Self-Awareness — “Know Thyself”

The term “self-awareness” refers to the act of focusing your conscious awareness on yourself. Basically, you have to pay attention to your emotions, reactions, habits, and thoughts. Another way of depicting it can be by observing and conforming to your intuition or sixth sense.

Self-awareness can be categorized in two ways: internal and external self-awareness. Internal self-awareness is associated with how thoroughly we perceive ourselves, including our capabilities, shortcomings, beliefs, and so on, but external self-awareness is concerned with how others perceive us in light of the same aspects.

Self-awareness plays an essential part in terms of enhancing your experiences as it is considered a tool that can be practiced anywhere to make yourself more grounded. In this way, you will be able to do a practical evaluation of yourself and the situation and eventually will help you in wiser decision making.

How to Practice Self-Awareness

There are several ways to enhance your self-awareness and the following are the most five productive ways:

1. Following mindfulness and meditation:

Instead of becoming lost in thinking, brooding, or daydreaming, mindfulness helps you in being present in the moment and paying attention to yourself and your environment. Meditation on the other hand helps in concentrating your attention on one thing, like your breath, a mantra, or a sensation, and letting go of your thoughts.

Both of these methods can assist you in being more conscious of your inner nature and response to external situations. They can also help you in identifying your thoughts and feelings and preventing you from being so engrossed in them that you lose sight of your “self.”

2. Practicing yoga:

Yoga is primarily a physical activity, but it is also a mental one. Your mind is developing self-discipline, self-acceptance, and consciousness while your body is stretching, bending, and flexing. It helps you in being more conscious of your body and all the sensations it produces, as well as your mind and the thoughts it generates. Yoga may also be practiced with mindfulness or meditation to increase self-awareness.

3. Reflecting on your thoughts:

The key thing is to look through your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to evaluate where you matched your criteria, where you missed them, and where you may have to develop. Reflecting may be done in various ways, for instance, writing or journaling. You can also review your criteria to understand if they are suitable for you to maintain in the long run. Whatever helps you reflect on yourself, try writing in a notebook, expressing out loud, or merely assembling your thoughts in a quiet way.

4. Journaling:

Journaling has the advantage of allowing you to understand, define, and embrace your ideas and feelings. It assists you in determining what you desire, value, and what’s favorable for you. It can also help you in determining what you don’t prefer. These are crucial to understanding what you are feeling and how you are feeling to have an overall insight into your emotions. Thus, writing down your ideas and feelings, whether through posts or poetry, helps you becoming more conscious of your inner self.

5. Asking feedback from loved ones:

It’s important to understand our inner self, however, feedback from others is also beneficial. You can ask your relatives and close friends about their opinions of you. Allow them to define you and observe what you can admit and what startles you. Consider what they say and write about it in your notebook or reflect on it. You don’t have to take into consideration of one person’s comments; you have to gather feedback from various people to obtain a whole picture of yourself. And keep in mind that, at the end of the day, it’s your emotions and self-beliefs that count the most!

Thank you for reading ❤

Disclaimer: The original version of this story was published on another platform.

Link to original version: https://medium.com/writers-blokke/self-awareness-know-thyself-615c62eea7a3

Sources:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/click-here-happiness/201903/what-is-self-awareness-and-how-do-you-get-it

https://lifeskillsthatmatter.com/self-awareness/

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6097-self-awareness-in-leadership.html

https://positivepsychology.com/self-awareness-matters-how-you-can-be-more-self-aware/