The Awareness Advantage: How to Break Free from Autopilot

In 12 years of meditation, I've touched enlightenment exactly once.

I was slightly drunk on a bus from Canberra to Sydney…

The meditation app was just meant to be another box to tick that day - 20 minutes of the usual mental ping-pong between breath and distraction.

But something different happened.

As I sat, watching the Australian countryside pass by, my awareness seemed to both expand and disappear entirely. The feeling of the leather seat disappeared, the rumble of the bus faded, and the chatter of other passengers melted away. I wasn't me anymore.

I just was.

It felt like that SNL sketch where people get abducted by aliens - the good experience, not Kate McKinnon's "knockers" situation. Pure golden light and cosmic belonging.

It might have been two minutes or twenty. Time doesn't exist when you're touching the divine, or whatever the hell that was. This was it - the mythical "awakening" that every meditation app and mindfulness guru promises.

And you know what?

It isn’t the point.

That rare moment of transcendence wasn't special because it happened—it was special because I noticed it happening.

And that noticing—that awareness—is available to all of us in every moment, not just in peak experiences.

The ability to witness our own experience is our most underutilized superpower.

Your Success Loop is Secretly Working Against You

Chasing enlightenment is just another version of the same achievement trap I've been falling into my whole life. Hell, I got a whole PhD trying to optimize my way to personal growth. It's the same mindset that had me calculating exactly what score I needed on every test to keep my A.

If you ever cared about school like I did (obsessive, borderline insane), then all you wanted was a syllabus. That beautiful document helped you calculate the perfect formula for achieving the almighty A. Through highschool and college, I could tell you what score I needed on every assessment, updating my calculations throughout the year like some obsessive mad scientist.

Achieving that A was my respect and my attention, and my whole life had taught me that everything could be bought with hard work, time, and a little strategy.

So when I discovered meditation, guess how I approached it? Like another performance-enhancing drug - free and legal! - that would help me survive the PhD, boost my productivity, and magically transform me into an entirely better person.

I thought it was simple math: show up, accumulate time on the cushion, hold up my end of the deal, and eventually be rewarded with enlightenment. Please and thank you, I'd like my transformation now.

And sure, it helped with all those things. Just not the way I expected.

Because awareness doesn't work like that.

Awareness is defined as “the capacity to observe your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors objectively—without immediate judgment or reaction”.

It's the space between what happens and how you choose to respond.

If it helps, you can think of awareness as the muscle that lets you notice your thoughts, emotions, and reactions without being controlled by them. And like any muscle, it grows stronger with consistent training.

In meditation, the real work happens when you catch yourself thinking about the grocery list, that project at work, or that mean thing Tina said last week (fkn Tina).

You notice.
You bring it back to the breath.
You get distracted again.
You notice.
You bring it back to the breath.

Those are the reps. That's the muscle you're building.

And it is the same underlying muscle with with journaling - catching the patterns in your morning pages or your weekly reviews. Similar with therapy or coaching - noticing what makes you react, what lights you up, what stories you keep telling yourself.

The 'catch' is awareness. And it's not just another skill to optimize - it's the foundation that makes every other change possible.

Research from neuroscientists like Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that regular meditation practice actually changes brain structure, particularly in areas associated with attention, emotional regulation, and self-awareness. These aren't just subjective benefits—they're measurable changes in how your brain functions.

You are building your ability to notice. When you notice something, like “I’m pretty pissed off right now” or “that really upset me” or “I feel incredible,” you get to ask questions about where that comes from. You get to engage in what poet and philosopher David Whyte calls 'the courageous conversation' - the real work of asking what you actually want when no one else is looking.

The work of 'breaking free from domestication' begins precisely here - in these small moments of noticing when we're following our programmed agreements to meet someone else’s expectations rather than choosing consciously. Each time we catch ourselves, we're questioning what author Don Miguel Ruiz calls the 'fog' - the chaos of competing voices we've internalized.

Instead of just following those invisible scripts from our past, you get to act, like author and poet yung pueblo says, “like a detective in your mind.” You get to ask questions to deeply investigate the source of your problems, joys, and tensions.

And then you get to choose what happens next.

From Reactive Patterns to Strategic Choices

Sitting at the bar, I could feel the steam pouring out of my ears. This mother french-fry stood me up again. Calls himself my best friend, and yet, last minute, chose to not show up to the group sesh that he arranged to hang out with a girl.

I will kill him for this.

Before I can stop myself , I shoot off a text in the group chat to let him know what’s up. “Mate, get absolutely fucked. If you keep abandoning your friends for a girl, you’re going to stop having friends. Get your shit together.”

His response, surprisingly, is less than cordial. “Don’t be upset that I can have a relationship and you can’t.”

In the group chat.

Fast-forward and it’s been a week since we’ve last talked. It’s the longest period of silence we’ve ever had in our friendship.

As I’m walking that day, I make the mistake of looking up the last text exchanges we’ve had, and I can sense my blood boiling at the memory. Heart rate rising, breath getting shorter, you’d think I’d have just finished a sprint workout.

And then I notice what’s happening.

“What the fuck is going on right now? I never get this angry.”

