S4 Ep15: Why Is Self-Awareness and Just Being Yourself So Challenging?
“Just be yourself” is all well and good, but…
Two of the most distressing things that dominate our society are the expectations of others and the “shoulds.”
Early in our lives, before we’re even scientifically capable of self-awareness, our parents and other family members guide us. Eventually, it moves from guidance to direction.
We accept that the expectations of others, personal or impersonal, when not met, make us outcasts. Add to this all the “shoulds” presented along the way, and we bend, twist, and reshape ourselves to fit a given mold. We wear masks in public that can prove difficult to remove in private.
Start with recognition and acknowledgment
Before you begin any work to break out of this mold, it’s very, very important to understand one thing. Nobody is at fault or to blame for this.
What’s more, placing blame or seeing fault does nothing for you. That’s because placing blame and fault displaces feelings and emotions. Why? Because even if you can place blame or fault, does that change anything? No.
Only you can get to know the real you. That’s because you’re the only in in your head, heart, and soul. That begins and ends within you.
Learn self-awareness to be yourself
Nobody lives in a bubble. You should have some awareness of the people, places, and things around you. This applies to both the direct and indirect. However, you don’t need to be utterly bombarded and inundated with this info.
The key to being yourself is self-awareness. This is right in front of you and readily accessible to you. Yet nobody teaches you this for all sorts of reasons. Largely because one-size-fits-all for this can’t be easily applied.
To be actively consciously aware, all you must do is be here, fully present, and in the now. Then ask,
· What am I thinking?
· What am I feeling?
· How am I feeling?
· What do I intend?
· What am I doing?
This active, conscious awareness is mindfulness. To be mindful of yourself is to be yourself.
Mindfulness, conscious self-awareness, and yourself
Everyone has both a conscious and subconscious mind. Your subconscious is where your beliefs, values, memories, and habits live. Your conscious mind is where you actively think about things.
Making a regular practice of active conscious awareness – mindfulness – tells you who, what, where, how, and why you are. That is how you be yourself.
Mindfulness is how you can be yourself. Because when you know, consciously, what you think, feel, intend, and do, you are capable of choosing to be who, what, where, how, and why you desire to be.
This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool:
Are you being yourself?
For some people that’s not an easy question to answer. Let’s see what we can do to help with that.
This will require at least 5 minutes of uninterrupted time. Sit at a computer or write in a journal everything that comes to mind when you ask these questions:
· Who am I?
· What am I?
· Why am I?
· How am I?
Give yourself 1-2 minutes to answer each question. Once you’ve written this down, read it. Do these answers reflect you being yourself, or who you believe others expect you to be?
Another step to take, if the answers don’t suit you, is to work out what you can do to change them. Write that down, too.
When done, does it feel like you know yourself better?
Blogs: titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com
Original cover art artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations