Why Making Decisions From the Wrong State of Awareness Keeps You Stuck, and How Self Mastery Helps You Choose With Clarity, with Richard Smith | #606

[Agi Keramidas]
In this episode, you will discover why making decisions from the wrong state of awareness keeps you stuck and how to choose with clarity. Welcome to Personal Development Mastery, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, overcome what holds you back, and take confident next steps towards a more meaningful and aligned life. I am your host, Agi Keramidas, a personal development mentor and coach, and this is episode 606.

If you are looking to make clearer decisions under pressure and understand where your decisions come from, this conversation explores a framework that can help you move from reaction and stress into calm connection and clarity. You will hear how to distinguish between mindset and awareness, so you can better understand where your thoughts and reactions are coming from, and you will learn two simple practices that help you shift into a calmer state before making important decisions. Before we start, if you would like to find clearer direction and take confident next steps towards a life more meaningful and aligned, I offer one-to-one coaching to support you on your journey.

To learn more, visit personaldevelopmentmasterypodcast.com slash mentor. The link is in the episode description. Now let's begin.

Today, my guest is Richard Smith. Richard, you are the author of A Phenomenal Life and creator of the Orbits of Consciousness, which is a practical framework for understanding how our states of awareness shape our clarity and decision-making, especially during pressure. Richard, welcome to the show.

It's a real pleasure to speak with you today.

[Richard Smith]
Thank you. I think it's a real pleasure to be here. I'm looking forward to the conversation.

[Agi Keramidas]
And so am I, and I'm hoping to uncover with you today how one can recognize the state that they're making decisions from and, you know, as a result, perhaps make clearer or have clearer steps for uncertainty or transition, which many of our listeners find themselves in. What I'd like to start with, Richard, is a little bit of understanding of where you came from with that work. I see that you describe your work as beginning with a personal desire to understand yourself.

So what were you trying to make sense of in your own life?

[Richard Smith]
Yes, thank you. I think certainly from the very beginning, I recognized that people behaved in strange ways and sometimes they get stuck in patterns and sometimes they said things they didn't mean. And sometimes they got offended by people and it's unnecessary.

And I was, I felt that, well, I can't really understand other people until I understand myself. And so, and I can't understand myself until I understand other people. So it's been very much a dual exploration.

And I've always just been fascinated by behavior. I don't know, it wasn't, it's just always been something that I've just found myself just like watching people because, you know, watching behaviors, asking questions sometimes as well, you know, having a real interest and a curiosity. And I think that's probably led me into the, you know, the coaching, which I got into because it's a wonderful opportunity to be really curious about someone and the decision they're making and their thoughts they're having and their intentions and motivations and fears and goals and all those things.

So, so yeah, it's just always been a complete fascination with what drives people. So, so yeah, that's, and how, once I see what other people do, I can learn more about myself. And so, yeah, that is where it came from.

[Agi Keramidas]
It's a great point from which one, the self-exploration, I use that word when I talk about this particular thing you're describing. Let's move on. And what I would like to start our main topic with is a little bit of a base or a foundation, shall we say.

And what I want to set this foundation on is what you discuss as a state of awareness or the position where we take our decisions from. And there is a distinction that I read that you make, a clear distinction about mindset and awareness. And I suppose, you know, for many people listening right now, both terms are familiar, but if you were to ask them, okay, define exactly what mindset is and what awareness is, that might not come so natural.

They're both of them abstract in a way. So let's start with that. Tell us about mindset, awareness and the difference between them.

[Richard Smith]
Yes, thank you. This, I think it was actually the, the, the initial beginnings of everything. And in my book, I write about this at the very beginning in the first chapter, which is actually called Who are you?

And I used to literally lie in bed at night as I think a five or six year old and ask myself, Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Over and again, it didn't have an answer to the question. It doesn't make sense because it's not, you know, how can the person asking the question not know the answer to? And I think, you know, I after that, I came to the only possible solution, you know, after probably weeks and weeks and months of asking this question, awareness is the place where everything that emerges is, you know, the consciousness is where everything that we think comes into there.

