Two Sides to Self-Awareness

The Danger and the Gift of Self Awareness

To be self-aware can often work as a double-edged sword. Self-awareness needs to go hand in hand with humility. Many will look at themselves and deceive themselves. We want to be better than we are.

But there's an old saying, "in acceptance lyeth peace." It's a true saying. You have to accept that you are who you are. You have gifts and strengths just like anyone else.
To be truly self-aware, in a constructive and positive light, is to know one's own failings and to not be afraid of looking at them, or rather, to not be fighting off having to look at them. Seldom do folks get over the fear of looking at their own misgivings.

But we have them, and you can't get around them. So take them in. Let friends criticize you freely so that you can know what others see when you walk and talk around them. How do you really behave? How do you really come off when you share your opinion? Hear them out and let it wash over you so that you can know what you're really like.

To know yourself, you have to get past your own misconceptions of yourself. This is where those around you might serve as sources of information. We are prone to either convince ourselves that we are far better than we really are, or far worse and more abominable than we actually are. Neither is right nor healthy, and both can lead to destructive behavior.

Self-awareness will give you the ability to look deeply at the real you, from the outside, and will help you accept the real person in those around you. You will be aware of what effects your actions cause and how you treat others. To be truly self-aware is to actually become truly free. In this, you'll be able to free others as well.

 

If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I was brought up to believe that how I saw myself was more important than how others saw me. - Anwar el-Sadat