I’ll skip the self-inquiry to the answer, where my friend had touched my deeply ingrained hot-button of ‘respect’. By both not showing up, (wasting my time), failing to acknowledge or apologize, and then double down with an insult, my best mate sent a message that he didn’t respect me, and I allowed myself to internalize that as maybe I wasn’t worthy of respect, ultimately leading to capital-R Rage.

Note: For those of you keeping score at home, I am 3-0 on the gif game right now.

Now that I had it in hand though, visible in front of me as to what was going on, I now had choice.

I could choose to stay mad.
I could choose to let it go.

What serves me best?

Ultimately, we had a chat, we both apologized and we moved on, actually stronger for having brought out the worst in each other and then gone through the process of repair. Some of that is a credit to my friend and how willing he was to own his piece.

Some of that was the choice afforded to me by the awareness muscle I’d been building in the background for years.

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In a more positive light, this same principle applied when I found myself in the middle of burnout and disengagement at work. I’d been traveling to Decatur, Alabama every two weeks for 6 months, managing multiple roles on multiple projects, not getting the support I’d asked for, generally in a miserable mood for days on end.

It was a bad time.

Again, the work was I caught myself feeling bad. And not just bad but angry.

At myself. At work. At just about anyone who got too close to me, a snarling animal with his foot trapped.

I was working long hours, couldn't workout, and definitely wasn't eating the way I wanted to. I was trapped in a glass case of emotion.

And then a question arose in my mind, "Who's fault is this? And what should you do about it?"

The answer was clear but difficult to accept: My fault.

I may not have created the conditions, but I alone owned my response.

My emotions, particularly my anger, warned that something was out of balance between the way the world was and the way I wanted it to be. But I was also choosing to stay in the lane of not accepting the responsibility to change anything.

The frustration and the bitterness underneath my anger revealed a deep-seated belief that I thought I was 'too good' to be doing this, putting my expectations ahead of reality.

My anger was not useful because I was using it to complain, not to fuel doing something about it. If I was being honest with myself, I had way more options at my disposal than I was giving myself credit for, more options than "endure and whine" vs "quit".

I needed to ask "What would need to change for me to be in a better place and more empowering headspace?" The answers led to doing that work to either create more space for the things I enjoyed or to be creative in extracting more out of the situation I found myself in.

None of this means that I liked what I found in reality. Or enjoyed pointing the finger straight back at my own face.

But I needed a perspective that was useful, and one where I have the power to make things different is surely more empowering in the short and long-term.

Anger is a signal, alerting us to discrepancies between our expectations and reality, and highlighting areas in our lives that need attention or change.

By acknowledging my role in my anger, I could find (at least more) peace in the acceptance of things I could not change, while working diligently to change what I could.

And it made all the difference.

Practice to Break Mental Autopilot

So what the hell do we actually DO with all this?

Good news and bad news there.

• Bad news: it takes time to build this muscle.

• Good news: you can start right now, and you'll see results faster than you think.

If you're thinking 'I don't have time for this' or 'My mind is too busy to meditate,' you're in good company. Everyone feels this way at first.

That's why starting with just 10 minutes matters—it's accessible to anyone, even the busiest or most skeptical among us. And ironically, the people who feel they have the least time for these practices are often the ones who need them most.

Each of the below practices serves a single purpose: to cut through the fog of competing voices, expectations, and conditioning that clouds your judgment about what it is that you want. This noise isn't just external; it's internalized to the point where you can't distinguish between your authentic desires and the echoes of your past.

The key is not treating this as another productivity 'hack,' but as a committed practice to clear away this fog. As Don Miguel Ruiz puts it in The Four Agreements, personal freedom requires quieting this noise to hear your own voice beneath the programming.

This is not about perfection or achievement—it's about discovery and reclaiming your ability to choose consciously.

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A note of caution: Awareness isn't always comfortable. Sometimes you'll notice patterns you've been avoiding for years. You might discover that your anger has deep roots in childhood experiences, or that your procrastination is actually fear in disguise. Be gentle with yourself in these moments.

If painful insights arise, consider having professional support through therapy. The goal isn't to judge yourself for these discoveries, but to meet them with compassion while creating space for new choices.

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I've tested these paths extensively, and each offers a different entry point to the same destination: greater awareness and choice.

Pick ONE practice. Block 10 minutes on your calendar for the next 7 days. Set a reminder on your phone. After a week, reflect on what you noticed.

That's it. Don't overcomplicate it.

Meditation: The Attention Gym

This is where we practice the fundamental "rep" of catching our wandering mind.

• Why it works: Neuroscience shows that meditation strengthens the prefrontal cortex while reducing activity in the amygdala—essentially building up the brain's 'pause button.' Each time you notice your attention has drifted and bring it back to your breath, you're physically rewiring neural pathways that enable self-awareness. It's not about "clearing your mind"—it's about noticing when your mind wanders, without judgment.

• How to start: 10 minutes daily. That's it.
  Use an app like Waking Up, Headspace, or Ten Percent Happier if you want guidance. Or just set a timer and focus on your breath.

