This is post 11 of the “Living Fully Alive” Blog Series. Reading the posts in the order they were posted is recommended for the best reading experience.
We have been given much information about our operating system, how our subconscious drives much of what we do in life, what can trigger a pain that is unresolved and memories that have been stored in the subconscious. It seems a natural progression to discover more about how we can become aware of how all these things are at work in our lives. None of what we have learned so far will be very helpful if we aren’t aware it’s happening. Self-awareness is a very important tool to use on our journey to becoming fully alive.
First let’s make sure we all understand that self-awareness is not self-centeredness or navel gazing. It’s not looking at everything that is wrong without seeing beyond it. If it gets out of balance, it becomes a spiral dragging us farther and farther down an unhealthy path. Self-awareness is a tool to help us move forward, not get stuck. As with anything, taking it too far will be unhealthy. Just as sticking my head in the sand and not looking at all at myself will cause dysfunction, looking too deeply and exclusively at only what is going on inside, will result in problems. This is another applicable area of holding truth in tension, and we need to make sure we maintain a healthy balance.
Speaking in general terms though, most people are not self-aware enough, which causes many problems. For instance, if I’m having a big emotion, and I am not aware of where it’s coming from, I might give it full expression toward the person who triggered it. I take out all this emotion on someone who has nothing to do with the core issue, and it solves none of the original issue. So now I’m left with having caused damage to a person in my life and buried the core issue again without being any closer to a healthy resolution and healing.
It’s important to know what pain is driving my life, otherwise I won’t know how to navigate my life in order not to end up in a place in my life I didn’t want to go. I can’t know that pain unless I learn how to be self-aware.
A good place to start is to ask myself what season I’m in at the present and how I’m handling it. Justin explained that for him it was important to acknowledge he was in a season of sickness, knowing he will have less capacity than usual. Knowing that, helped him not put as many expectations on himself in this season. Or it could also combat the beating yourself up because you can’t perform at your usual capacity. It’s good to make healthy adjustments. If you’re sick, you’re going to leave more margin for rest and for space, because it’s not a season to push yourself. The idea here is to not make life more difficult than it already is nor than it has to be.
Specifically, it would help me to know what season I’m in emotionally. I know currently I’m in a season of mourning and grieving and loss. I am also aware that the nature of the loss is not the usual sense of loss of a death of a person, but of a dream. Knowing this gives me grace to allow for the crying times without beating myself up over not being over it yet, but allow the expression of it. At the same time, being a believer, nothing that is dead necessarily has to stay dead, so I can also do things to take care of my heart so hope stays alive even while I feel the pain of the current situation. I can do a little self-talk, telling myself it’s ok to be sad, it’s ok to be weepy and grieve. It is a big loss and the pain is real. Then I can continue by also telling myself that I am not alone, that God is with me and that he always works things out and is great at bringing joy out of ashes. I don’t know how much of that is too soon, when full room might maybe be called for in grieving, but until I learn more, I know it helps me maintain a certain level of comfort to hold on to what promises God has made me that don’t get cancelled out simply because something died.
Singing a song such as this one is so helpful to me in such a season.
Awareness can allow me to breathe compassion into my life. Knowing the season I’m in, gives me understanding and helps me not compare myself with the performance of others who are not in the same season. This has actually been really helpful to aid me in understanding what to do with my own stuff. For instance, I used to do children’s ministry pretty much every Sunday, because there were no other people stepping up. It was fine for a season, I enjoyed doing it, and it felt good to be able to be there, so others could get ministered to. But then I began feeling resentful and taken advantage of and began to have judgmental thoughts towards all the parents that weren’t pulling their weight, as well as toward the higher up leadership that blocked what ideas and changes I wanted to implement with the kids. I realize now that instead of pointing the finger outward, had I been more self-aware, I would have realized my season is changing, and I need to take action to support myself in that season instead of gritting my teeth and carry on like a good soldier because the job needed to be done by someone… By doing so I was putting expectations on myself I didn’t have grace or capacity to handle and was making life more difficult for myself than it needed to be.
Because I wasn’t aware of what was happening on the inside, I expected myself to function as usual, holding myself to an entirely different standard than if I had been aware of the season change and the pain that was building up. I didn’t realize that considering the season, it was amazing that I was doing as much as I was, even without this ministry burden on top of it.
I bet we all have those ‘aha’ moments and we say to ourselves, if only I had known that then, how much more supportive I could have been of myself and the situation, and how much healthier I would have been sooner… or am I alone? Let this be my time to learn and become really good at self-awareness so I can maximize the healing and growing that is available to me now.
How do I become more self-aware? How does one learn?
Here’s an exercise to work on before you move on to read the next post.
Set an alarm to go off several times a day. If your day is pretty structured, make it coincide with natural transition moments, so you have a little bit of time to take a break for the exercise. If your day is chaotic, you might just grab your bathroom breaks to do it, if that’s the only quiet time you’ll be able to scrounge up.
Whenever your chosen time is, ask your heart, “heart, how do you feel?” Talk to your heart, say things like “I want to know what you feel, tell me what’s going on. I want to understand. I give you permission to speak, I will listen and not shut you down. I won’t say you’re stupid, or it doesn’t matter.”
If this is hard at first, get yourself a feelings chart, there are many available online, if you are a visual person there are even “faces” feelings charts. Here’s a link to one if you’d like to use this one.
Do this three to five times a day or even more if you like. You may want to journal these things to be more present and in the moment.
Next post coming up we’ll learn all about denial.
Click the hyperlink to find out more about Living Fully Alive
