The Role of Self-Awareness

I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence, but it comes from within. It is there all the time.
-Anna Freud

The concept of self-awareness, or insight, is not one that all of us are familiar with. These terms refer to our understanding of our own internal mental processes. These processes in turn, determine what decisions we make and what actions we take to deal with our lives.

Many of us were raised to ignore our distressing feelings if we had no control over our life circumstances. Before modern times, this would have been a viable survival strategy. Now, this strategy can prevent us from considering other options or taking action to improve our situations.

So what do we do? As always we must start from where we are.

We need to begin to recognize our own thoughts are an important piece of the equation. The experiences we have daily, result in thoughts and feelings that lead us to take certain actions in response to those experiences.

Ask yourself if your thoughts, feelings, and actions tend to lead you toward more satisfaction in your life or less.

Understanding how we operate as thinking, emotional beings is the best way to greater life satisfaction. Think about how you view things and why; discuss this with people you trust and write your observations in a journal to look for patterns in your thoughts, feelings, and actions.

The process of gaining self-awareness cannot be avoided if we are to make choices that improve our lives. Our options are either to understand a little or to understand a lot. Either way the information is largely within us.
Live well.