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Self-Awareness




In good and bad times our self-awareness and contact with ourselves have huge impact on our lives.

Self-awareness can be broadly defined as the extent to which we are consciously aware of our internal states and interactions and relationships with others. Powerful thing about it is that it constitutes both a tool and a goal. It offers a primary means of alleviating psychological distress and a path of self-development. It has massive effect on the quality of our lives, and greatly improves our daily functioning and performance.

Cultivating your awareness skills though paying attention to your mind and body and what you actually feel, can help you to reduce the effects of stress on your life, feel more in peace with yourself and others, see situations with greater clarity and notice solutions where you might not have seen them before.

Stressful and traumatic situations put us out of ourselves, sometimes for very long time. During these periods it is especially important to ground ourselves in the present moment, observe and experience our physical sensations, emotions and thoughts and accept them without shame, judgement or condemnation, as something that is there and has a right to be.

First step in this direction is paying attention to your body and what it actually feels. It will help you to recognize tensions that it experiences and the needs that it has, which often get suppressed in stressful situations and environments. Paying attention to and accepting your thoughts and emotions can also help you to be your fuller self, without trying to supress, numb or amputate parts of it.

Contact with and awareness of yourself can be practised in multiple situations. It is best to start doing this in moments when you feel comfortable and then try to do it in more stressful settings. You will notice how your contact with yourself and your awareness of your body, emotions and thoughts improve with practice. This awareness will allow you to see a stressful situation from a position of observer and to sustain a pause between stressful stimulus and your response to it, that will give your brain more time and space to make good decisions.

These simple exercises can help you to cultivate self-awareness:


PRACTICE:
How Am I?



This practice can help you to develop a position of observer towards your own experiences and better manage stress.

Please ask yourself “How am I doing right now?”
Notice what it takes from you to direct your attention to yourself.
Try to go into the position of observer and notice sensations in your body,
your emotions and
thoughts
in this moment.

Close your eyes and bring your attention to your body.

Notice how you are sitting or standing.
Pay attention to the support underneath you and to your breath.
Pay attention to your sensations.

Notice and name the emotions you are feeling right now.
There might be a mix of them.
Where do they show up in your body?
Feel which muscles are tense right now.
Put your hand on the part of your body that most needs your attention and care right now.
You can massage and relax this part.
Now start moving the way your body wants to move.

Notice and name thoughts that you have in this moment. They can also be complex and mixed, but it is valuable to acknowledge and accept them, without being harsh to yourself.

All these sensations, emotions and thoughts have the right to be there.



PRACTICE:
Centering



Centring on a physical level helps us find a more neutral, calmer, and balanced state within our own bodies.

Keep your eyes open and bring your attention to the object that physically supports you now.
If you are sitting on a chair, notice the sensations in your hips and feet that touch the supporting surface.
If you are standing, bring your attention to the feeling in your feet.
Distribute the weight of your body evenly.
You can also do rocking movements left and right to find balance in your posture.
Realise that there is a supporting structure right under you and your weight goes into this this structure and then into the ground.

Find a slightly more upright position and stretch along your spine.

Now relax the front line of the body.
You can start from the top: forehead - let go of the tension, if it is there, eyes, jaw, tongue, chest - you can lower it a little with an exhalation, and relax your abdomen.
Go through the whole front line of your body with your attention and release any tension.

Maintain calm and even breathing with your belly.

As you keep your eyes open, see the space around you with attention.
Hear sounds, feel smells, details.

Then mentally include yourself in this reality.

Spend some more moments in this state and from it continue with your day.



PRACTICE:
5-4-3-2-1



In a state of stress, we often disconnect from our bodies and our immediate environment and fall into a vortex of thoughts. In moments like these, it helps to anchor ourselves by bringing attention back to our body and the world around us.

  • Look around and notice 5 objects that surround you, pay attention to their details, such as colour and shape.

  • Note 4 sensations that you have right now in your body, such as the feeling of clothes touching your skin, shoes on your feet, wind on your face or sensation of something that you can reach with your hand.

  • Listen and note 3 sounds that you can hear.

  • Notice 2 smells that you can feel. This can be the smell in the room and the smell of your hair or skin.

  • Feel 1 taste right now, such as taste in your mouth, or a taste of your skin.

By doing this, you can bring your attention back to the present moment and get out of the turmoil of thoughts and emotions.