And the mindset is what the things that are actually going on in our mind. So while you might be, you know, is I tried to give an example of this. So yeah, the awareness is always there.

The awareness is always if there is no awareness, we're not there, right, that you're either unconscious, because we've taken anesthetics, and we literally have no sense of time, we're not there at all. Or if we are there, there's some degree of awareness, even when we're asleep, we are aware of time passing. So the awareness is the is where everything happens.

And I'm very much interested in how that comes about. Because if everything is created in awareness, then awareness cannot be the everything that is created. It's, you know, and so we know this to be true, from our senses from, you know, if we're listening to something, it's created in our mind, the sound outside, there is no sound outside our ears.

It's just the vibrations in the air, which we construct into a sound. And there is no color, you know, the beautiful flowers have no color themselves, they just have light, which emerges at different wavelengths, and we create that color in our minds. So I've always been thinking, wow, everything that we experience is created in our awareness.

And a mindset is what our mind is pushing forward to us. So, you know, our thoughts, we don't choose our thoughts, they just come sprung to us from some warehouse back of the mind, who might just say, hey, I'll have this one now. And if you get tired of that thought, have another one.

And an example of that, I mean, listeners can do this now, you can, you can say, think of a number, think of a number between one and 100. And very few people will imagine a series of numbers of 100 of them and then pick the one they want, the number will just come to them, they didn't choose it, it just happens. So, so yes, it's that separation of awareness and what our thoughts are.

And as Eckhart Tolle used to say, gives us an opportunity to watch the thinker.

[Agi Keramidas]
Absolutely. And, you know, when you were saying this, I thought of the conscious awareness, because, of course, someone may be and that could be also the, depending on how you interpret the word awareness, but someone could be awareness in the sense that, yes, that person is there, but not consciously aware of the present moment, this kind of awareness of the mindset, because many, as we know, spend most much of our time in, let's say, autopilot mode of awareness, which, yes, we are aware, but not really consciously aware of that. So, I wanted to hear your comment on on that particular.

[Richard Smith]
Yes, and that's, that's a really good important point to make. Thank you. So, there are many definitions of consciousness of awareness.

And I certainly love the clarification of conscious awareness is being in the present moment, being not you're not thinking about the past, or ruminating or worrying or, you know, or thinking what someone said to you, or trying to think things through that in the past, you're not thinking about the future, and possibly the anxieties or worries which may emerge from that, you're very much in the conscious awareness of just being aware, you're aware of being aware.

Now, we talk about awareness or something, we might be aware of a dog barking in the distance, we don't might not care about it, we might be, we might be conscious that we've only got a few minutes to do something. And so that all the words are used differently, and different languages handle them differently as well. So when you start to define consciousness, you start to use the word awareness.

And when you start to find awareness, you use the word consciousness. And so you just get stuck in a loop there too. So it's very important that the deficient definitions are laid out so people are aware.

And I think the best way to think about conscious awareness is, is, you know, let's talk about mindfulness, for example, to sit there and try and think of nothing. Inevitably, some thoughts will appear. And when we notice those thoughts, and ask them to leave again, that that there is the meditation and the mindfulness, which is an example of conscious awareness.

Because we're not we don't get caught up with the thoughts, thoughts try to catch us up, they're like almost like fishing lines that we get hooked on and dragged out of conscious awareness. And we'll start thinking about things that could be anything, it could be dinner tomorrow, it could have been an argument we've had, it could be anything. So yeah, if we can keep going back to that, try to think about trying to keep our minds blank.

And that's where we start to control that and be much more aware of our conscious awareness. And it's a really valuable thing to do. I believe it really gives us a lot more groundedness, I think it gives us a lot more wisdom, I think it lets the brain start to make connections.

