A useful definition of Awakening in the context of Self-Actualisation might be:
Through exploration, the building of awareness of self and the surrounding environment towards most efficiently self-actualising.
To Self-Actualise, is to create and realise ones highest desires continuously at the emotional levels of peace, love and joy, ultimately in peace and harmony within oneself, with all others and the environment one exists in. The emotional levels are realised through a life that contains the most joy, love and fulfilment.
Start with the Self
Who are you? How do you want to be? How do you most efficiently go from where you are to where you wish to be?
Who you are is the sum of beliefs you live by, that display in your actions or behaviours. Does this reflect a life that is full of happiness, love and entirely fulfilled?
Life for those with feelings is directed by feelings. Emotions are energy for motion, this is fundamental in an existence that at essence is composed of thoughts (or intentions) and actions.
To navigate an existence composed of Thoughts and Actions or cause and effect, simply follow your natural steering. The primary steering is to realise happiness from every intention (or thought) that passes through your mind. Love and fulfilment are desired innately also, the realisation of these results in a fuller happiness in one’s life.
Learn to direct yourself efficiently towards realising a life that is abundant in happiness, love and fulfilment is the primary step. Targeting your outcome emotions in a way that systematically enables them would be key.
Steering the direction of Thoughts & Feelings
Thoughts and feelings direct your life, what you experience results in these. What produces those thoughts and feelings are sets of beliefs (inner programming) that form your Perspective in that moment and Perceptions.
Are the Perspectives and Perceptions or beliefs you utilise most enabling towards your self-actualisation?
Introspection is required here or to put it another way becoming aware of how you are and how you want to be is what is necessary to bring about this change.
Changing beliefs is remarkably simple and can be done in many ways, most simply you can just change your mind about something or for the more emotionally charged thoughts that are not efficient at bringing your desired outcome self-help tools like Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or tapping may be utilised to clear the emotional charge and belief change. See here for an example or there are many sites dedicated to this.
Core Beliefs or Perspectives or Core Values
Direction is steered by the primary belief sets utilised most frequently in your life, or your core values. Ensure you have, Joy, Love and Peace as your primary set in whichever order you prefer, then any others following. This is generally omitted by most, to formally recognise this and includes many in the self-help industry.
Set the emotional outcome of your life first and then one may actually realise what they set out for. And subsequently any doings you decide to undertake can be measured as to whether they best help you to realise this. This being your personal self-realisation or self-actualisation.
Peace, love and joy or your life of abundant happiness, love and fulfilment are your compass and checks along the way that you have succeeded.
There are many techniques to eliciting core values and setting them in place. You can explore the field of NLP for this or listen to Tony Robbins to assist you with doing this.
You will know when you are self-realising, when you are being your core values or you are primarily seeing from the perspectives you have chosen of Love, Peace and Joy in every moment.
Navigating the Environment and Others
Understand that you and the environment (all that surrounds you) are one. Think of it in these ways: You are part of life, life is everything in existence. Or think of existence in its entirety as a system and this system is composed of subsystems that interact, and those subsystems contain subsystems that interact down to the most miniscule of levels. If systems interact, they influence each other, they affect each other. You are also a self-organising subsystem that interacts with other systems and subsystems that do the same.
This understanding then raises the question, how does one best realise their personal happiness, love and fulfilment when you are part of life?
The Tools of Creation
Utilise the Tools of Creation as was highlighted by Neale Donald Walsh in his “Conversations with God” series the tools of creation. Thoughts – Words (or communications) – Actions.
Apply the tools towards the outcomes desired. More happiness or joy, love and a life that is fulfilled within a grand system constructed of subsystems that interact at every level.
The recommendation provided, which also fits with a life of deliberate Self-Actualisation or self-realisation is the following.
Design all thoughts, particularly sponsoring thoughts (largest agendas) towards bringing joy to all that they concern, including the environment. So do my plans to build a highly polluting factory using child slave labour to produce cheap clothing that breaks after 3 usages to be sold at very cheap prices so that volume maybe sold, bring joy to all concerned?
Does it bring long-term joy to the shareholders, directors, staff, customers, the environment, in particular the ecosystems affected by this choice? What is the quality of this choice? Or how good is this choice, really?
The joy that it brings ultimately and through the process will be reflected by feedback or the communications or words received by all concerned. The dead fish from the poisonous effluent from the factory, the heavy metal poisoning of families downstream from the factory, the harsh conditions for the child labour and generally stressed staff, all a communication. Then at the other end, Shareholders, gaining short-term profits are immediately happy to a certain level, like the Directors with their hefty bonus that eats into the dividends provided, but long-term happiness from a return on the shareholders investment maybe stifled as the plastic from the products produced by the business begins to make the environment they live in inhospitable to life, their life ultimately.
If however the words or communications towards the thoughts designed to bring joy to all did so in a fair way, then proceed and act and build your factory. Ensure that any resultant actions would be considered loving actions, to all concerned.
Is it loving to employ slaves, to harm others including local plants and animals as a side effect of your business practices?
In summary, aim all Thoughts to bring Joy to all concerned, utilise the surrounding communications from all parties concerned to see if they reflect the joy that this thought or choice may bring. If it does and only if it is practical, act on it. Then ensure any actions maybe considered as loving actions to all concerned.
Awareness, Responsibility and Honesty
In order to truly know who you are and where you want to be, you will need to expand your awareness of how things are, in relation to how you want to be. This requires responsibility firstly of the self and directing yourself fully towards your own self-realisation and responsibility of all that is around you as you are a subsystem, amongst others, within a greater system or sets of systems.
Honestly appraising things as they are, will provide the most practical means to deciding on options and actions.
Communications
Thoughts and Actions provide data through one’s available senses. This is received by your conscious awareness in that moment. Based on your beliefs or primary perspectives in place the data is filtered through and thoughts and feelings based on the primary perspectives are output.
Should you be feeling an emotion outside the range of your desired core perspectives, this will affect the output. For example, anger, will add energy for action, the question is, is this actually appropriate and most beneficial in bringing about your ultimate agenda most efficiently.
Hence for complex analysis, it is best to strictly adhere to making observations before inferences are made.
Observations and Inference
Analysis is best performed through observations of what occurs. This is then fed through a perspective or set of primary perspectives, ideally Joy, Love and Peace. Inferences result from the perspective taken, these are the thoughts that are generated from the filters or shape sorters utilised. The inferences are understandings or perceptions. The most valuable understandings are the ones that maybe utilised to make the most significant difference to improving the quality of your life. Another word for this type of inference is Wisdom.
Seek the Wisdom in everything.