What are Self-Awareness, Inner Work, and the Choices We Have?
Welcome!
It seems like my first blog post should have a little extra greeting for you since you have taken the time to come and see what this new adventure is all about.
In this post, I want to dig deeper into what I mean by self-awareness, inner work, and the choices we have because of those things.
Now that might sound like a simple thing to do, but it was actually a challenge for me to capture into words what I have done automatically in my own mind for so long.
What I’m going to share here isn’t something I set out to discover or create. It is something I’ve stumbled upon as I’ve lived out my journey each day. Things have impacted my life and caused things to happen within me. For the longest time, I felt like I was at the mercy of my circumstances. I feel things deeply and that translated into reactions I didn’t want or stuffing my emotions down to avoid the reactions I didn’t want.
At one point things got too big for me to stuff, and I had to learn to live my life in a different way. It was through that process that I started to recognize some patterns. Those patterns were how I began to live my daily life, but it wasn’t done on purpose. It came about because I was trying to become a better version of myself and improve my life. I was always looking for ways to grow and learn to become that better version and this is where my journey led me.
Those patterns I started to notice showed me how my self-awareness and doing the inner work gave me the ability to choose how I responded to circumstances and people. It helped me to have even more control over myself and my life. This was so exciting to me because I believe we are the only thing we can control in this world.
“For me the big goals of inner work are being aware of and expressing emotions in a healthy way, personal growth and development, and making space to choose our responses.”
So let’s dig a little deeper into what I discovered…
When I think of self-awareness, I think of being aware of what’s going on inside yourself, how outside things might trigger you, and how you affect others.
It’s picking up on the details and nuances within yourself that you’d miss if you weren’t paying attention. Sometimes they are obvious and other times they are subtle.
The key is to be looking for them and view them with openness and curiosity, not harsh judgment. The purpose is to notice, grow, and become...not condemn.
Being self-aware can help you live your life more intentionally because you see things on a deeper level. It can also help you have the power to change the effect you have on the world around you.
When I think of inner work, I think of the work done on the inside in your thoughts and emotions.
When I think of inner work, I think of the work done on the inside in your thoughts and emotions.
It’s healing the hurt places of your heart by facing the things you need to so you can let them go and make space for your present and future. That work is done by making space to feel or process your emotions so you can take in what will become a part of you and let go of what you need to. This work can be done on your own or with someone supporting you.
It’s also working through your trigger points so you can be in control of your reactions and choices. When working with trigger points, the goal is to make space between being triggered and your response. That is the place where we get to choose how we will respond.
For me the big goals of inner work are being aware of and expressing emotions in a healthy way, personal growth and development, and making space to choose our responses.
When you are aware of what’s going on inside, how things affect you, and are healing in your hurt places; you have room between your thoughts, emotions, and actions. This gives you the space you need to make the choice to determine how you will respond or react to a situation when you’re triggered. These are the choices that you might miss.
Let me share an example of what this could look like.
You have a friend you love dearly, but she drives you crazy because she’s constantly late. It feels incredibly rude to you and makes you feel like she doesn’t respect you or value your time the way you do hers.
You don’t want to say anything because you don’t think she’s doing it on purpose. It’s just how she lives her life. So you do and say nothing. The problem with this approach is all the frustration that keeps building inside you. Just because she isn’t doing it on purpose doesn’t mean it isn’t bothering you.
One day you’re having a rough day and it all just comes out. You channel all the frustration that’s been building up and blast her with it. At the moment you feel completely justified because after all she’s had it coming.
But after you see the shocked and pained look on her face, you feel guilty and recognize that reaction wasn’t really about her. What happened was her chronic lateness became a trigger point you had been ignoring, and it came to the surface when you were really struggling. This caused you to react in a way that isn’t true to who you are or your heart towards your friend.
So what could have given you the space you needed at that moment to choose how you’d like to respond instead of blasting your friend? Being aware of yourself and being honest with how her latest was affecting you would have been a great first step.
“Daring to look inside, face what you find, and take ownership of how you naturally react to things is an audacious act.”
Recognizing that your friend being late had become a trigger point and working through the emotions in a private and safe space to understand why it was triggering you would have been an even greater help. That might have lessened the intensity of the emotions in the moment which in turn would give you more control over your response.
In an ongoing situation where the relationship has depth to it, it would be time to have a conversation (or two) with your friend about how her chronic lateness makes you feel. That would give you a way to express those emotions in a healthy way and could help her understand that she is affecting other people.
Keep in mind, you want to approach her with compassion and understanding while having this conversation instead of judgment. You might find that she's completely unaware of this and is grateful to know, or she might be all too aware and it can open the door for deeper connection in the friendship.
It can be completely intimidating to think about having this type of conversation, but it’s well worth it if the friend is a valued part of your life.
Honestly, a lot of this process is scary at first. It will feel foreign and awkward if you’ve never done it before. Daring to look inside, face what you find, and take ownership of how you naturally react to things is an audacious act. It will require great compassion and tenacity to go on this journey for yourself, but I know that you can do it! It’s been one of the most rewarding of my life and I trust that it will be for you too.
I look forward to going on this journey with you. I’m not a professional who has all the answers. I’m simply a woman who’s lived a whole lot of life with my eyes wide open looking at the details.
I’m here to share my journey with the hope that it might help you in some small way along your own. Let’s get going!