Self-awareness: A principle you should live by if you want a great life
Self-awareness is when you are able to see yourself clearly and objectively through observation and introspection.
However often, with the excuse of lack of time, we proceed with our daily life without giving our inner self time for inner thoughts, limiting ourselves to a mechanical way of reasoning, feeling and behaving, confident that everything we do is exactly what we should be doing, without second guessing anything. But is it true?
Many people don’t realize they are on autopilot or on a path they don’t want to follow until an existential crisis occurs. Personally, I was so unaware of myself that I didn’t even realize the idea that autopilot existed. I confused my autopilot with myself. It took me years to spot the difference. It took me a lot of pain and dark days to evolve from autopilot to observer.
An observer it is when you are simply observing yourself without judgment and learning from what you see. This implies a desire to improve yourself and also the ability to analyze your actions. It’s accepting yourself and your past actions with the intent of making things better for the future. It’s not about being hard on yourself, but rather about making sure the things you do will have a positive impact on yourself and those around you.
We can assess the direction in which we are going before entering a crisis situation. For example, I personally listen to my thoughts, analyze my decisions and take conscious actions based on deep reflection. This is because I know that if you don’t make a conscious decision to say “no”, I’m actually saying “yes” to the default or autopilot in me, so to speak.
And I want to be the one who guides my life, and not let my automatic thoughts – or autopilot – do it. It might seem tiring at first, but once you get used to it, everything becomes as natural as being on autopilot, and the most important thing is that once you reach a certain level of self-awareness, there is no turning back, you will always want to be more aware of your inner world because you will understand the power of this process.
It takes courage to endure the sharp pains of self discovery rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives.
Marianne Williamson
“The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.
Pema Chodron