Imagine your consciousness, or awareness is a high-rise or multi-storey building. What floor or floors are you living on or have access to and do those represent where you would like to be or would you like to take the elevator or stairs to a different level or levels?

When you use this kind of visualization or mental image, you begin the process of paying attention to yourself, becoming aware – you start to put yourself first. Sometimes we get so caught up in the demands of our daily lives that we simply forget to pay attention or check where we are.

Getting back to your awareness of which floor you are on, there may be times when you find yourself stuck on a certain level because there is something you are supposed to learn at that place – think “Groundhog Day” the movie.

What you’d really like to do is take the express elevator to the penthouse, but then you realize on arrival at the penthouse that you are ill-equipped or don’t have the tools with which to survive or succeed at that level.

There is no express service to enlightenment! Nor is there any ceiling, so on reaching the penthouse, thinking that you have “arrived”, suddenly you discover another 20 or more floors above. You just couldn’t see them before.

Maybe you would like to change floors but your loved ones, friends, colleagues and associates would prefer to remain where they are and would like you to stay with them.

One of the benefits of visualizing your consciousness as a high-rise building is that should you take that elevator to a different level, you can always return to your prior floors for a visit. You don’t have to say goodbye forever.

In fact, being able to stay in communication with people at all different levels of consciousness helps to broaden your own awareness and enhance your growth. It serves as a reminder not to become caught in the ego which likes to compare and contrast, judge and justify.

Like those who are convinced that they are on the right or best floor and have no desire to visit, look at or even recognize that there are other floors around them.

Taking this visualization one step further, do you ever feel out of sync with yourself? Well perhaps this is because your body is on one floor and your spiritual self is residing on another. Recognition of this situation is the first step in the process of coming together, reconnecting with yourself and bridging the gap between those floors or levels.

There are many ways to go forward from that first step of recognition – practicing meditation, yoga, qi gong, seeking assistance through acupuncture, massage, homeopathy, counseling, energy healing. Any or all of these practices are designed to assist you in increasing your conscious awareness and coming together physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally.

Enjoy riding that elevator or walking the stairs!