Self Awareness Onion - Inspired by the book **the subtle art of not giving a Fuck**
For almost 3 years and counting (to my knowledge), we have been advised to go back to the drawing board, to find out more facts, truths and deeper meanings to our existence. Some of us go through this process alone while others do so with people to guide them either as mentors or psychologist and therapist. We take to different methods to achieve this goal, while some take time off entirely from work and other social gatherings, others might choose to go to a whole new location to be alone and think while some people might choose to become presently aware of all their activities and and choose to ask the question "why" at all times.
How many of us understand the word " Self Awareness"? True, it is a self discovery process. The time to begin to realize that you are you because of all the things you can and cannot do. The time to discover what truly matters to you and what does not. The time to understand you as a person. This is what we are told. This is what we should be doing.
However, as to everything else, there are stages In the pursuit of understanding who you are and what you stand for. These stages or levels as you may choose to call it helps us to get the most on this self discovery process.
I like to agree with what the author of "the subtle art of not giving a fuck" pointed out in his book about self help gurus ignoring the important value based question such as " why do you feel the need to do and be anything in the first place? How are you choosing to measure success or failure for yourself? "
**Self Awareness Onion Revealed**
The first stage of this self discovery process or Self Awareness process is to understanding your emotions. Things like, the feelings of sadness, happiness, love, realising that you are feeling any of this emotions is the first layer of the onion peeled. Unfortunately for some of us, we do not move from this layer, we tend to just understand these emotions and fight it if it is an emotion we don't want at the time. I know this feeling very well because I am in it too. The best of us would have a discussion about it with people who matter to us and the rest of us would just not talk about it. Why? Because somehow, it makes us feel vulnerable and we do not want to feel this way.
The second stage of self awareness is the ability to ask WHY we feel certain emotions. What do these emotions mean to us? "Why do you feel angry? Is it because you failed to achieve some goal? Why do you feel lethargic and uninspired? Is it because you don’t think you’re good enough?"
This WHY questions helps us to understand the root cause of the emotions we feel that sometimes overwhelm us. I tell you that achieving this level of self awareness is pretty difficult and needs a lot of practice and patience to answer these why questions consistently and accurately. Hold on, when I say patience, I am not talking about a few weeks, It can take you months and sometimes even years. The most important thing is to be true to yourself no matter what. I remember after graduating from the University, I so badly wanted to further my education, because that is what I should be doing next right? Well for me it wasn't entirely the reason, I wanted to further so I can read really hard and become the best graduating student because I missed it while in higher education.
Growing up, there were some emotions we felt at the time that felt inappropriate, at least our mothers did great at making us feel this way. You need to free yourself of these emotions and let yourself understand exactly how you feel about them. This is the second layer of the onion peeled..
I like to quote the author for this third stage -
The third level is our personal values: Why do I consider this to be success/failure? How am I choosing to measure myself? By what standard am I judging myself and everyone around me?
Our personal values is the sum total of who we are and what we stand for. If we choose these values wrongly then everything we are goes wrong. For everything that we feel about any given situation goes back to how valuable we perceive it to be.
By the time you get to this level, you must have learnt the subtle art of not giving a fuck... 😂 The feeling of all your findings about yourself will make you powerful. Why you may ask, Isn't it obvious, " Know and understand yourself well enough and you have control over the other things to life " at this level you will find out that what you thought mattered to you, did not really matter. It was simple a feeling to compete with another because you felt it will make you more powerful. At this level you will truly understand that life is not a competition but choosing to do/be You and finding out how to relate with you. Making your own difference in the world with the choices you make based on how valuable you perceive it to be and what metric you choose to measure it. In all your findings, you will experience peace within you only when you are true to your emotions.
