Self-Awareness: An ongoing journey – a burden?

“Ring the bells that can still ring.  Forget your perfect offering.  There is a crack in everything.  That’s how light gets in.”

Leonard Cohen

When I took part in the ‘Highly Relational’ podcast with Robert Diggings he kindly introduced me as “the highly self-aware” Julia Carden!  I quickly corrected him saying that I was still very much work in progress and based on my research findings I know that I have a considerably long way to go.  I am also aware that several of my friends and colleagues have high expectations of me in relation to self-awareness – expecting me to be consciously aware 100% of the time.  This has caused me to reflect on whether claiming we are focussing on and developing self-awareness can cause those around us to have high, and perhaps unrealistic expectations!

But, we are all human and have moments of low resilience and capacity when we are hooked or triggered into an old narrative, and an old pattern or set of behaviours, which those around us then see – what Sarah Hill, in her book “Where Did You Learn to Behave Like That”, calls retrenchment.  We can of course learn from these moments and deepen our self-awareness further by reflecting on what was it that hooked or triggered us, and more importantly, what we need to resource ourselves in these moments.  However, we must also be kind to ourselves and accept that retrenchment is normal and we cannot be perfect – highlighted by the Leonard Cohen quote above.  Also, there are moments when being human means we are at our most relaxed, we are who we are and our unconscious takes over.

So, what can we do about this?

Firstly, practice self-compassion appreciating that not everyone understands the dynamic, ever-changing and evolving nature of self-awareness.  You can do this by reflecting, rather than ruminating, on others’ responses – with thinking around “what does this mean for me?” And “what do I want to take from this experience/moment?”

Secondly, stay reflective rather than ruminative – if you catch yourself moving to negative self-talk and self-flagellation (my trait) find some support to resource yourself.

Thirdly, reflect on what you need to resource yourself? Think about what you might want to ask of and say to those around you?  How can you rediscover your ground?

This all sounds easy when we are in a good and resilient place – in reality, it is challenging.  Others’ expectations perhaps say more about them, “how others behave is information about them, how you respond is information about you” (taken from the Hot Buttons metaphor).  Remember, self-awareness is a life-time’s journey of discovery and if we treat it as a journey rather than a destination perhaps we can put aside the burden that it may become?