The Importance of Self-Awareness

by Leila Youssef
(Marbella)

What is 'Self-Awareness'?

Self Awareness is the process by which you start questioning yourself important questions about yourself.

Do you find yourself asking these types of questions:

• Why is my son responding to me in this way?
• Why is my husband/wife treating me in this way that I dread so much?
• Why am I suffering and feel trapped without a way out?
• Why don’t I dare what I truly love?
• Why do people respond to me in a particular way that hurts me?
• Why is this happening to me?

Why do certain people ask themselves these questions and most people complain about how their life is and believe that things happen to them?

My observation of myself and others throughout my personal and professional life led me to the conclusion that there are some common basic collective beliefs about life and human nature that make most people go through life without questioning any of it.

Consider these perspectives:

• What happens to me is God’s will. All I have to do is to obey him and accept my suffering.

Is it true acceptance or mere resignation? Do you know the difference?

• I am afraid to look inside because I don’t know what I will find.

What do you fear finding? Horrible scary things? Why are you threatened by it? We all carry horrible scary things inside of us that are playing out in our conflicts causing suffering and separations from our loved ones? So maybe it is time to wake up to the fact that there is no escape from what you call the horrible things about yourself whether you like it or not.

• Is it really possible to change myself?

Why not?

• My character is inherited; it is not possible to change it. This is the way I was made and it is not possible to change that.

Do you truly believe that your daily experience of yourself is all there if of YOU? Can you live with that limitation looking to yourself in the mirror every day and remembering it?

These deeply engrained beliefs in the collective consciousness are the main hindrance that does not allowing people to live their lives with awareness.

So, how to create interest and how to awaken the desire in you to become self-aware?

I believe that this should be the main question we need to ask ourselves if we want to feel alive, if we want to thrive as oppose to survive and if we want to live a life of passion motivated by achieving what brings fulfilment and joy to our hearts. Specially if we want our marriages to succeed and our kids to become the best versions of themselves.

Self-awareness is the key to bringing satisfaction, improvement in all areas of your life.

Benefits of a self-aware life:

• You become aware of your strengths and that increases your self-esteem and confidence in yourself. As a consequence you feel more motivated to take challenges and dare doing things you always wanted to do but procrastinated and did not do and therefore you transform frustration into fulfilment.

• You learn about the specific self-destructive patterns of behaviour. This allows you to look for resources to transform them in order to gain control over your life. This opens the door to choose more and more what you want to do, how you want to relate to your dear ones and who are the friends you choose to have.

• You identify your core values. This allows you to make much better choices that are aligned with your true nature.

• You recognize your weaknesses. This converts them into your allies rather than your enemies. The result is a new set of skills and resources that you put at the service of a more fulfilling life.

This process transforms fear and resistance into openness to grow and explore. It allows the hidden unspoken invisible resistance to dissolve and converts the fear of knowing oneself into a journey of exploration, discovery and self-fulfilment.

At the beginning the process of self-awareness could be difficult and tricky because it is difficult to be objective when we think about ourselves, and how others actually see us can be quite different from how we perceive ourselves.

Here are ways to develop self-awareness:

• Explore new experiences like taking different types of vacations, or experiment with new hobbies, visit new places, talk to types of people you usually feel attracted to but don’t dare talking to. You may surprise yourself by discovering talents and skills you didn't know you had. New activities are usually stimulating and energising.

• Encourage your friends and family to share what they see in you and how they see you. Ask them about your strengths, qualities, skills, etc.

• Questionnaires and personality tests are good tools. They make you think and question in order to respond which allows you to train self-awareness.

• Attend workshops and read books on self-awareness and personal development to find the approaches that suit you.

• Get yourself a coach who can assist you to create the list of your goals based on your core values, and explore with your coach how you want to achieve them.

• Write a journal everyday so you can see patterns that emerge in your life. Keeping a journal is a very powerful tool to start the journey of self-awareness.

Here are some questions to use at the end of every week that can keep you on track:

- What a-ha’s or awakenings have I had this last week?
- What challenges did I experience and how did I handle them?
- If I were coaching myself, what would I tell myself about these challenges?
- Is there anything I wanted to accomplish but did not? Why? Be open and sincere about yourself.

Remember NO judgement leads to finding ways to convert your negative patterns into opportunities for growth.

• What have I accomplished this past week?

Celebrate your small successes. They encourage you to dare taking bigger challenges. Celebration is very powerful to increase motivation so love yourself and celebrate.

• What are my top priorities for this coming week?

If I could get nothing else done this week but ONE THING, what one thing would I choose to do? What one thing would make me happy and proud?

• How do I want to feel this week? Who do I want to BE?

• What is my intention for this coming week?

If you start doing this your way of being the victim of your life will turn around and you will become the main player and hero of your life. When you control your life you can easily turn conflictive and painful situations with your kids and partners into opportunities for learning about yourselves and about your loved ones.

Changing the world one family at the time.

To your happiness!

Yours, Leila