Self-awareness and how it impacts relationships
We live in a society where relational skills are not taught. Despite the ever-growing scientific exploration of the human mind and body, it has not been translated into general public knowledge. People know very little about themselves and each other.
A critical skill that we will spend a lifetime cultivating is self-awareness. The more you discover about yourself the more successful your relationships will be. And not only romantic ones. By identifying why you are reacting to something the way you are, you can actually start weaving the tapestry of your own life and nervous system. The things that you do and the way that you feel begin to take form and make sense and, in the end, you can make more conscious choices in your life as opposed to being driven by your nervous system or coping behaviours.
Let’s look at a common example. If you grew up with a family that always pretended everything was ok and no one was allowed to be “confrontational”, as an adult, you can experience a lot of discomfort when dealing with other people’s feelings or your own. You might be avoidant of anything that resembles conflict. You might also not know what to do when it comes to communicating through arguments constructively and with non-violent communication. So where do you start?
You start by noticing. When something starts to feel uncomfortable, heavy or like you need to withdraw and run away you need to take note of that feeling.
“You need to become an observer of yourself. A non-reactive and non-judgemental observer of your own experience. ”
Note down what happened.
What was going on when it happened?
How does it feel in your body?
Where do you notice it the most?
Are there lingering thoughts attached to it?
What about beliefs?
What is the point of doing all that? It is the first step to self-awareness. Of becoming aware of your own experience and how you relate to the world. The most useful thing about paying attention to yourself and noticing your own experience with curiosity as opposed to judgement is that you quickly begin to realize how much of your response to the world is fueled by deeply held beliefs created in your past that are no longer serving you in the present.
As you begin to act like an observer to yourself and become curious about your “knee-jerk” reactions or patterns you might realize things like your partner is not constantly out to punish you or make you feel bad. Instead, you feel bad because somewhere in your journey you learned that engaging in conflict means you are unlovable. Even if logically, you might recognize this does not make sense and you do not necessarily align with it, your internal system always sets off the alarm bells when this type of situation comes up. Constantly convincing you something is wrong or not safe.
As children we are driven to seek our parent’s affection. It is innate to want to feel securely attached to our caregivers. However, if our caregivers push us away for having feelings or are insensitive to our self-expression, we learn that we cannot talk about them. A particular subject matter can lead to shut down or other discomforts. The goal is to recognize what some of these deeply rooted beliefs are. Also, to recognize what you normally do to make the feeling go away. What behaviours or practises help you cope. Like distancing yourself from someone when you know they are hurt.
With enough practice you should be able to understand things like “I want to run away from this conversation because it feels like conflict.” Knowing things like this about yourself is a game changer in relationships. You can recognize that your emotional response is attached to your past and not because your partner is acting a certain way. Even if your partner may have done something offensive in the present, most of what you are experiencing is likely your own.
You can also make a conscious choice to tolerate some of the uncomfortable emotions. By cultivating self-awareness, you have gone from actively distancing yourself from others when the going gets tough to recognizing that your body is having a reaction associated with your past. You can make a choice to listen to that or to persist.
Imagine what it can do for your relationship to have this insight about yourself and offer said insight to your partner as well so they can know you too. They can be part of your healing journey by creating a gentler environment and help you practise navigating difficult discussions. They can hold space and compassion for the times that you can’t.
A lot of this can be really challenging to do on your own however. You can get stuck. Perhaps the added layer of years of conflict in your relationship can make it much more difficult. Maybe you have questions. Perhaps there are tools that can be specifically helpful to you that you don’t know about. That is the point of working with a coach or mental health professional. It is one of the many areas that they can help navigate. Our purpose is to empower you with support, knowledge and tools to drive your own self-discovery and healing.
FAQ
What self-awareness really is and how to cultivate it.
Self-awareness involves introspection and understanding your response to the external world (internal). It can also include having awareness of how your actions and internal state impacts those around you (external).
Self-awareness is best cultivated by asking critical questions of yourself such as the questions highlighted in this blog post. Part of that includes noticing your physical state in different circumstances and being curious about it. Where most people go wrong is that they engage in thinking which confirms their existing personal bias about the world. Asking yourself why your partner is so lazy is not going to help you learn more about yourself, your partner or their reaction to you.
Why is self-awareness important?
Self-awareness can help you understand what your body is responding to more clearly. It can also help you understand some of your own cycles and that feeling of being stuck. With greater understanding of yourself, you can recognize your own internal experience better and make more conscious choices. This can also drastically improve your relationships with others which will in turn help you find more fulfillment in your own life.
Is self-awareness common?
According to some recent studies only about 15% of people actually have self-awareness. This is likely due to a lot of confirmation bias in our own thinking. Which is looking for information that confirm our pre-existing thoughts and beliefs as opposed to actually challenging our thinking. It can feel very validating to prove ourselves right as often as we can but this rarely leads to growth and is not often the type of validation we need either.