And it does expand consciousness, I believe that Definitely.

[Agi Keramidas]
And I will, you know, I will come back to that later on when we can discuss about, you know, how we can create a pose or bring ourselves back to the present moment when that happens. Before we go there, I think it's now the right time to discuss the concept of, you know, the orbits of consciousness that you talk about. And tell us also, you know, how can someone find it useful?

What is the relevance of that model to, you know, what's going on with their life and their problems and their, you know, indecisions and so on?

[Richard Smith]
I was almost chuckling to myself the other day when I found myself in a certain little orbit. So I've used the word orbit, because certainly, and I was chuckling to myself thinking, well, I, you know, how did I find myself here? And so, yes, what it comes about, I think that there's so many ways that we can look at it from different angles.

And I think one of the ways I like doing is that how much space you have to make a decision, or to see options, or to, yeah, have some freedom of thought. And when we're very, very contracted in our orbits, so they're the ones I would call the lower orbits. But, you know, if you'd like, you could imagine around a planet or a star or an atom or whatever it is, the ones that are very centered, they're very close to the egoic center, and they're very dense, and you can't move, you can't think, you don't have options, very limited, very poor thought patterns, can't make connections.

And that's when people are like heavily depressed or in grief or in fear, you know, not very nice places. And I did call those ones dark places. We know when people we talk about someone's in a dark place, it's they are not easily able to climb out by themselves and the intervention of of medical attention or therapy or friend, you know, that's ways.

And all we're trying to do is try to give them a little bit more space to see other options, and start to reconnect with those options and reconnect with themselves. And so I like to think of it as about degrees of connection. And when we're at the very base that we don't, we're not connected to anything, we feel like isolated entities in a cruel universe.

But when we start to connect, and then we can connect with ourself, start to get a feeling back properly, about ourselves, and then we connect to other people and find we might connect with the universe around us. And that's how we can rise through those orbits. And at the outer orbits, we find, we find the things which we enjoy most.

And we all know this too, from there isn't any emotions and any of the orbits which none of us have experienced, we've all experienced every single one. And when we're in a state of flow, like through dance or sport or knitting, or, or it could be anything chess, you know, we find that time just tends to disappear, we find easily making decisions, we find clarity, we find peace, and we find greater connection, and we just, we kind of lose very distant from the sense of ego. So the orbits, I'm trying to like describe it in all the different ways at once.

So the orbits about moving from the centre of the ego outwards away from it, it's from the centre of no connection to greater connection. And from like having more than a few options to having many more options as well, as we ride through them. So yeah, we, we might find ourselves in a position where we feel resentment about something, and that'll immediately pull us back down again, because it's created separation.

Whereas if we suddenly feel gratitude for something, that's the opposite, because that builds a connection, and that pushes us outwards again. So we're always cycling in and around the orbits. And if only we could spend most of our time in the outer orbits, then I think we I think that's impossible as humans, because just because the lives we live and the things we have to do.

But the more time we can spend in the outer orbits, the more peace we find, the more contentment and happiness, that will be the path that Thich Nhat Hanh would speak about, that is the path.

[Agi Keramidas]
When you say orbits, this is fascinating, so then I will ask you quite a few things that came up now that you were saying that when you say orbits, what are they orbiting?

[Richard Smith]
Yes, they're orbiting the ego, I like to see as the ego and, and within the ego, you've got the unconscious behind that in a slightly different dimension makes a little bit more complicated to draw a picture of. But yeah, the things that because the unconscious, of course, can have real pulls on us and it can affect behavior. So when we are very stuck about ourselves, so everything offends us, we get angry, we get judgmental, we are very close to our own egos.

And we see this in people. And sometimes it's really quite important to get out of our own way sometimes. So yes, the orbit, our consciousness is orbiting the egoic center.

And in the egoic center, it's all about us.

