Knowing oneself is important for all adults especially because we are in the process of growing, meeting new people and even nurturing young ones. This is why I believe it is important for us to look into self-awareness in this post and specifically look into what it means to be self-aware, why it is important, why it is hard to do and some of the ways we can begin to learn more about ourselves and maybe even be able to see where people are coming from by taking a more critical look at the interactions we have with them.
Self-awareness can be described as the skill of taking inventory of one’s character, feelings, thoughts, motives and desires. It is knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses as well.
People who are self-aware take note of their exact emotions at any given time and they can connect the events that led them to feel these emotions. They can also link their actions in response to the emotions they are experiencing. Generally, they know what they are doing as they do it and understand why they are doing it.
Self-awareness could be as simple as giving your emotion a name and as difficult as accepting you acted impulsively on an emotion you could have controlled.
Past trauma, whether physical or emotional hinders us from self-awareness. For those healing from trauma, self-awareness also includes being open to conditioning our minds differently so that we are more clear on the control we have over our thoughts and actions to switch from being victims of our past.
We might have had people in the past who passed shame on us and made us lose trust in our thoughts, invalidated our feelings and our desires.
Without awareness we then find that what other people say becomes our truth, we self-sabotage and we make it our mission to please those around us at our expense.
A skill
Like any other skill, self-awareness is learned and it takes time and energy to learn a skill. This is why even as we look into what motivates our thoughts, words and actions we have to look at it in a compassionate way. We are always learning.
Sometimes we will get good at identifying the emotion but fail when it comes to linking it to our actions. On other occasions, we will react instead of responding because we did not really take a look at what we really wanted to say or do critically.
Whatever the case may be, skill is only mastered by consistently working on it.
Why is it important
We get reminded that our feelings are temporary
Without self-awareness, we can believe that life is happening to us and that we will have these unwanted feelings forever and this is why naming the emotion and realizing how it is showing up in how you act is so important.
The message that we are human is reinforced
Sounds like common sense but sometimes we forget that we are human and that we feel things. Being self-aware makes it okay for you to feel as long as you identify what you are feeling, how it is showing up in your actions and how best to control the narrative and not get caught up in darkness for too long.
In the same way, it also reinforces that we need each other as human beings. We need people who can confidently and calmly communicate to us when we are acting out as a response to not evaluating our feelings.
We respond more than we do react
Being self-aware helps us control our actions. We are able to see past the blinding emotions such as fear and rage and recognize where it comes from while also seeing how our actions in the heat of the moment could permanently affect us.
We are more aligned with what we want and so we respond in ways that will get us there
If the goal for you is to be at peace with yourself, then thoughts of low self-worth creep in, then you will have the understanding that it was caused by something you failed to do or that something did not go as planned. You will recognize that it is a temporary feeling that does not affect who you are and your worth. You will also be able to remind yourself of all your strengths and get back to a more compassionate place.
You become more compassionate to others
Being more self-aware will help you relate to people more. You will understand that the reason most people react first and fast is that they haven’t taken the time to really check in with themselves and so you are more likely to be more compassionate and understanding towards them and even help them get through it instead of blaming them.
Self-awareness helps us with empathy.
We are able to see and discern when people are going through a bad day and not make it about us. We are able to see people hurt and relate to their pain without being totally immersed in it.
It helps us hold space for those around us while they are struggling without trying to fix what they are going through.
Why is it hard for us to work on self-awareness?
It takes time and work
It is a skill and most of us would rather devote their energy into other things. We would rather attribute our actions to being just a part of who we are, permanent traits. It takes time to look into why you always feel angry when someone brings up a conversation. It takes work to actively be in tune with yourself and work on getting better at identifying how you feel and controlling your reactions in trying situations.
We are not ready for change
Change is so hard. It can be hard letting go of a coping mechanism like being loud and reactive when it has worked in your favour for so long. Who are we without our coping mechanisms? Are we now to start allowing ourselves to feel hurt and shame? How would that look? Will we not expose ourselves to attacks? What would it look like being vulnerable and being accountable for our choices? Does it mean we should change everything about ourselves?
Where would we even start?
We have grown up avoiding our emotions
We were taught not to show our emotions. Men were taught this earlier in most cases and that is one of the reasons it gets so hard to recognize what is going on with them.
Avoiding our emotions gives us this false sense of control and it could work but not for long. We put on these masks and forget who we really are.
How then can we figure out what we are feeling if we were taught to always mask our feelings? How then can we communicate to people if we ourselves do not know what we are going through?
