“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
It’s been a while since I wrote last on a public forum. Well
friends, initially it was deliberate to focus on my work and then spending
dedicated time with family which was followed with bouts of procrastination.
The hangover of procrastination continued for long and to be honest I struggled
to sit for hours gathering ideas to write. I must admit past few months have been periods of total
confusion. A year ago upon reading few books, listening to a handful of
inspirational podcasts and audiobooks I thought I had better awareness of self
than most, at least in my age group. When confined in the boundary of my study
room, I used to feel confident about self with the perception that I have
mastered certain topics of life (Be it emotional intelligence, science of
motivation, self-improvement) than most.
Well friends, I was positively wrong. Coming out of comfort
zone is not easy. It exposes you to your grey areas, the ones you need to
develop. Confronting a large crowd and speaking out words of influence takes toll
and lot of courage. Over the period I realized that talking fancy words of
inspiration is one thing and living those words on a consistent basis is other,
desire to have a super-fit body is one thing and getting out of bed in the wee
hours running for a couple of miles on a daily basis is other, wishing to have
a Leadership and position of influence is one thing and doing all that it takes
to become a true leader is other, having the will to win is one thing and
sacrificing and sweating out what it takes to win is other, Friends, I realized that I am not walking my
talk.
Interestingly in this period, I did a lot of things that is
far from my true nature (at least I think so in over 30 years with myself),
like investing in an expensive electronic gadget (purchased a phone of over 70K
INR) when I opined I just need the basic one that would do the work, I went to
places which broadcasts excessive materialism, famous amongst others but not of
much significance to me (for I love places of peace and serenity), I met and
spent time with people who are all about ‘taking’ and ‘absolutely no-giving’ (
I believe associations matter and avoid company of negative influences).
Although I ask my wife and kids in family to watch less of mindless tv
programs, I felt guilty but still watched tv wasting most precious asset of my
life, ‘TIME’ and this I did time and again. I was feeling, thinking, saying,
doing and behaving something that was not reflective of the person I want to
be. I felt anxious and periods of self-pity and frustration ruled over mind but
did not do much about it for a certain period.
Yes Friends, I felt I was missing the purpose or rather I
had forgotten the purpose of my life.
The dust that had gotten over real meaning of my life needed to be wiped
out.Several questions aroused in my mind to which I sought
answer like who am I? What do I want?
What is my truest of purpose? And so on. While people go on pilgrimages
searching for moral and spiritual significance, I developed a deep desire to go
on a personal odyssey, a journey within. A deep urge to know myself better, I
felt never like before need to know myself better. I wanted to plunge deep and
deep into my real self.
Today I present to you what I learnt from my online research
and books I read over past few weeks.
Awareness of awareness
Many years ago, I came across this quote on a social
networking site - one of the most powerful words in English dictionary is ATTITUDE, the moment you change your
attitude, you change your life; even it scores a perfect 100 (given the alphabets of the word be summed up
such that A =1, B = 2, … Z = 26). While I agree with all my heart, a strong
positive attitude is the reason between a good moment and a bad one; there is
even more powerful word that can create more miracles than one could imagine.
And that word is ‘AWARENESS’ (it scores
105 with the same logic). Sadly most of us do not have the awareness of
awareness.
Per Wikipedia, Awareness is the ‘ability to perceive, to
feel, or to be conscious of events, objects, thoughts, emotions, or sensory
patterns.’ Awareness is a wide topic; it’s like an ocean in the wisdom
literature, one cannot be fully aware of all things even in one hundred lives –
be it the financial awareness, social awareness, mental awareness, emotional
awareness, physical awareness, environmental awareness and so on. Of all the
awareness the most critical is the awareness of self or self-awareness.
What is
Self-Awareness?
‘Most of us remain
ignorant of ourselves because the process of self-knowledge is painful and we
prefer the pleasures of illusion.’ Aldous Huxley, English Writer
 |
| Who am I really? |
While the central theme of my life has been to improve myself
on a daily basis and be my super-best on the last day of my life, I lately
realized self-improvement is not about just finishing a book, attending a
leadership conference or watching a handful of ted talks. There is much more to
it. The late, great Maya Angelou once
said ‘when you know better you do better.’ I strongly feel true
self-improvement cannot happen without knowing yourself. Self –awareness is the
foundation of personal growth.
Aristotle said knowing yourself is the beginning of all
wisdom. The greatest service one can do to mankind is knowing himself or
herself. Many ancient literatures have stressed upon the significance of
knowing oneself, be it the ancient Greek ‘Know Thyself’ or ‘nosce teipsum’ (in Latin).
Self-awareness is having the most transparent and brutally
honest perception of one’s personality, skills, strengths, weaknesses,
thoughts, opinions, beliefs, true motivations, attitudes and emotions. It is
learning to better understand why we feel the way we feel and why we behave the
way we behave? Self-awareness fosters a strong and blissful life.
