I often have conversations with amazing women, and when they say, “I do not have past trauma. Nothing like most people, at least!” I smile and nod. I smile because it is not uncommon for us to minimize our past hurt, especially when we’re comparing it to the hurt of others. I nod because I am witnessing you in your truth and holding space. My role is not to tell you what you already know deep down. My part is to hold ample space for you to go there.
We all need to know what’s going on with ourselves to heal. Self-awareness is the best way to do that. Let’s explore what that means.
The Importance of Self-Awareness in Healing
So much of our experience comes from outside events that we often forget to take time to look within. Trauma also has a way of making us disconnect from our bodies. We take functional care of it but, we don’t really take the time to listen to it anymore. The act of self-awareness teaches you to listen to not only your external world but also your inner world and the automatic communication that happens between the two.
Taking a time-out from the external world is beneficial because it gives us the chance to connect with ourselves and become proactive participants in our own lives. When we take the time to uncover how we truly feel about things, we can make better, more informed decisions moving forward.
Self-awareness can help you work through many struggles like temperament, triggers, and people-pleasing, to name a few. Things that many of my clients considered to be unsolvable. At the core of this is the understanding that there is nothing wrong with you. And self-awareness will help you see that and more.
What happens when you’re not self-aware?
The effects of not having self-awareness when we’ve experienced hurt can take many shapes and forms. However, they almost always include one or more of the following:
- Anxiety
- Regret
- Self-sabotage
- Shame
- Unworthiness
- Comparison
- Self-criticism
- Distorted perceptions
- and more
These inner emotions come from a well-intentioned place of wanting to keep us safe. However, when they’re in the driver seat of our lives, which they often are, we find ourselves thinking, doing, saying things that are not in alignment with what we truly want and value.
Add social pressures, constant emotional shifts, fast-paced lives, and it becomes easier to see how quickly we bury our feelings to our detriment. It’s hard to deal with stress when you’re constantly trying to live up to someone else’s expectations.
Let’s look at how self-awareness can help with healing and the importance of staying true to your authentic self.
How do you increase Self-Awareness?
Quite simply, repetition!
I love to teach my clients about self-awareness, and I always encourage them to model this behavior in all of our sessions. I do this because it’s so easy to revert to old patterns and every chance we get to make a different decision is an opportunity we don’t want to miss.
The act of Self-awareness has a lot of benefits in both personal and social life. It can help us look inward and work through our emotions and improve our understanding of the world around us.
Here’s a quick and easy tip you can take action on right now. The best way to increase self-awareness is to curate one new question or mantra that you would like to say to yourself every day. Here are some examples that I’ve used:
- Am I making this decision based on emotion or logic?
- Matra: Logic over emotion
- Do I need to take a step back right now?
- Matra: Pause and breathe
- How do I feel about this next choice/action/question?
- Matra: My truth is my friend
- What are the risks vs. rewards?
- Mantra: Reward over risk
- What will help future me?
- Mantra: All my steps count
Take Action
Pick one of these, or take a second to think of a new one for yourself. Attempt to ask yourself this question or repeat the mantra every day, multiple times a day.
When you take the time to understand your past, it helps you heal. Sometimes we think we don’t have any trauma in our past. But, this is not true. Your past is influencing the way you think, feel, and behave in the present. Book one of the few complimentary Intuitive Clarity Sessions with me today.