We are simply afraid to look within because we don’t even know how to do so and this was learned.
We are afraid to seek the truth from our past
Our pasts are not always glamorous and there was a time in our lives where we did not know better and we did not do better. This coupled up with the fact that we do not know how not to be harsh to the people we were then, makes it hard for us to see the truth in what happened and our role in all of it. We then act surprised when we repeat the very mistakes we vowed to not repeat.
We do not want to take responsibility for our actions and choices
Having someone point out your flaws is hard enough. Having to point them out yourself is such a grilling experience. We feel ashamed and fearful because now we see the instances when we did not take responsibility for our actions and how it affected us and how it affected those who we blamed. It takes strength to recognize that you are wrong and that you could do better. This is something a lot of us struggle with. I shared some of the struggles we face when dealing with the victim mentality and some of the reasons we play the blame game.
We do not know how not to judge ourselves harshly
It is all we know really. Harsh judgment. We are harder on ourselves than we are on others and we beat ourselves up even for learned lessons. Taking a critical look into our actions, our triggers and what motivates us, without compassion will have us feeling like the bad person and sometimes even unworthy of love and second chances.
We do not make time for ourselves to observe
Funny how we have time to catch up on the latest show, be a part of gossip and even have time to tolerate all these unhealthy coping mechanisms we have but find no time to sit with ourselves for 5 minutes to evaluate our actions and where they came from. Silence is scary and we would rather fill that gap with noise that comes in the form of distractions. Journaling regularly is something we struggle with and we argue that there is not much time or much to observe because most of the time we want to categorize a day generally instead of taking time to look at the different actions we took and whether they were appropriate.
Where to start
As someone who is still on the same path of self-awareness, I understand how hard it could be and I do not have all the answers. However, some of the sure ways to be more self- aware is to be reflective and observant.
Reflective to just see how you react when you feel happy, sad, angry, ashamed. It will help you presently identify which of your present actions are linked to the emotions. Don’t be so hard on yourself for something you said 5 years ago out of rage. You probably thought it was justified because you were hurt or maybe you did not really think that much and just reacted. Reflective of the traits that may have worked in the past but are now causing you harm in the present time.
Observant in the present time of how your emotions make you feel. What urges do you feel when you are mad? Should you give in to them? What would be the effects of you giving in? How would you feel afterwards? Observing is way more constructive and we should replace it with absorbing all the energies that others give off which could be draining.
Being reflective and observant take time and we should give ourselves some time. In silence away from distractions. We could set an alarm for five minutes each day (preferably when we are not so tired) to just check-in and see what things have happened, what aspects we dealt with well and what we can do better tomorrow or even later on that day.
If someone made a hurtful comment that hurt us and we were unable to respond and instead became resentful and our entire body language changed and we even ended up blaming ourselves for not speaking up then as we reflect we can take the time to calm ourselves down by calling a friend, find a way to properly phrase our response in a mature way and even commend ourselves for not reacting immediately.
Kindness
Always start from a place of kindness. Accept that you deserve kindness especially to yourself. You did not know better, you were blinded y emotions but now you want to be more in control and accountable for your actions. Kindness even when it gets hard to make the change because let’s face it, we are going to fall severally in our attempts to assess how we feel and catch ourselves before reacting and sometimes people will push us.
Seek help
If professional help is available to you, utilize it. If not, you can start with allowing your friends to be open with you even when it makes you uncomfortable.
We can allow ourselves to feel emotions
I feel that society and religion make us feel that feelings such as anger and jealousy are evil. So we hide them and wish them away.
The truth is that we are not our feelings.
They are energies that are triggered by something. They are energies that pass. They could come from a place of fear, lack or frustration.
We should not let that make us believe we are evil.
What we do with our emotions is what counts and if we look back, there are moments when we did not act on our heavy emotions and that should confirm to us that we are more than what we feel.
Gratitude
Part of being self-aware is noting our strengths and not just the weaknesses. It helps us to know that there are things we are actually good at like taking time before we respond, being kind even when people do not deserve it, being intuitive and even noticing our strength when we are feeling tough emotions. Write them down. The good things like restraint that has saved you from confrontation in the past. It will help you adopt an attitude of gratitude even in dark times because there is something you are doing right even when you are going through it and we all need to know that we are doing good during these times.
Here is to us realizing how important it is that we become more self-aware and how we can actually work towards being more self-aware.
Love,
Sabali
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