Becoming Self-Aware: Taking Personal Responsibility for Yourself
WAKING UP TO SELF-AWARENESS
This word self-awareness is discussed at length today. Just like any catch phrase, many toss it around without truly understanding what it means. You might hear things like, “He’s just not self-aware, or she has no self-awareness. Or I’m incredibly self-aware, but the people around me are not.” What exactly are we talking about here? Is it simply having the ability to see things as they actually are or is it leading to something deeper than that.
When you are unconscious, you are not aware that you have a choice in how you see. You are most likely believing every thought your mind produces and living in a reactionary state of being. You are who you are and there’s not much thought about it. Your identity behaves in a specific way, you grab ahold of these characteristics and project them out into the world around you. This is who you believe yourself to be.
However, when the awareness within you arises, you start seeing everything in a different light. If awareness means to have knowledge of something, or to accurately perceive a given situation, all you are doing is playing witness to what unfolds around you. When you take this to greater depths, it is the awareness of your internal state, as well as the external condition. You are aware that your state of being has affect on the external. Knowing this allows you to implement change.
For example, if you affect an environment negatively and you are unhappy, you can use your self-awareness to actively transform the previous dynamic into something you are happy with. Self-awareness gives you the tools to implement change anytime you choose.
TAKING RESPONSIBILITY
Before you can become self-aware there must be a strong desire for change. There is desire to see things differently because you are tired of how you currently operate. You know there must be another way to live, but you are not quite sure how to get there. Having the courage, curiosity, and willingness to step out of your conditioned self and look at a new way of being, is all that it takes. You don’t need to spend large sums of money. All you need is the willingness to watch yourself without barriers.
Self-awareness is simply taking responsibility for yourself. No excuses, no judgments, or denial, just pure honesty and truth. If you tend to make an excuse for everything you do, that is a form of self-protecting. Playing defense can keep you in a role of victimhood. Being a victim allows you to throw up an excuse for why you are the way you are. There are always reasons for everything you do, but are those reasons keeping you stuck? Are they holding you back from seeing life differently? Are they keeping you comfortable, so you avoid feeling fear? Are they keeping you from the truth?
GETTING REAL with how you actually are, looking at what’s right in front of your face is a first step to becoming self-aware. So much of the awakening journey requires being honest and truthful. It entails witnessing how you respond to the environment around you, your conditioned behaviors, and justifications that you’ve been recycling throughout your life without even knowing it. Or, you might know you are repeating certain patterns, but you are not ready to admit it or make a change yet.
To experience a true shift in perception, you must get brutally honest with your reactions, emotions, behaviors, and opinions in order to see real lasting change. This requires detaching from your personal self. In other words, you’ll want to DE-PERSONALIZE your life for a while. Stepping out of your identity, where you’ve been programmed to insert yourself into most things, see if you can watch yourself without any judgment, expectation, or commentary.
Can you see yourself honestly? Imagine seeing yourself as a character on a stage. Watch how this character experiences life. What is your characters personality, preferences, opinions, positions, expectations, ideals, beliefs, and any other attachment you can witness. Simply take notes and see how you respond to people around you, to information you receive, and to your personal relationships. Practice this for a while until you feel comfortable seeing how you truly are without feeling bad about it, wishing you were different, or feeling guilty. Just see clearly and acknowledge some of the things you do that you know are not beneficial.
2 SIDES OF SELF-AWARENESS
There are two different ways of breaking down self-awareness, and it begins with what side of the mind you are referring to, your ego mind or your spiritual mind. These two systems will have completely different ways of practicing self-awareness. The ego will want self-recognition and gratification for becoming self-aware, yet the spiritual side of your mind will become aware without judgment, guilt, or victimhood. This can be a slippery slope because the ego self is masterful in inserting itself into everything. Just when you think you are detaching from this authority figure, it creeps in slyly like a fox.
The ego dominates your self-identity and will not want you to evaluate it. The ego will sense a more powerful takeover is in the works. However, the ego may play along inserting clever tricks and its competitive nature to strengthen itself. It might strive to achieve self-betterment and stop at nothing to achieve it. It can be on a mission for perfection claiming it is the master of self-awareness. Be aware if this is happening and recognize this is your ego wanting to control the situation. It is seeking recognition for the betterment of itself. The ego loves to be the BEST! Now would be a perfect time to disconnect from any expectation on self-awareness and let it go.
To the contrary, the spiritual side of your mind will look at self-awareness from a vastly different perspective. Because spirit is not attached to your identity, stepping into the observer and watching yourself will be done with compassion and non-judgment. When you can look at how your identity is acting and behaving in the world without beating yourself up, you know you are in a place of understanding why you think and believe the way you do without playing a victim. You won’t make excuses because you are seeing clearly. You will notice how much your ego was in charge and the tactics it uses to keep you unaware.
Notice how you inject yourself into a conversation when it’s unnecessary. Notice when you take something personally when it has nothing to do with you. Notice your need to be right and hold on to your position. Notice when you truly listen to someone one else, or if you are listening to your mind’s interpretation of what they are saying. All of these observations can help you become more self-aware. Just watch if the ego is stepping in, or if you are moving into your spiritual mind with the larger field of awareness.
Waking up from the mind’s automatic pilot is a big step in the awakening process. You don’t have to unknowingly react to life’s circumstances. You can stop pressing snooze and wake up to your larger awareness. You absolutely have a choice in how you view your life. You have a choice to believe your thinking mind or not. You have a choice to step back from reactionary mode and notice everything around you with the spiritual side of love and compassion.
Evaluating what you are doing, how you impact the environment around you, and how you affect other people can be a powerful practice to incorporate into your life. You have the ability to transform the energy you emit or receive. This can be incredibly helpful in your relationships with other people. Reflecting on your behaviors, understanding them, learning how you can change them, and letting go of guilt can be extraordinarily freeing. It is a natural part of awakening to your larger sense of spiritual awareness.