Famous breathe therapist, Dane Brule says self-awareness
allows us to get out of our mind and observe it in actions. Self-awareness
starts with self-inquiry. In the words of reverent Ramana Maharshi,
self-inquiry is the constant attention of the awareness of “I” or “I am”. Self-awareness has a deep spiritual
connotation which I am not touching upon in this blog post. If I may, I urge each one of you to read
Echart Tolle’s book: A New Earth –
Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, it’s a must read book for anyone who
wants to connect to his higher-self.
Asking question to ourselves, like: ‘who am I? What is my true self? What are my
strengths and weaknesses? What do I want? What is my purpose of life? Where I
am going and why I am going there?’ helps us to connect to higher selves and
know ourselves better which helps us lead a more meaningful life. As we become
more clear about who we really are, we will be better able to decide
instinctively what is best for us.
Why is Self-Awareness
so critical?
Friends, until we become aware in the moment and what
controls our thoughts, emotions, words, and behavior, we will have difficulty
making changes in the direction of our life, we will have least control over
our own life. Swiss Psychotherapist, Carl C Jung, says it most elegantly “until
you make your unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call
it fate.”
Self-awareness is vital to every single human existence
because when we have a better understanding of ourselves, we are able to
experience ourselves as unique and separate individuals. We are then empowered
to make changes and build upon our areas of strength as well as identify areas
where we would like to make improvements. When we become more self-aware we begin to see dimensions of
our personality and behavior that we didn’t notice earlier. Having
self-awareness allows us to see where our thoughts and emotions are taking us.
It helps us to see the controls of our emotions, thoughts and behaviors so that
we can make changes the way we want.
I will give an example from personal life. Last few weeks,
as I said earlier I struggled to sit for long gathering ideas to write this
blog. I did best but was unable to control my ‘monkey mind’. It was wandering
like never before. At one moment it would think of career aspirations, the
other moment it would think of family commitments which I am not doing, after
few minutes it would worry about the body weight I have gained in my days of
ignorance, the other moment this monkey mind would think of the ‘fantasies for
body pleasure’ and so on. It was like a never ending cycle. One fine day, I sat
and wrote over 20 pages in my personal journal about the sources of
distractions, list of things that are worrying me, what do I want in life and
so on. It helped me a lot to refocus and complete this blog eventually.
Benefits of
Self-Awareness:
Amit Ray, author of Meditation:
Insights and Inspiration, says “you are your master. Only you have the
master keys to open your inner locks.” Friends, it is extremely valuable to
know ourselves in order to leverage our potentialities.
Self –awareness is often a first step to goal-setting. It
helps in being conscious of what ‘I’ (our individual self) am good at, while
acknowledging what ‘I’ am not good at. This also includes admitting when ‘I’
don’t have the answers and owning up to our mistakes.
It helps increase our ability to focus, trains our monkey
mind to observe vs race, be attentive and truly live in the present moment. Self-awareness
simplifies our lives, removes distractions. Better self-awareness provides
greater mental clarity resulting in an increased ability to learn and more
effectively apply knowledge. It also helps increase in our ability to manage
mind and emotions, become aware of stress, anger or the situations that create
stress and anger and subsequently release them. It further helps improve out
physical and mental health.
Self-awareness helps us know our vulnerabilities and
distressing emotions to check them and to prevent asserting them
inappropriately in non-value creating ways. Furthermore, it helps us discover
unconscious sabotage patterns. It lets go of our ego self.
When we are not aware of our selves, people around us have a
better sense of our strengths and weaknesses than we do and there are chances
we may lose our credibility. People with enhanced level of self-awareness have
the opportunity and freedom to change things about themselves thereby creating
a life of their dreams. We become fully
self-expressed resulting in more authentic and empowering relationships.
Am I self-aware?
Eckhart Tolle in his book, A New Earth mentions most of us
lack self-awareness. There are many who remain unconscious trapped in their ego
throughout their lives. A simple way to understand if we lack self-awareness is
described by author of book The
Motivation Manifesto, Brendon Burchard,
what he calls as ‘the death of self-awareness’ or ‘the four horsemen of
self-awareness’.
Lack
of Direction (Directionless): Do
‘I’ have a sense of direction in my life? When we show up unconsciously to the
world in a reactive state without signs of pro-active and conscious
idealization of who we are and what we want in life?
Detached:
How do ‘I’ see positive and negative emotions? If we detach ourselves from all
negative feelings, we are at risk of losing connection with even positive
feelings. In such a state we become emotionless and detach from celebrating.
As Brendon says “you have to be passionate and must feel your experiences and moments.
It’s time to connect to reality and sensation of life once more.”
Dissociated: We must accept our
‘good’ and the ‘bad’. American Psychotherapist and Writer, Nathaniel Branden
rightly said “The first step towards
change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.” We should strive to
live in our ideal selves.
Distraction:
Last year I had written a blog
on the major distractions of life in modern times. Friends, distraction is the
greatest thief of life, of light and of awareness. We must do all we can do to
minimize the inconsequential in our lives. If we are constantly scatter brained
we can never immerse ourselves in the magic of each moment. Distraction kills
the joy of present moment. One of the prime aim and focus of our lives should
be to live in every moment.