[Agi Keramidas]
Thank you for this very important, you know, clarification. And so from what I understand the orbits, one person, for example, during a typical day, they can move in and out of different orbits, depending on what they are doing.

[Richard Smith]
Yes, absolutely. They can move in and out of the orbits of what they do. Sometimes they might be spend longer in a certain orbit, if it depends what they're doing and how they're thinking.

But I think the key takeaway I want people to get is that people do this naturally anyway, they may go for a walk on a beautiful day like we have today in the UK, they may go for a walk through the forest and just experience that wonderful breeze on their skin, the sunlight, the colors of the forest. And that alone will lift them and moves them away from the ego, it starts to them to feel a little bit more part of the universe and a little less of something within it. So yeah, people do it themselves.

And this is why we have hobbies. This is why we play sports and dances to find that there's a moment of flow when we can forget the egoics, we can move away from it, because we do. Yeah, sorry.

[Agi Keramidas]
I think the next question that comes to me is, it is obvious that when one is what you describe as the lower or the ones that are the lower orbits, when one is, let's say, angry and annoyed at everything that is happening, obviously, their ability to take decisions, or not necessarily the ability, but the quality, let's say, of the decisions that they will take will be different as if they were in a very different state, which from what I understand you described was the higher orbits.

I think the difference in the benefit is obvious. So what really I think is useful to discuss is how can one consciously move to the outer orbits of consciousness, especially when they are in a position that they feel pressured, stressed, uncertain, when there are the emotional elements that draw us in towards the lower orbits.

[Richard Smith]
Yes, that is a great question. And we all know exactly how that feels. I do.

But there's already, you know, everyone has heard the, oh, when you're feeling angry, count to 10 before you make a decision or you say anything. Some practical tips are already out there. But yes, you're absolutely right.

And you use the word stress there. And of course, when we're stressed, it's the fight and flight response comes and lots of the bodies flooded with cortisol, and we start preparing to either run away or to flee to fight. So that state of mind actually takes blood away from the brain, and it doesn't actually make thinking very easy.

So counting to 10, moving yourself away from that, it sort of lifts us up again. And it creates those more options for us. I think there are other ways as well.

We can because of that, that anger is usually, you know, it's very related to fear. And that's all about the ego again. And anger is all about the ego, the ego, the anger is shouting, what about me?

What about me? And we want to move away from that if we want to, to probably make a better decision. And I think sometimes just a little bit of compassion for ourself is really important, because we can always find space to have compassion for ourself and for other people, but especially for ourself.

I think, you know what, I'm angry. And it's okay to be angry, because it's happened like this. But I know I won't be angry for a long while we'll move on.

And it's impermanent. But I think this brings me to a quite important point, that whatever state of mind we're in, we always have this bizarre assumption that we're going to stay in that state of mind for forevermore. This is how we're going to see the world from evermore.

So when we're angry, we think I'm going to be angry forever until I get I get what I need. But of course, we're not. And unfortunately, when we are in a state of bliss, we think this is the way it is.

And I'm going to be like this forever. And unfortunately, that's not either.

[Agi Keramidas]
Because the orbits and because of the cycling and because of being human, being human, indeed, that's what I was about to say, it is part of our human experience that, you know, the pendulum will swing to both directions. You can't just stay on one side. That's how life goes.

One other thing now that we're talking about it, and I think it is relevant, is the difference or distinction when something happens that, you know, might trigger a response from us. And since we were talking about anger and that frequency or that orbit, let's remain there as an example. So let's say someone is in that or is about to get into that state because of an external event that happens.

So there is a big difference in, you know, what we call about reacting versus responding to the situation. And often, the difference from my experience is the ability to take a small pause, even a couple of seconds to realize or to wait before automatically doing the reaction, the reactive process. So I think it's relevant to what we're talking about.

But let's stay with that a bit because I think it is important and not necessarily easy to master, for sure.

