1-What does self-awareness mean ?
Self-awareness refers to the conscious knowledge and understanding of one’s own thoughts, feelings, behaviors, strengths, weaknesses, and motivations. It involves being attuned to your inner experiences and being able to observe yourself objectively, without judgment. Self-awareness is a fundamental aspect of emotional intelligence and personal development, as it enables you to make more informed choices, manage your emotions effectively, and navigate your interactions with others in a more authentic and intentional manner.
In essence, self-awareness involves answering questions such as “Who am I?”, “What do I want?”, and “Why do I react in certain ways?” It’s about recognizing patterns in your thoughts and behaviors and gaining insights into how your experiences and beliefs shape your perception of the world and your place in it. Self-awareness is a key foundation for personal growth, as it empowers you to make positive changes, develop healthier habits, and build stronger relationships both with yourself and with others.
People are not self-aware and people are not truly conscious, perhaps the same that people are the most unconscious about is the why behind what they are thinking saying, and doing most people are running around thinking saying, and doing things instinctively and automatically driven by their subconscious mind.
2-Some exemples :
EX:1
-A man is driving on a highway full of anger, rushing down the road without signaling, increasing the throttle to block the road, entering the lane of cars, finger flipping yelling, and swearing at anyone who he feels is in his way, he has no idea that the why has nothing to do with what’s happening on the road, he is unresolved pain about how powerless he feels to other people, of course admitting to this would be too vulnerable, but because he feels this powerless to other people anger and aggression feels like empowerment, he feels the need to dominate, in order to feel safe and empowered, and this is especially possible when he doesn’t have to face a person.
After all, when he and they are inside of a giant metal object, he can think of them, this is the why behind his road rage.
EX:2
-A woman sleeps with her best friend’s boyfriend she says she’s super sorry, she never wanted to hurt anybody, she just couldn’t control herself when he came on to her. She’s not looking deep enough to see the why behind what she did, the why behind what she did is that she feels insecure and insignificant these feelings are made worse when she compares herself to her friend who is impressive in so many ways. So when her friend’s boyfriend came on to her. What mattered more than their friendship at that moment was the opportunity to feel Superior to her friend. If her friend’s boyfriend was choosing her over her friend, it meant that he decided that she was more desirable, and couldn’t beat that for self-esteem.
EX:3
-A young adult has to decide between taking a gap year to go travel around Europe or going straight to college, well he decides to go straight to college he tells people that he made that choice because he wants to get all of his required classes done as soon as possible and not waste what little money he has, but this is not the real reason.
The real reason is that his parents are against him taking a gap year, he can feel that his parents will not approve of him if he does go on this Gap year and they’ll keep getting into conflicts.
Now this is interesting because one of his top values is peace and another is family. The real why behind him going straight to college is that his top values would be threatened by taking a gap year in Europe.
EX:4
-A teen girl keeps thinking terrible thoughts about herself. It seems like there’s a voice inside her head that’s just constantly criticizing her, she’s unaware that the reason that this voice inside of her keeps generating these thoughts is, in fact, keeps her safe, deep down the why Behind these thoughts that she’s convinced that if she criticizes herself first other people can’t beat her to it, and if she criticizes herself, she will hold herself to a standard, that will guarantee that she will be liked and approved by others, rather than disapproved of and rejected.
EX:5
-A man says sure I’d love to be friends, to a woman that he knows and proceeds to establish a friendship and hang out every single day, later when she gets into a romantic relationship with another man, he flips out, he feels taken advantage of and used and betrayed by her, he’s unaware that the why behind him saying that he would love to be friends with her is that, he wanted to say whatever it took to be around her regardless of whether it was or wasn’t true.
He had hoped that at some point he could change his mind about her and make her want to be his lover, he was sure that if he devoted all of his time and effort to her that would happen when it didn’t happen, he felt that all that time and effort had been wasted and he blamed her for how miserable he was.
3-Discovering The Why
Most people live at the surface of things, not truly questioning themselves or others and not diving beneath what they are thinking saying, and doing to discover the why behind them, this is a tragedy because the why is the purpose behind their actions, everything you decide and everything you say and everything you do serves a purpose, the question is: what is that purpose?
You cannot keep your attention on the service and ever hope to find the why. The why is deep under the surface, facing the why can be hard, it can be one of the scariest, and most painful things, and let’s just be honest, you’re not probably gonna love what you see all the time, this is why so many people also subconsciously or consciously deflect or tell themselves stories or distract themselves or make excuses, specifically so they can avoid looking directly at the why, it’s not always Savory, but what people don’t understand is that you will pay the price for preserving a feel-good illusion, and so will the people around you, and you will pay the price of preserving a positive self-concept, and so will the people around you, and it will be a price that is way too high to pay, much higher than actually looking straight at reality looking straight at the way.