An honest answer in your journal with discussion with a
mentor or a like-minded friend would help understand your current state. On a
personal front, I realized I lack direction in certain aspects of life; I also
need to know the ‘not-so-good’ side of me and at present moment I feel highly
distracted.
How can I be more self-aware?
Self-awareness can be attained by paying close attention to
what am I thinking? How am I feeling? Why am I feeling so? How am I behaving?
What is the reason for such a behavior of mine? What am I speaking? What am I
revealing and importantly what am I
hiding? Is this my real self? Do others see myself the way I do? And so on.
Johari Window:
Johari window developed by American Psychologists, Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham is a profound tool for self-analysis and raising self-awareness. It provides the four basic forms of the self – the known, the hidden, the blind and the unknown. Filling in the four quadrants with a wise peer or a mentor can make us aware of the things that ‘we don’t know that we know’ and even the things that ‘we don’t know that we don’t know’. This further helps in growing self-awareness.
Johari window developed by American Psychologists, Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham is a profound tool for self-analysis and raising self-awareness. It provides the four basic forms of the self – the known, the hidden, the blind and the unknown. Filling in the four quadrants with a wise peer or a mentor can make us aware of the things that ‘we don’t know that we know’ and even the things that ‘we don’t know that we don’t know’. This further helps in growing self-awareness.
Known Self
Q1
(Things
we know about ourselves and others know about us)
|
Hidden Self
Q2
(Things
we know about ourselves that others do not know)
|
Blind Self Q3
(Things
others know about us that we do not know)
|
Unknown Self
Q4
(Things
neither we know nor others know about us)
|
Personality Test:
Personality test helps us know our
personality types. Such tests reveal certain aspects of a person’s psychological
make-up. It helps us understand to an extent how we interact with the world
around us personally and professionally. Myers-Briggs
personality test often called MBTI is most recommended test to assess our
personality inventory.
Reflecting on a daily basis:
Taking pause allowing a moment of
reflection when we gain clarity and realize our mistakes is so vital to
cultivating self-awareness. A good practice is to ask a series of questions to
ourselves: ‘Did I do what was required of me? Did I spend my time wisely and
efficiently? What did I learn today that was useful? Was I kind and helpful to
others and self in my best capacity? Did I listen properly? Were the words
coming out of my mouth empowering and uplifting? And so on’ such questions keep
us on track in quest to knowing ourselves better.
Writing in a journal on a daily basis:
Friends, writing in journal is remarkably
powerful way to become a clear thinker, build massive amounts of self-awareness
and record intended outcomes. Although I have been maintaining personal diary
for several years now, last 2 years I have been journaling almost on a daily
basis. I write my experiences, learning’s, frustrations, accomplishments,
failures, and importantly gratitude’s of my daily affair. It helps me keep
track of my progress and take necessary action steps. It helps me think through
the why’s and the how’s. In addition to
clarifying thoughts and feelings, journaling helps to reduce stress and solve
problems more effectively. I urge each
one of you reading me please, please - start journaling today itself, it has
unbelievable power.
Meditation:
Meditation is a robust method to study our
own selves. It helps us examine out own mind and employ it vigorously in most
productive pursuits.
Inspiration Diet:
Is there any specific quote, mantra, passage
from a book, song or a person that inspire you in times of despair and discouragement?
Switching to such sources helps refocus our energies to stop procrastinating
and actually do the work.
Do we really need to be self-aware?
To be honest, to survive in this ego-centric world we don’t
need to be self-aware, most people are not. Thanks to the unending sources of
distractions. We can survive without being self-aware, even one can be
successful to a certain extent, but…but we can’t be fully ourselves and fully
alive. We can’t experience the depths of joy, intimacy, authenticity,
connection, peace and fulfillment without seeking self-awareness.
My Final Words
Friends, self-awareness is the gateway to a long journey, a
journey within ourselves. Each one of us are at different levels of
self-awareness. It is like a muscle that grows with time and effort and
ultimately provides us strength. Although the process of exercising
self-awareness is not easy, it is certainly worth it. The more we learn to
become conscious of our impulses, thoughts and actions, while also keeping in
mind our principles that foster practical wisdom, we can more easily become our
best selves.
Famous Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said he who know
others is wise, he who knows himself is enlightened. Eminent Buddhist and
prolific author, Pema Chordon writes “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 respect to look at ourselves honestly
and gently. Friends, it is simply a dis-service to humanity and our individual
selves if we die without exploring our true selves, without connecting to our
higher selves.
Friends, how can we sense life if we don’t have the
intention to do so? We must bring more and even more consciousness to our days
that will help us feel more connected, energetic and eventually enlightened.
This is how self-awareness will lead to our personal evolution, detaching us
from our ego-self and aligning more to our higher self. I wish you the very
best in your personal journey, the journey within.
“When you know the
knower within, you don’t need to know further. When you know the meditator
within you don’t need to meditate further. When you know the worshipper within
you are to be worshipped” - Amit Ray, author, The Transforming Power
One Life!
Narendra Gupta
