Coaching practices for Contemplative Self Awareness

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Contemplative Self Awareness, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• My harsh self-critical thoughts land like verdicts on who I fundamentally am, and they devastate me because I take them as the truth about my whole self
• My thoughts feel like they ARE me
• I’ll surface from a meditation realizing I drifted off ten minutes ago and was completely gone the whole time
• So much of me is a performance
• The only times the constant self-consciousness ever goes quiet are when I’m so deep into something that matters to me that I forget myself entirely

Practices that may help

1. Shift identity from self-concept to awareness itself
   Experiment with "I am the aware space" rather than "I am my thoughts and feelings."
   Non-Dual Awareness, Made Practical
2. Notice the noticer
   Find the part of you that is observing the thought — and recognize it is not the thought.
   Self-as-Context (Observing Self), Made Practical
3. Develop introspective metacognition
   Train the ability to notice, in real time, when attention has wandered — before you’ve been distracted for a long time.
   Shamatha: The Buddhist Practice of Calm Abiding
4. Attending to the true self beneath the false self
   Recognize the constructed social persona (false self) and rest in the deeper self beneath it.
   Contemplative Prayer: The Inner Journey
5. Losing yourself in absorbing, worthwhile activity
   Get so absorbed in meaningful activity that self-consciousness drops away.
   Self-Transcendence: Beyond the Self
6. Rest as the witness rather than in objects
   Allow the inquiry to culminate in resting as the awareness that perceives, rather than in any object perceived.
   Self-Inquiry: Ramana Maharshi’s Path of Direct Investigation
7. Witnessing thoughts — observing without being them
   Watch thoughts arise and pass without identifying with them — you are the awareness in which thoughts appear, not the thoughts themselves.
   Open Monitoring Meditation, Made Practical
8. Hitbonenut: contemplative self-observation
   Sit with your middah in focused contemplation — not analyzing it but watching it directly.
   Mussar: The Jewish Path of Character
9. Prosoche — the practice of attention
   Maintain constant, vigilant attention to your own thoughts, judgments, and impulses as they arise.
   Pierre Hadot’s Spiritual Exercises
10. Contemplation, prayer, or meditation toward the larger
    Use a contemplative practice to dissolve, briefly, the boundary of the self.
    Self-Transcendence: Beyond the Self

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.