AWARENESS

An elevate, flexible attentiveness to your environment and internal cues such as bodily sensations, thoughts and feelings.

Training in awareness during meditation practices can increase what’s called “meta-awareness” or being aware of what is happening in your mind.

When you don't know where your mind is, you are less happy. A distracted mind is toxic to well-being; but it can be trained.

You can notice your thoughts, feelings and sensations as they arise, commonly called mindfulness.
Also you catch yourself from being distracted or in auto-pilot mode while doing daily tasks like cleaning or driving.

THE SCIENCE FACTS
- People with higher levels of awareness have higher levels of well-being and positive emotions.

- Distraction, the main detractor from awareness, can impair executive function as well as increase stress and anxiety, ADHD symptoms, and depression. 

CONNECTION

It is the quality of promoting and cultivating healthy social relationships.
This is where kindness, generosity, empathy, compassion, gratitude, and goodness come in, which are essential for relationships.

Kindness is innate. Scientifically it's known that we are born with a predisposition toward altruism and kindness, much more than selfishness. We are predisposed toward good.
Connection is recognizing that all beings want to be happy. This makes us empathic beings, which motivates us to act to alleviate the suffering of others. We spontaneously show kind behaviors, but we must practice and nurture them so that they don't get lost and grow. In the same way that we practice, nurture, and grow in the area of language.

THE SCIENCE FACTS
- One Center study has reported that just 30 minutes of compassion meditation training per day over the course of two weeks resulted in changes in people’s caring behaviors as well as resulted in measurable changes in the brain.(Neuroplasticity)

INSIGHT

It's a self-knowledge concerning how our emotions, thoughts and beliefs shape our experiences and sense of self.
We all have a narrative of who we think we are. Depression is associated with negative descriptions of who we think we are.
We must change the relationship we have with this narrative, which is nothing more than a set of thoughts with which we identify. We need mental space.
Changing the narrative will happen naturally when we change the relationship we have with it and stop fighting with the thoughts.

How does the narrative shape my perception of reality?
When I understand that the thoughts in my mind are what shape my reality, this gives me mental space and room for resilience.

Resilience is the speed with which people recover from adversity.

THE SCIENCE FACTS
- Meditators with significant experience who have done insight-related deconstructive meditation, appear to show enduring changes in self-related processing in the brain.

PURPOSE

Being clear about your core values and deeper motivation, and being able to apply them in your daily life.
This pillar is a skill that is trained by having more and more behaviors that make sense of the life's purpose, and we can cultivate experiences that give that meaning and direction in life.

THE SCIENCE FACTS
- A strong sense of purpose is associated with improved health outcomes and behaviors, including increased physical activity, decreased incidence of stroke, fewer cardiovascular events, reduced risk of death, lower health care utilization, and even better financial health.

- Finding life's purpose is the most important element for longevity.

- A pioneering study found people who prioritized more transcendent values (those that extend beyond themselves) had different activity in the left and right amygdala and left anterior insula, suggesting more transcendent values may reduce defensiveness and promote openness.