Self Awareness

Are you self aware?

This past week I was introducing the I Am curriculum to a new group of students.  It's only the third time I have officially taught the curriculum as a class offering and of course the lessons are constantly evolving.  Ironically it is the students who teach me how to teach my own ideas.  I come up with an idea and place it into a classroom lesson format I produced for simplicity sake and then I use my own version of mindfulness and applied thinking (that of which I teach to students) and use my imagination as I conduct/create/expand upon the lesson in my mind.  It rarely ever goes as I imagine.  I look forward to getting in front of the students and failing as I have come to rely on that being the only way to really learn how to facilitate a useful lesson!

Anyway, this past week we were discussing the three areas we would focus on to measure our individual growth for the class.  Self Awareness, Self Acceptance (or acceptance of what is), and Compassion for Self.  I provided a short definition for each targeted area and then as a class we were going to define what a person would look like in each area depending on how they were rated.  So there was a 1 to 10 continuum drawn for each area with a 'one' needing growth in the area and a '10' essentially mastering the area.  We began with the area of Self Awareness. The responses the students were suggesting made it sound as if a '10' was a perfect person and a '1' was a not so perfect person.  I was writing down on the board the phrases they were sharing as a way to define a '1' or a '10' (or anywhere in between) as if I were in a trance.  All of a sudden I realized that this was not what I wanted them to understand about self awareness.  The idea of self awareness I wanted them to consider had nothing to do with perfection, it just has to do with awareness - independent of the decision one makes.

As one practices mindfulness one typically begins by drawing awareness (or attention) to the breath.  Imagine yourself breathing in through every pore of your skin.  As you are breathing in through the pores in your skin, imagine all the oxygen coming into your belly, or your center.  Imagine that this core area is your life force.  When you practice this, you begin to notice your mind and body as functions to experience life with rather than as the sole essence of your life experience.

As we practice mindfulness we begin to notice (become aware of or draw our attention to) our thoughts, feelings, sensations, and impulses.  As we practice this awareness we may begin to feel more in control of our experience.  We also may learn that thoughts, feelings, sensations, and impulses can be fleeting - they come and they go.  As we learn to notice simple things like the impulse to make a comment to impress someone else, and we practice sitting with the impulse (noticing any feelings, sensations, or thoughts that may also be present) and releasing the impulse...subsequent feelings...thoughts...body sensations (sitting with the temporary discomfort and noticing it pass), that practice can create a new habit and allow us more space inside ourselves to invest in more purposeful and meaningful ways of interacting with others.

Perhaps if we learn to be aware of our inner life then our outer life will take care of itself.  In reference to the class lesson, we spent our next session together talking about self awareness of self awareness.  A '10' may just be the willingness to practice noticing our inner experience...and to accept what we notice in the present moment as it is...with compassion - no judgement, no ridicule, and no comparison.

"Our deepest nature is awareness, and when we fully inhabit that, we love freely and are whole."

"Feeling compassion for ourselves in no way releases us from responsibility for our actions.  Rather, it releases us from the self hatred that prevents us from responding to our life with clarity and balance."

 Tara Brach (Radical Acceptance)