[Richard Smith]
Yeah, you've described it just how Viktor Frankl did with that wonderful quote of about the freedom. Within our humanity lies the freedom to respond rather than react, to take that pause. Yes, indeed.

I think it's tremendously important. I go back to that question, the who am I? If we were to study that question, we start to realize that, I mean, if we always write down all the things that we think we are, and I sometimes do this in a workshop, but you're not allowed to write down anything that you haven't always been, like from when you're a child to when you're, you know, possibly when you're when you're 85, when you're whatever.

So a lot of the things that we think we are, we're not actually, there's just, they're just, you know, impermanent things. So when we write down the things that we all really are, and we always have been, we realize there's not a lot there. It's just this awareness that we have.

So yes, the feelings that we have are impermanent, the urge to react, and that may be in good ways or bad ways, that they've taken that little moment to just respond and to think, okay, whatever happens from here, I have the choice, I have a choice to respond here. And I don't have to listen to my prejudices. I don't have to listen to my fears.

I don't have to listen to my worry, my history, anything. Yeah. Things about us, which we haven't fully explored, and which may be causing us to react.

And then we can learn a lot about ourselves, by noticing why we want to react and thinking now, where's that come from? Where's that come from? Now, we may not have time at that moment.

But we can sometimes park that and come back to that later and reflect on it. Because it's important to respond in the sort of way that the person we want to be. Yeah, and then our unconscious may be full of all sorts of previous experiences, which we haven't really thought through.

And they're the things that make us want to react. And we don't know why, we will probably make up some reason. So say, you know, somebody says something to you, and they think it's innocuous, innocuous.

But you think that's, that's made me really cross. Now, because he said it, or the way he said it, or the way he looked, or this, but it just might be that somebody in the past said something very similar. And it was in the context that was in, it could have been very painful to you or hurtful.

And you just carried that through with you. And so, yeah, the know yourself, something I talk about a lot in A Phenomenal Life, and you've mentioned that already. It's a self exploration to know ourselves and to know where our reactions come from.

We can learn an awful lot. And I love the quote, I can't remember who said it, but every time I find myself judging another person, I realize that I've found another piece of myself that needs to heal.

[Agi Keramidas]
Yeah, yeah, exactly. You that's a very eloquent quote, I would say, in simple words, it takes one to see. This is great.

Richard, let's talk about there is one more thing I would like to discuss. It's very relevant to what we'll be talking about. I want to specify to a situation that many of us find ourselves into on a daily basis, usually, but I will put it more on to the most important, and that's decisions, decision making.

So we were talking earlier about when we're in lower state of orbit of consciousness, the decisions that we will take will be quite different than if we are there. So for someone listening now, contemplating a decision, not what I'm going to have for lunch today, but something bigger. Perhaps they are in a transition in their life, professional or otherwise.

How can one or what can one use or, and I mean, some kind of a tool of understanding where they are in that scale, perhaps, and whether it's better to take the decision from a different point. I hope my question makes sense.

[Richard Smith]
Yeah, it makes an awful lot of sense. And it's a really good question. It's not even one that I've been asked before.

I love it. So yes, we can get very stuck in the details. We can bounce the details around in our head.

And we can say, you can often be summed up as should I stay or should I go, that question. And that covers everything from crossing the road to going for another job. Yeah, all sorts of things.

And so we can bounce down the details around our head. And then we can start to feel a little bit of anxious about what's something that we might lose or miss out on. And of course, to decide means to, it's the same, the side in deciding the same side in homicide.

And so it's about killing off one of the options. So it's a difficult place to and it causes us an awful lot of mental anguish. Now, by doing that, I've already mentioned it, the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in and we start to feel probably a little bit more restricted.

And one of the simplest things we can do is to try and enhance the parasympathetic to the opposite, the more friendly one is to just to change our breathing a little bit possibly, and breathing in and out on a three to two ratio. So you breathe in for two, breathe out for three or breathe in for four, breathe out for six seconds, whatever it is, two to three, two to three. And that then you automatically find yourself calming down.

