How Self Awareness Can Change Your Life

                   

What is Self Awareness?

What is self awareness? You look in the mirror and you see something, and you probably think, “that’s me.” But is it? Yes, but “you” go deeper.

Self-awareness is your ability to look within to acknowledge your thoughts and individuality. It is also the ability to acknowledge your unity with creation – your consciousness. When youfocus you attention on yourself, you see yourself in terms of your values and your standards. You evaluate your beliefs, thoughts, behaviors and words by those standards.

A lot of what a person does and says is pretty much automatic. It’s so ingrained in them to think and act this way, that they aren’t even aware they’re doing it. Since all thoughts, speech and actions have consequences, it makes sense to figure out what is causing any problems you may be having in your life.

The intent is for self awareness to guide you to the thoughts and actions that are up to (or higher) than your personal standards.

Which of course means standing in front of the mirror isn’t quite going to do the trick for introspection! The mirror is useful in that it shows you the consequences of your thoughts and actions with regard to your physical self but it can’t help you look within.

How to Enhance Self Awareness

Some ways to enhance your self-awareness are: how other perceive you; being videotaped or recorded; being in front of an audience; and meditation. You learn by the consequences of your thoughts and actions. So what about people who are punished for something and then repeat the same negative patterns of behavior? Well, the difference is that you and everybody else has the power of choice. A person may be fully aware that what they’re doing is wrong or counterproductive – but you choose to do it anyway.

Raise your self awareness by evaluating how others perceive and treat you. If you’re in front of an audience (on stage, at a party, teaching, etc.), what are you saying? What is your body language saying? Are people drawn to you, or do they avoid you? This is one of the hardest lessons. Everybody wants to be liked and accepted and if you’re not, you have to look within to see what’s putting people off.

Self awareness can also be gained by listening to yourself on a recording or watching yourself on video. Candid videos are best but you can learn so much about yourself by listening to your tone when you speak. What kind of energy are you projecting? Are you interesting to listen to or do you put yourself to sleep? Would you want to listen to yourself if you were stuck in a room with yourself? Guess what – you are! You’re stuck in your own head, listening to your mind’s ramblings. And if you don’t like what you’re going on and on about, you have the power to change it.

The best way to become self-aware is meditation. When we’re out in public we all put on a bit of a show. We act differently around children than our parents; we say and act around our boss much differently than around our lover; and differently still around friends, neighbors, clients, shopkeepers, etc. Every social situation comes with its own costumes, scripts and masks.

But when you’re sitting in meditation, it’s just you. No costumes, no script, no mask. You can try but you really can’t hide from yourself; or your Self can’t hide from your awareness.

Push PLAY on your Omharmonics meditation audio track, sit back and relax, and let the mind movies begin. Every thought you have takes its turn on stage. Every thought comes into the spotlight. And if you don’t like it, you can change it! You can say, “Next” and replace it with a thought you prefer.

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The cool thing is, if you do this often and consistently you’re going to see some major changes in the way you see the world, think about it and interact with it.

That is just one of the reasons a daily meditation practice is so great.

Give yourself 30-90 days of daily work to change any thought pattern and guaranteed, you will be successful. That’s how long it takes to imprint any new habit, depending on how much you want it. Emotion and a sense of reward play a huge role in the creation of a habit (the bigger the reward the more inclined you are to repeat that thought or action). So whenever you think a thought you like to think, SMILE. You can’t help but feel good when you smile. Love that new thought! Self awareness can also take you into the exploration of your true nature. When you recognize that you are a spiritual (energetic, nonphysical) being having a physical experience; not the other way around, you have become enlightened. You are in the state of nirvana.

Meditation can help you understand concepts like this because it lets you move beyond logic into intuition. The self, universal consciousness, infinity and other ideas can’t be understood by the logical mind. Sit in meditation for a time, though, and you will feel the truth… that you are not separate from anything else – and yet you possess something so incredible it’s unfathomable. Your Self is thinking, creating, conceptualizing, imagining.

René Descartes’ famous “I think, therefore I am” has been hotly debated by philosophers. Currently, “I am, therefore I think” is the popular perception of the self. Meditate on that and you’ll understand it and embody it.

Hopefully you have a better sense of how self awareness can help you become more confident, a better listener, a better speaker, client, boss, lover, parent, friend, colleague, teammate, etc. etc. Gandhi said, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”

That means if anything is going to change on the outside, improvements need to be made on the inside. And it all begins with self awareness.