And what the heck does that even mean?!

I can definitely say that I wasn’t when I started meditating! I was all over the place, and as I started to be self-aware enough to see the patterns I was running in my life, I realized that 1.) it was going to take a while to sort out my anger issues! and 2.) it was possible!

Self-awareness starts with training our attention.

First, what we start with in many kinds of meditation is training our attention, which 99% of us have totally lost control over.

How many times have you wandered off mentally during a conversation, maybe thinking about an email you didn’t send, only to come back and realize that you just missed everything they were saying?

Yeah. You are not alone, my friend.

Focusing our attention is key to being self-aware. At least it’s key to being self-aware for any appreciable length of time…

Self-awareness is simply being aware of yourself in time and space. This is a natural act or state that we’re all able to do, we just aren’t able to do it for very long and most of us don’t even realize its importance!

Self-awareness is easier to experience than explain.

Do this: First, notice your body: your feet pressing into the floor, your bum on your seat. Second, now that you’re aware of your body, take a look around and notice where you are… check out the space you’re in. Are you in London? Paris? New York? Delhi? At home? On the train? In a field?

Voila, you’ve just become self-aware. You can also call this being present to or mindful of yourself.

Pretty simple, right? Self-awareness is simply noticing yourself, your body in space. And can include noticing your thoughts, emotions, sensations and surrounds.

The Value of Self-Awareness

Where this gets interesting is that this is a type of meta-consciousness. “Meta” meaning bigger or larger and “consciousness” meaning thinking state or perspective.

We can see ourselves. We can see ourselves thinking, emoting, sensing, acting, reacting, etc.

Instead of just being down in our thoughts and emotions, we actually have a larger (meta) perspective on them. It’s the difference between being in a forest or being in a forest with a map. If I’m in the forest, I’m down here with the bushes and flowers, which is pretty great. If I also have a map I have a bird’s eye view as well… a bigger perspective on what’s happening. I can see the paths that led me here, and where I am in the larger landscape of my life and experiences.

As soon as I can see myself more clearly, I can make better choices. That’s the gold of self-awareness. Now, instead of just being lost in thought when that person is talking to me, I can see myself starting to drift off and decide, “Hey! No! I want to pay attention to what this person is saying to me!” or say, “Hey! You just reminded me that I haven’t sent you that email! Let me make a note of that, and I’ll send it to you when we finish this conversation.”

Or, you could decide to stop yelling at your lover/child/friend, because, really, you aren’t mad at them, you’re frustrated about work – and that’s where this anger needs to be utilized for change – not ruining your personal life!

The first thing that I noticed was that I stopped getting mad at waitresses in Thailand who kept bringing me the wrong order! “I don’t want that! What do you mean I have to pay for it anyway?!!” Instead of just getting angry at them, I began to see that the issue here was my terrible Thai, and what this situation really needed was Thai lessons! What a relief that was! I ate better, too. :)

It helps me in ALL of my relationships, especially my relationship with myself. I started all of this because I was so angry all of the time and had no idea why! Over the years I began to see that I had many habits that lead to anger like blaming others, being passive-aggressive (not being able to say what I wanted or needed until I things got so bad I exploded), etc.

I still get angry, I’m just better at using it properly.

And this is why self-awareness is so useful. It makes our lives better! We make better decisions. Everyone wins, our friends, our partners and children… even our waitresses.