go a bit further and start doing the "R & R" technique with what you are noticing. But that's already been discussed in detail elsewhere on this site so I won't go into it here.

So, I hope you see the benefit of playing this simple, yet powerful game.... feel free to let me know if you have any questions! Namaste!

Peace, Rob Smith
We recommend you print this out and read these articles daily for a few weeks. In addition, to the Noticing Game and R&R Technique (surrendering), the Low Hanging Fruit article will help support your efforts.