• The challenge: You will get bored. You will get frustrated. You will think "am I doing this right?" at least 47 times. This is all normal and part of the process.

Journaling: The Mirror

This practice creates space to see your own patterns on paper.

• Why it works: Externalizing your thoughts forces you to articulate what's actually happening beneath the surface. The page becomes a mirror reflecting back patterns you couldn't see before. Studies show that expressive writing reduces intrusive thoughts and helps process emotions, creating cognitive space for new insights.

• How to start: Morning pages (3 pages of stream-of-consciousness writing first thing), or a simple evening reflection answering: "What energized me today? What drained me? What surprised me?"

• The challenge: Consistency. Most people journal intensely for a week then abandon it. Commit to 30 days minimum before deciding if it works for you.

Coaching/Therapy: The Skilled Observer

Sometimes we need an external perspective to see our blind spots.

• Why it works: A skilled therapist or coach brings both professional training and emotional distance from your situation. They can identify patterns you're too close to see and provide a safe space to explore them. The relationship itself becomes a laboratory for practicing awareness in real-time conversation, with immediate feedback.

• How to start: For therapy, check if your insurance covers mental health services. For coaching, look for someone with credentials and experience working with people like you.

• The challenge: Finding the right fit. You might need to try a few different people before finding someone who gets you and challenges you in the right ways.

The path you choose matters less than your commitment to it. Start small, but start somewhere. Your awareness muscle grows with consistent practice, not intensity.

The Pause That Changes Everything

Whichever path you choose, you'll begin to notice subtle but powerful shifts in how you respond to life's challenges.

Spoiler alert: success doesn't look like permanent enlightenment or never getting triggered again.

You'll recognize real success when:

• Your catch time decreases. You used to stew in anger for three days before realizing you were upset about something entirely different than what you thought. Now you catch it in three hours. Eventually, you might catch it in three minutes.

• You notice patterns in real-time. "Oh, I'm doing that thing again where I take on too much work because I'm afraid of disappointing people."

• You gain space between stimulus and response. That breath between feeling triggered and acting on it grows wider. It might only be seconds at first, but those seconds make all the difference.

• Your recovery accelerates. You still get knocked down, but you get back up faster. The time spent in unproductive emotional states shortens.

• You make different choices. Not always, not perfectly, but increasingly often. You catch yourself before sending that angry text. You pause before agreeing to another commitment. You notice when you're avoiding important work. You notice yourself reaching for your phone out of boredom rather than necessity, and consciously choose to stay present instead. You recognize when you're making decisions from fear rather than values. You catch yourself about to stress-eat and pause to identify what you're actually feeling.

These micro-moments of awareness might seem small, but they compound over time into dramatic shifts in how you experience your life.

What won't happen: You won't become a permanently zen buddha-like figure floating above human emotions. You'll still get triggered. You'll still have bad days.

You just won't stay stuck there as long.

Remember: awareness isn't about eliminating feelings or never feeling angry or afraid or hurt again—it's about not being controlled by them, to recognize those feelings as information rather than instructions.

Choose Who You Become, Not Just What You Do

So why does all this matter?

Why spend years building this awareness muscle, catching your thoughts on the bus, or noticing when you're about to send that angry text to your friend?

Because that moment of noticing—that tiny pause between stimulus and response—is where your freedom lives.

We spend our lives being shaped by forces we rarely notice—culture, family patterns, media, social expectations. Most of us live on autopilot, responding to life with the same unconscious patterns we've always used. Remember that anger on the bar stool? That wasn't a random reaction—it was a pattern built over decades, waiting for the right trigger.

As Pressfield observes, 'The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome.' Similarly, the goal isn't to eliminate our patterns and reactions, but to recognize them as we work, creating space for different choices despite them.

Awareness is the first step toward authorship. Toward writing your own story instead of living one handed to you.

Whyte suggests that finding your path isn't about making the right choice but about listening to what's already calling you: 'What you can plan is too small for you to live.' The awareness practices we've discussed aren't about manufacturing meaning, but about clearing away the noise to hear what's been calling you all along.

This isn't just personal development fluff. The gap between what we say matters to us and what we actually do—that say-do gap—is the source of much of our dissatisfaction. When we value connection but spend our days doom-scrolling, when we claim health is important but work ourselves to exhaustion, when we value honesty but avoid difficult conversations—we create internal friction that erodes our wellbeing.

Psychological research backs this up. Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky's work on happiness shows that this internal friction—what psychologists call 'cognitive dissonance'—is a significant source of psychological distress. Her studies demonstrate that people who align their actions with their stated values report significantly higher levels of life satisfaction and lower levels of depression and anxiety.

Awareness doesn't just feel good philosophically—it creates measurable improvements in mental health outcomes.

Yung pueblo writes, "Your past becomes your trauma; your trauma becomes your autopilot."

Awareness creates the space to step off autopilot.

Is it work? Absolutely.

But it's the most important work you'll ever do.

Because ultimately, each moment of awareness is a moment of freedom. A chance to choose who you're becoming instead of simply repeating who you've been.

And that's the whole game.

Now it’s your move.

What will you notice today?