Self Awareness is the Key to Understanding Yourself

Get real. Get Started. Get Educated. That's the theme, and for good reason. 

Get Real with Self Awareness

The ultimate point A -- your starting point on your educational journey to the new you at point B -- begins with understanding yourself; when you set out to get real about yourself. You are point A! To get real, one must develop self awareness. Self awareness is the key to understanding yourself, and it’s also the key to happiness.

Through practicing self awareness, it’s possible to observe how the mind (ego) attempts to use perceptual filters and judgments to blind and capture your awareness and consciousness.  It’s also possible to observe how your personality affects your behaviors, decisions and preferences. Finally, it’s achievable to observe how your unique learning styles affect your comprehension.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of developing your self-awareness. If you want to run your life on the auto-pilot of your ego-based personality reactions, programmed perceptual filters and built-it learning styles, you are of course welcome to do so. The bulk of humanity operates like this most of the time on a day-to-day basis. That’s why so many people aren’t happy with themselves or somebody else because the ego is generally negative and self-judgmental.

Should you have a decent grasp of self awareness, you are ready to look into trait identification and how these traits influence your preferences and life direction:

Personality
Perceptual Filters
Learning Styles

The Truth about Most Thoughts

Most people believe that they create their thoughts because they have the idea that they are deliberately thinking them up as they go along. This is an unfortunate mistake. Often, it is simply the ego trying to overlay one’s consciousness of reality by providing a constant stream of thoughts, emotions and invective advice that arises from the sub-conscious mind.

Your unique collection of personality behaviors, filters and learning styles was created in your early developmental years as a means of protecting you from pain. In those days, your developing ego was your best buddy because it helped you figure out ways to avoid painful experiences. Hence, the ego is life-long collection of learned responses that are stored in long-term memory, and the relevant information is uploaded into your thought stream as particular situations arise that might cause you pain.

It’s (not) Johnny’s Fault – an Example of Ego Development

Here is how this could work. For example, if older brother Johnny habitually took away your ice cream when mom wasn’t looking, this removal of pleasurable sensations would cause you pain as a young child. 

Perhaps the strategy you created to save you from this pain was to tattle on your brother and have your mom rescue your ice cream and at the same time give Johnny the punishment he deserves. Justice.

Continuing the example, let’s say as an adult, you are missing your favorite party dress and it turns out your friend Julia borrowed it with your permission, but you forgot you did that. You see her in the dress; the “I’ve been stolen from” painful feeling arises. 

The ego strategy “tattling to mom” kicks in. Since mom isn’t around, you find your pal Charlotte and tell her how awful and sneaky Julia is. Maybe Charlotte will speak to Julia and help you get the dress back. Or perhaps Charlotte will concur with some nasty remark about Julia thrown in for good measure. Either way, the ego strategy is designed to create some sort of justice. Yet, this kind of behavior isn’t very self-aware is it?

The Self Aware Approach

A self aware individual would notice the programmed response developing as she sighted Julia at the party. She would sit with the feeling of pain arising, and would simply observe the ego-based snitch strategy arise as a flow of thought patterns in her mind.

As her observation continues, the feelings of pain fade away and the thoughts in her head quiet down as the ego realizes it’s not getting its way. This might allow the chance that she’ll remember she loaned the dress to Julia in the first place, and save herself from making an ass of herself with both of her friends.

You and I both know we’ve all done stuff like this; I know you know what I mean. 

The key to self-awareness is to not identify with your thoughts and emotions, but simply experience them. In that way, you don’t become your thoughts and emotions, and get trapped in some sort of programmed response.

This fundamental aspect of thought has been understood by spiritual masters for ages and forms the bedrock of mystical teachings of all forms of religion. It is so simple, yet, so elusive, because the ego can be pretty strong, and at first it will fight your efforts to seize control of how you choose to perceive reality. But have faith, because continuous practice of self-reflection shall free you more and more from programmed responses.

Resources for Developing Self-Awareness

This website, RLDE, is primarily dedicated to advising educational solutions for learning situations, and not to specific practices designed to enhance self awareness. 

There are many quality resources available for that, covering meditative practices, devotional practices, mindfulness practices, body exercises, and so on. 

All of these techniques are designed to focus attention and/or enhance self-observation and eventually liberate you from ego. Nearly all of these are based on mystical teachings provided by spiritual masters over the ages.  Here are some resources I specifically recommend:

The Power of Now A modern-day classic about self-realization through self awareness.

The Bhagavad Gita An ancient classic about self-realization through self awareness, right action and devotion.

Perceptive Reality and Reology A guide to understanding reality's mysteries.

Life Coach Magazine  This magazine is aimed towards people who want to make life changes, and who are in the process of transforming the way they think and take action in their lives.