Quotes about Awareness

The more aware we are of our basic paradigms, maps, or assumptions, and the extent to which we have been influenced by our experience, the more we can take responsibility for those paradigms, examine them, test them against reality, listen to others and be open to their perceptions, thereby getting a larger picture and a far more objective view. T

It taught me that we must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as at the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world.

We're often so busy cutting through the undergrowth we don't even realize we're in the wrong jungle.

Seek first to understand. Before the problems come up, before you try to evaluate and prescribe, before you try to present your own ideas—seek to understand.

Being is seeing in the human dimension. And what we see is highly interrelated to what we are.

You can't become principle-centered without first being aware of your paradigms and understanding how to shift them and align them with principles.

To change the situation, you must first change yourself. To change yourself, you must first change your perceptions.

And to change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.

came into focus. Through continued calm, respectful, and specific communication, each of us in the room was finally able to see the other point of view. But when we looked away and then back, most of us would immediately see the image we had been conditioned to see in the ten-second period of time. I frequently use this perception demonstration in working with people and organizations because

We are not our feelings. We are not our moods. We are not even our thoughts. The very fact that we can think about these things separates us from them and from the animal world.

While individuals may look at their own lives and interactions in terms of paradigms or maps emerging out of their experience and conditioning, these maps are not the territory. They are a "subjective reality," only an attempt to describe the territory.

Unaware, we will project our intentions on their behavior and call ourselves objective.