Or, it could just be my mind trying to make myself feel better. I cant discount that.
That's it, I'd say.
What follows are just some unsolicited pointers.
You are not the thing that sees/notices/observes/witnesses. Whatever you want to call it (consciousness, awareness, mind, etc.), it/seeing happens of its own accord, perception happens on its own, understanding happens on its own (e.g., as you read these words, you have no idea why you understand what they mean), etc. The mistake is to believe that you are that which does it; that you own it, that you are its maker. That in itself ("I am aware") is just an impression that arises in the mind, over which you really have no control, even though the impression of control may arise as well. Another mistake is to try to squash "the self", which is impossible; it can only be understood as being part and parcel of the experience as a whole. You can't transcend it, just like you can't transcend your feet, your sight, your hearing, your height, your fingernails, or whatever else; but you can learn how it works and, in doing so, the mind stops regarding those self-impressions as being something "special", something that can be cut-out from experience and "saved" or "cherished" or "that can escape to another realm", and understands that those too arise from nature as all things do. Even if that is the case ("escape to another realm"), again, it's part of nature doing its thing; either way, experience cannot be sliced; it's always, and has always been, whole.
If you can understand experience as happening of its own accord, then you begin to loosen your stranglehold on aspects of it, be they painful or pleasurable. That's what freedom is; freedom from swinging from one thing to the next while under the ambiguous impression that "that's where salvation is, if only I could do things just in the right way/order".
That's it, I'd say.
What follows are just some unsolicited pointers.
You are not the thing that sees/notices/observes/witnesses. Whatever you want to call it (consciousness, awareness, mind, etc.), it/seeing happens of its own accord, perception happens on its own, understanding happens on its own (e.g., as you read these words, you have no idea why you understand what they mean), etc. The mistake is to believe that you are that which does it; that you own it, that you are its maker. That in itself ("I am aware") is just an impression that arises in the mind, over which you really have no control, even though the impression of control may arise as well. Another mistake is to try to squash "the self", which is impossible; it can only be understood as being part and parcel of the experience as a whole. You can't transcend it, just like you can't transcend your feet, your sight, your hearing, your height, your fingernails, or whatever else; but you can learn how it works and, in doing so, the mind stops regarding those self-impressions as being something "special", something that can be cut-out from experience and "saved" or "cherished" or "that can escape to another realm", and understands that those too arise from nature as all things do. Even if that is the case ("escape to another realm"), again, it's part of nature doing its thing; either way, experience cannot be sliced; it's always, and has always been, whole.
If you can understand experience as happening of its own accord, then you begin to loosen your stranglehold on aspects of it, be they painful or pleasurable. That's what freedom is; freedom from swinging from one thing to the next while under the ambiguous impression that "that's where salvation is, if only I could do things just in the right way/order".
EDIT: nature/God/The Universe/whatever.