It just helps. And you might start to see things from a slightly different perspective, a bit further away, the details don't matter so much then. And it becomes then it becomes more about, okay, which do I feel to be the right direction for this decision?

Because I'm going to have to live with this decision. And I won't know the outcome of doing it the other way. I'll never know that.

So I've got to be confident, I'm going to make the right decision here. And it's not something I think that we can decide. Sometimes, you know, we talk about going to have a sleep on it.

And so if we can get ourself into that calm mindset, ask yourself that question before we go to sleep and do that over a couple of nights. And I think we'll always know the right answer in the morning, because that one that we feel right. And we could always argue, we could make lists about what's, which is the best decision and things.

But I don't think I don't think I don't think life is something to be worked out and calculated. I think it's like it's something to be, yeah, into intuited about and just to work out the best way.

[Agi Keramidas]
Definitely. Well, I think we could get into a whole new conversation about what you just said, for sure. Richard, where can someone listening find out more about you and your work?

Where would you like to direct her?

[Richard Smith]
So yeah, there's a web page, www.aphenomenallife.co.uk. And in there, there's links, there's a small model of the orbits of consciousness, there's a little bit more about the levels and access. And then there's a bit about the book, and there's a bit about myself as well. I think I'm always really looking forward to connection, connecting with people.

And I'm very happy to answer questions and share some of more models and things like that. But yeah, connecting with people. Because I think the mastery, when we know ourselves so well, when we know ourselves well enough, the self mastery that that brings about, it allows us to live our best lives.

And if we have the opportunity to advance that and to try and just, yeah, to live closer to our best life. And I think that's, you know, this is what I've always been looking to be doing. And this is why as a coach, I'm looking to encourage other people to be doing as well and acting as a facilitator in that.

[Agi Keramidas]
Thank you. And so am I, and hence the title of the podcast. Richard, I want to thank you very much for this fascinating conversation, which I also believe it was very useful.

There were some practical things that one can implement. Even the last one that you said, which I have more recently in my memory was the three to two breathing, which, sorry, two to three breathing, which you can do when someone speaks to you. It is something that one can do very at any time and bring themselves in a better position or an outer orbit, as you were saying.

I want to wish you all the best with your work and your book and this concept and how it helps one understand, you know, where they are at a given moment. I will leave it to you for your part in words, and if you have any message to share with someone listening to us.

[Richard Smith]
Thank you. I was just reminded there, as you spoke about the breathing, that one of the most useful applications of it, and there's something I've noticed in my workplace, is that the number of people who have problems sleeping, who wake up in the night and don't manage to get back to sleep. It can be very difficult.

That one thing with the two to three breathing, that can be the difference between a good restful night and a very productive day the and all the frustrations of not getting that. The message I'd like to take from people is that you can always change your level of consciousness. You're only a fraction of an inch aware of being in a much more happy, blissful, peaceful state.

It's not far away at all. It's just right there. So it's about how we access.

We choose which level of consciousness we access. So let's take those choices more wisely.

[Agi Keramidas]
Thank you for listening to this conversation with Richard Smith. I hope it has given you a new perspective on how your level of consciousness shapes your choices, your reactions, and your ability to access clarity in decision making. One practical action tip to remember from today is to notice the state you are making decisions from, especially when you feel stressed, angry, or uncertain.

Before reacting, pause and use the two to three breathing Richard shared. Breathe in for two counts and out for three, allowing yourself to create just enough inner space to move from contraction into clarity. Join us every Monday for in-depth conversations and every Thursday for shorter solo episodes with insights and tools you can use.

If you would like to find clearer direction and take confident next steps towards a life more meaningful and aligned, I offer one-to-one coaching to support you on your journey. To learn more, visit personaldevelopmentmasterypodcast.com slash mentors. The link is in the episode description.

Until next time, stand out, don't fit in.