Self-Awareness
“I
wake up and play a different person every day. Playing all these different
characters and trying to figure out who your true authentic self is at the core
of that as you're playing all these different roles, and man, that
self-awareness starts to come into effect. And you start to see who you really
are”
(Eliza
Dushku).
As we learned last
week, we all have several different roles in life that we play in the world
around us. This is not a failing, as we
have very specific tasks and behaviors we tend to associate and follow in
certain situations. For example, we do
not talk to our supervisors and managers the way we talk to our friends, family
members, and significant others. There is
certain appropriate language for certain situations and people we speak to. Sometimes, this can get in the way of our
authenticity because we concern ourselves with the way we are perceived by
others. There is nothing wrong with
this. As a society, we tend to think
that we shouldn’t care how we are perceived, but the truth is that we do
care. We even go so far as to think we
should care. However, there is a balance
to this dance that many of us tend to fumble quite often. The balance comes with knowing ourselves,
what we are willing to accept from ourselves and others, understanding our
boundaries, and caring more about what we want and need than what someone else
wants from us. This sound rather harsh,
as stated above we care about what others think and want for or from us. The truth is that if we have self-awareness,
we can be better spouses, family members, friends, co-workers, and associates. We can understand and accept compromises a
little better if we are aware of our beliefs, values, moral compass, and who we
are? But, how do we do this?
When looking at
self-awareness, we have several parts of ourselves. We are not unilateral creatures. We are complex and filled with all kinds of
intriguing personality traits, emotions, needs, desires, and all of these parts
of ourselves can be contradictory and even contrary. We have those moments of unbalance. We have moments of great despair and in the
same moment we can laugh at something we find extremely funny. We fall down; we get back up; we find ways to
survive; we find ways to adapt and go on.
What is concerning in all of the morass of indecision, ambiguity, and conflicting
feedback from ourselves and others is that somewhere in all this confusion, we
have lost who we really are. There is
nothing wrong with occasionally needing to reevaluate who we are.
Self-Awareness:
1. Conscious
knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires.
2. Awareness
of one’s own personality or individuality.
As you can see, being
self-aware is not our usual idea of awareness. We tend to be aware of our surroundings. What people are doing around us. We even listen to the different conversations
that are going on around us. But, we
rarely take the time to simply be. When I
was in my internship, my supervisor said something so profound to me. It resonated in the depths of my spirit, and
the truth is that not only was she right, but I still haven’t figured out how
to change this about myself. She said, “Most
of us are human-doers instead of human-beings.”
Now, you may be scratching your head; I know I certainly did at
first. What she was trying to say is
that we are always on the move. We never
take time to just be. If we are
by ourselves, we listen to music, read or listen to a book, write something, do
the dishes, and are always in motion or doing or playing something to fill the
silence around us. Just being is far
different from this. Even though, I love
to be alone, I rarely have silent moments.
When someone says they are bored, I always wonder why. When someone says they are lonely, I think of
all the time I spend alone and wonder to myself if I am ever lonely. The answer is no, but I’m rarely lonely because
I’m surrounded by either characters in a book I’m reading or surrounded by my
own characters I’m writing about. The thing
is that I’m not fully quiet or being, as my supervisor would have put it.
Those quiet moments
that so many of us rarely seek are good times to put in a search of the
soul. When I was younger, I did this
more often than I do now. I would sit on
the swings outside the dorm. It was the
first time in my life that I learned to be alone and enjoy it. I would sit in the swing with my feet on the ground
and rock as if I were in a rocking chair.
To this day, as an adult, I love playground swings. It’s the first thing I head for in a playground
when I get to one. I would swing and
contemplate the state of my life. People
often think that teenagers have very little to think about, but they are
wrong. As a teenager, everything was extraordinary,
complicated, and seemed bigger than it really was. So, contemplation was definitely necessary to
me. I didn’t understand what I was doing
at the time. I only knew that my mind
was full of all these conflicting emotions: the he-said, she-said stuff that
was going on, the clicks around school, and the sadness of being single
again. Looking back, it’s sort of sweet
the way I sat on that swing and thought my life was falling apart because my
boyfriend and I broke up and all the girls had ostracized me. I was full of teenaged angst. But, those quiet moments taught me a great
deal about myself. I learned that the
person I was, wasn’t who I wanted to be.
I learned that I didn’t quite know who I was, nor who I wanted to
be. I started to plot and plan my own
characteristics even at the age of fourteen.
In some ways, it’s sad that I had this epiphany at that age, but I’m
glad I did.
What I was doing all
those years ago on that swing was what we call self-introspection or
self-reflection. We can utilize that quiet
time that we rarely find as adults to look inside ourselves. What do I really want? Is this who I desire to be? Today, I told a cashier off. Was this really the person I want to be? If you say, “yes” to this question, then
there is no need for change or even further contemplation. If you say, “no,” to this question, then your
contemplation and discovery may need to go further. How could I have handled this situation differently;
you may ask yourself. How would I have
liked to respond to the way the cashier behaved with me? in that moment could I have found a better
way of dealing with him? After answering
these questions for yourself, the next time you encounter a similar situation
you can try one of the solutions you came up with during your
self-introspection.
Self-Introspection:
1. A
reflective looking inward.
2. An
examination of one’s own thoughts and feelings.
Self-Reflection:
1. The
capacity of humans to exercise introspection and to attempt to learn more about
their fundamental nature and essence.
2. The
search for intrinsic meaning and purpose.
It is possible to
find ourselves in the quiet moments. It is
difficult to find quiet moments, especially for those of us who have so many roles
we play such as employee, parent, spouse, friend, and so on. However, your self-introspection time, which I
call me-time, is just as important as our forty-hour weeks, being parents,
being a husband or wife, and friend. The
reason being is because if you are not taking care of yourself; if you’re not
happy; if you’re always stressed out: it is reflected in your behavior with
others. If you take that me-time, you
can reflect on who you are and how and who you want to be in all of your
relationships and the roles you’re playing in your life. You can say to yourself; I know who I am, I am
who I want to be, and I am content to be a part of all of this. No matter what contentment or happiness means
to you personally, you will achieve it for yourself and your family, friends,
and especially, important, yourself.
In the next post, we will continue the discussion of
self-awareness by discussing identity and how self-identity play a major role
in understanding and accepting ourselves.
I invite you to comment and have a discussion. I would like to know what you think; I look
forward to interacting with you again soon.
Until next we meet, stay encouraged and affirmed,
Nell
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