Self-Consciousness

Self-Aware People Work on Healing Their Hurts

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When you don’t heal your psychological hurts you live a life avoiding, accommodating, and tiptoeing around how you feel inside while never getting to the core of what’s really going on or developing self-awareness.

Unfortunately, people’s pain doesn’t only affect them, it spreads to others and creates all kinds of undesirable situations at home or at work. When people don’t heal their own hurts, they create discomfort in living rooms and board rooms and the consequences include:

  • Toxic families.
  • Broken marriages.
  • Damaged kids.
  • People who don’t like themselves or others.
  • Chronic conflict.
  • Unresolved issues.
  • Workplaces where people treat each other horribly.
  • Gossip.
  • Organizations that promote negative behaviors.
  • Ongoing retribution.
  • Punitive, controlling or capricious leadership.
  • Hurting others to cover for your hurts.
  • Insecurity and ego.
  • Lack of empathy.

Do any of these sound familiar? They happen all the time but, fortunately, you can interrupt these types of situations by increasing your self-awareness: Understand why you do things and how to move in a more positive direction.

The process of healing your hurts isn’t easy but it dramatically increases your quality of life and, by extension, the lives of everyone around you as well as well-being of the world. The way to get started is to acknowledge you have a hurt and then tend to it consciously and deliberately until it goes away.

What will you do to build self-awareness and start healing your hurts?

Cheers,

Guy

Dealing with Emotions Is a Normal Part of Self-Awareness

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Dealing with your emotions is a normal part of self-awareness. It’s not the emotions that cause problems in life, it’s what you do with them. Focus on being in touch with your emotions and understanding that they aren’t good or bad, they’re just there to tell you that something is happening. Experience them fully and use them to move forward positively.

The more in tune you are with your emotions, the easier it will be to deal with the challenges and successes that come your way. We are taught in our culture that we have to hide our emotions or that there are only a few approved emotions but, in actuality, what you feel inside is just a signal that there is something that needs attention.

Every time you experience an emotion it’s an opportunity to move forward in a positive direction. If you’re happy, you can enjoy the moment, if you’re angry, sad, or fearful, you can use those emotions to learn and grow. The trick is not to try to avoid emotions, simply learn how to experience and manage them in a healthy manner.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and deal positively with your emotions?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Requires Looking at Yourself

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It’s nearly impossible to increase your self-awareness if you’re unwilling to take an honest look at yourself. A lot of people stumble on this point because they think that it means tearing themselves down or making themselves feel worse. In actuality, taking a look at yourself is the process of discovering who you are. It means finding out what you do well and what needs some attention.

If you’re afraid of examining who you really are, think of it this way: All you’re doing is looking at the things you do well and the things that you could improve to live an even happier life. Self-awareness is about understanding yourself clearly and becoming the best version of you possible.

It’s only through careful and thoughtful examination of your thoughts and behaviors that you’ll be able to decide where you want to go. Taking a look at yourself means you’re willing to work on the things that will make you more effective.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and continue to look at yourself?

Cheers,

Guy

It Doesn’t Matter What Others Think of You If You’re Self-Aware

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A major element of self-awareness is understanding that it doesn’t matter what others think about you. There are people who will never appreciate what you do, regardless of how great you are or how much you try to explain it to them.

Some people will write you off because you don’t follow their rules or guidelines or don’t conform to their insatiable need to have everyone be like them. Other critics will come from a profound lack of creativity where they have denied their own muse and are out to make sure nobody produces anything beautiful. You may also encounter naysayers who won’t pay any attention to your work because they have some kind of power trip going on where they have to put you down to make themselves feel more powerful.

There will be plenty of people who don’t get what you do, and that’s OK. As a person who is building self-awareness, your task is to find those who understand and value who you are. They’re out there at this very moment, waiting to connect with you. These are the people for whom your life’s work will resonate and be meaningful, the ones who will support you because you make sense to them.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and move past the people who don’t appreciate you?

Cheers,

Guy

Are You Living a Self-Aware, Creative Life?

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Self-awareness and creativity go hand in hand because, when you understand your own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, you are able to draw upon them to think unconventionally and inventively.

Creativity is one of the most effective ways to overcome any challenges in our lives. Moving in a different direction is often a matter of thinking creatively and doing something differently. Here’s what some smart people say about creativity:

Albert Einstein:

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

Arthur Koestler:

Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.

Beatrix Potter:

Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.

Being self-aware and creative is wonderful because you get to experience life to its fullest; with passion, courage, and always open to new ways of seeing things. You also get to explore exciting possibilities you might not have encountered if you were stuck being unimaginative. What will you do to develop self-awareness and enjoy a creative life?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Is the Opposite of Submission

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I’ve always been profoundly puzzled by people who give up all their power to some authority figure. Self-awareness is the opposite of submission: It means speaking your mind and talking about what’s meaningful to you, even when it’s uncomfortable. It’s exploring parts of the universe that other people don’t dare examine and saying and doing things that upset the status quo. It’s living genuinely and questioning the established order. It’s the opposite of submitting to some outside entity.

When you give up your own decision-making ability you give away your self. What does that leave you? Nothing. No amount of riches or status can make up for not living authentically, the voice inside you will always be reminding you of who your really are, regardless of how hard you try to silence it. I love connecting with people who value self awareness because they chart their own course rather than submitting to rules imposed by others who are completely out of control.

How do you emphasize self-awareness over submission?

Cheers,
Guy

People Who Possess Self-Awareness Are Less Insecure

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People who possess self-awareness understand that the one thing that creates more strife between human beings at every level is insecurity and that it leads to all kinds of undesirable outcomes including toxic relationships and even war between groups and nations. Here is a list of insecurities that are common in people who lack self-awareness:

  • Feeling like you’re less important than someone else.
  • Having to win all the time or being unable to lose.
  • Getting mad at people because you project your hurts onto them.
  • Having to brag all the time.
  • Trying to be on top of people, in a position of superiority.
  • Putting others down.
  • Pitting yourself against other people and groups.
  • Making enemies instead of friends.
  • Finding reasons to be hurt by others no matter how nice they are.
  • Lashing out at others and claiming you’re the victim.
  • Acting out of fear and anger instead of courage and love.
  • Lacking empathy because you think other people will take something away from you.
  • Not being able to trust others.
  • Seeing the world as a dangerous, unsafe place full of people who want to hurt you.

The key thing to understand about insecurity is that it has nothing to do with the outside world and everything to do with how unsafe you feel inside. The way to move past feelings of insecurity is to heal your inner wounds and learn how to emphasize your positive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors so you can move in a more healthy, secure direction. After all, the only person who can make you feel safe is you.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and get rid of insecurity?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy