When you are facing uncertainty, pressure, or a major life transition, it can be tempting to focus entirely on the decision in front of you. Should I stay or should I go? Should I change direction? Should I say yes, or is it time to say no?
Yet, as Richard Smith explains in this episode, the quality of our decisions may depend less on the decision itself and more on the state of awareness we are making it from.
Richard is the author of A Phenomenal Life and the creator of the Orbits of Consciousness, a practical framework for understanding how our state of awareness affects our clarity, emotional responses, and decision-making. In this conversation, he shares how we can begin to recognise where we are operating from, especially during moments of stress, anger, fear, or uncertainty.
Understanding Mindset and Awareness
Many of us are familiar with the words “mindset” and “awareness”, yet we may not always stop to define what they actually mean.
Richard makes a helpful distinction between the two. Awareness is the space in which everything appears. It is the place where thoughts, emotions, sensations, and experiences arise. Mindset, on the other hand, is what the mind is presenting to us at any given moment.
In other words, your thoughts are not necessarily chosen by you. They often appear automatically. Richard gives the simple example of asking someone to think of a number between one and one hundred. Most people do not consciously review every possible number and select one. A number simply appears.
This matters because once we realise that thoughts arise within awareness, we can begin to create some distance from them. We do not have to believe every thought, follow every emotional impulse, or identify completely with whatever is happening in the mind.
We can learn to “watch the thinker”.
The Orbits of Consciousness
Richard’s Orbits of Consciousness framework describes how our awareness can move closer to or further away from the egoic centre. When we are close to the ego, our thinking can become contracted. We may feel defensive, angry, fearful, resentful, or isolated. In these lower orbits, our options seem limited and our ability to think clearly can diminish.
This is the kind of state many of us recognise when we are under pressure. A small comment can feel like an attack. A difficult decision can feel overwhelming. A temporary emotion can seem as though it will last forever.
As we move into the outer orbits, however, we experience more space. We feel more connected to ourselves, to other people, and to life. We have greater clarity, greater perspective, and often a greater capacity to respond wisely.
Richard explains that we all naturally move between these states throughout the day. A walk in nature, a meaningful conversation, a creative activity, sport, dance, or a moment of flow can all help us move away from the ego and into a more expansive state of awareness.
Why Pressure Shrinks Our Options
One of the most practical parts of the conversation is Richard’s explanation of how stress affects decision-making.
When we are stressed, the body activates the fight-or-flight response. The nervous system prepares us to defend ourselves or escape. This can be useful in genuine danger, but it is not ideal when we need to make thoughtful decisions.
In that state, our thinking narrows. We may become reactive. We may focus on what we could lose, what might go wrong, or how we have been wronged. From this contracted place, it becomes harder to see possibilities.
This is why an important decision made from fear or anger may feel very different from the same decision considered from calm, clarity, and connection.
Richard reminds us that “to decide” involves cutting off other options. That can naturally create tension. But when we calm the nervous system and create inner space, we are more likely to sense which direction feels right.
Reacting Versus Responding
A central theme of the episode is the difference between reacting and responding.
When something triggers us, the first impulse is often automatic. We may want to defend, attack, withdraw, or explain ourselves. Yet between the trigger and our response, there is often a small space. That space may only last a few seconds, but it can change everything.
Richard encourages us to use that moment to pause. In that pause, we can notice what is happening inside us. We can ask where the reaction is coming from. Is it really about this moment, or has something from the past been activated?
He suggests that our reactions can become teachers. If we find ourselves judging someone, feeling offended, or becoming unusually angry, there may be something within us asking to be explored.
This does not mean suppressing emotions. It means recognising them without being ruled by them.
A Simple Breathing Practice for Clarity
One of the most actionable tools Richard shares is a simple breathing rhythm: breathe in for two counts and out for three. You can also extend it, breathing in for four and out for six, as long as the exhale is longer than the inhale.
This helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which supports calm, rest, and clearer thinking.
It is a practice that can be used almost anywhere. Before responding to an email. Before entering a difficult conversation. Before making a significant decision. Even during the night, when the mind wakes up and struggles to settle again.
Small shifts in breathing can create small shifts in awareness. And sometimes, that is enough to access a more peaceful and constructive state.
Knowing Yourself More Deeply
At the heart of Richard’s work is self-knowledge. His own exploration began with the question, “Who am I?” That question led him into a lifelong curiosity about behaviour, consciousness, and the patterns that shape human experience.
The more we understand ourselves, the more freedom we have. We are less controlled by old wounds, unconscious patterns, and automatic reactions. We become more able to choose the person we want to be in any given moment.
Self-mastery, in this sense, is not about controlling life or staying permanently in a blissful state. Richard is clear that being human means moving through many different states. The aim is not to avoid the lower orbits forever, but to recognise when we are in them and know that we can move.
Choosing a Higher State of Consciousness
Perhaps the most hopeful message from this conversation is that a more peaceful state is never as far away as it may feel.
Richard says, “You are only a fraction of an inch of being in a much more happy, blissful, peaceful state.” That does not mean life is always easy. It means that our access to calm, clarity, and connection is often closer than we think.
Through awareness, pausing, breathing, reflection, compassion, and connection, we can begin to shift the state we are living and deciding from.
And when we change the state, we change the quality of what becomes possible.