What is Self-Awareness?
Self-awareness is conscious knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires.
Self-awareness was first defined by Shelley Duval and Robert Wicklund (1972), who proposed that, at a given moment, people can focus attention on the self or on the external environment.
Duval and Wicklund noted, "When we focus our attention on ourselves, we evaluate and compare our current behavior to our internal standards and values. We become self-conscious as objective evaluators of ourselves."
The Thoughts We Think.
Your mind does not care if what you tell it is good, bad, true, false, healthy, unhealthy, right or wrong. It accepts and acts on your words regardless.
The inner critic can go way overboard, throwing comment after comment of shaming, bullying and fault finding. It can be big and powerful, if left without challenge.
How does your self-criticism operate inside you?
Notice dismissal of your pain and needs.
Notice if small thoughts downplay your accomplishments.
Notice any repetitive doubting or discouraging of your goals.
Being aware of when and how your inner critic talks to you is when you can start challenging and overcoming the negative words that lead to self doubt and limiting beliefs.
To combat our inner critic, it is important to understand it. Quieting the inner critic and training the nervous system to feel calm, we will see improvements in all areas of our lives.
With a two part approach we work simultaneously on the conscious and subconscious which means there is no inner conflict.
Part one: Calming the Nervous System
There are multiple ways to regulate the nervous system, and I believe the reason for this is because there is no one size fits all practice. We are each unique and our healing journeys are just as unique.
Try this…
One quick way to trigger the vagus nerve and feel calmer is by yawning. Yep, Yawning. Go ahead and give it a try. You will want to yawn 2 - 3 times or more until you feel more calm. You can also trigger a yawn by opening your mouth and making the “R” sound. This will open up the soft palate which should cause you to yawn. The soft palate (the area in the back of the roof of your mouth) can be used as a way to trigger the calming parasympathetic nervous system. If you can’t make yourself yawn, look at a few pics of people yawning to help you get started. I’ve added a picture to help.
Part Two: Understanding Ourselves And Being Self- Aware
Emotional Understanding of others is directly linked to our awareness and understanding of ourselves.
Understanding ourselves or being self-aware can mean:
Noticing how emotions feel in our bodies
Noticing how different people, places and situations affect us
Asking ourselves sometimes difficult and important questions
Learning what helps us feel supported, heard and fulfilled
Understanding Ourselves
Understanding ourselves benefits others because when we understand ourselves we are better able to:
Set healthy and appropriate boundaries
Turn inwards to offer ourselves guidance and support; rather than needing external validation and reassurance
Acknowledge how our own internal experiences impact our relationships with others
Communicate our needs clearly and respectfully
Differentiate between our feelings and someone else’s
Try becoming the observer of your thoughts. And remember, you can always reframe your thoughts. Which simply means if you don’t like a thought you are having you can choose a new one. You can choose a healthier, more kind and compassionate thought.
Example thought: I can’t believe I did that, what a mistake.
Reframe: That may not have been the best choice, and I’m doing the best I can right now.
Think about how you would coach a friend if they were struggling and show that same compassion to yourself.
Some believe self awareness is the path to inner peace. I believe that self awareness can lead us inward to reconnect with our true inner self.
If you are curious about how self aware you are, you can take a self awareness test here from the iNLP Center. (no email or obligation is required.)
