The conflict of self-awareness.

Musings on Self-awareness and how to develop a better understanding of ourselves.

Oct 04, 2021

Hello dear friends,

October is here and I can already feel the festive vibes. Lol, who would have thought last year that this year too we would be crammed up in our homes? But, that’s life, I guess. No, I am not going to rant about the pandemic, I have had enough of that already. Today, I have something interesting for you, something more thought-provoking…

So, last week I was reading my morning newspaper and I came across a very interesting article on self-awareness and the possibility of it being a mirage. At the very start, it said,

We don’t know why we do what we do, or feel what we feel. We confabulate when theorizing as to why we’re depressed, we confabulate when justifying our moral convictions and we confabulate when explaining why a piece of music moves us.

And I became instantly defensive. “What? What is this nonsense? I know what I feel and why I feel so” Tell me how would you react, don’t you think we are self-aware? Well to answer this let’s first answer what actually is self-awareness?

Self-awareness the term itself is pretty self-explanatory, it refers to ‘honest, non-judgemental self-analysis’. To be aware of our emotions and thoughts without duplicitous justifications, to be aware of who we are as an individual. It is how we esteem ourselves when the world is not looking. And according to Psychology Today, and popular understanding, self-examination, self-reflection are the most crucial step towards self-awareness.

But is self-reflection so easy to embrace?

We have a strong self-bias, a strong urge to prove our innocence, our gaiety, our humility, our greatness; we do self criticize but that is never our first instinct. We take up constructive criticism from our peers with a pinch of salt and almost always our first instinct is to defend our stance, isn’t it? As social creatures, storytelling is our greatest feat, and so unsurprisingly we often weave stories in our heads to make sense of our actions and feelings without feeling too bad about them.

Moreover, in a post-Freudian world, we are aware of the concept of ‘unconscious’, - a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that are outside of conscious awareness.

The things that represent our conscious awareness are simply "the tip of the iceberg." The rest of the information that is outside of conscious awareness lies below the surface. While this information might not be accessible consciously, it still exerts an influence over current behavior.

So it is scientifically well researched and documented that we actually are completely unmindful of our hidden impulses, motives, trauma, basically, we don’t know what drives us, what informs our decisions. And so when we make assumptions about our will and self-awareness we are further fooling ourselves.

And this is what various psychologists and researchers in that article try to get at.

Both recognizing that we don’t have privileged access to our minds, so tone down your self-confidence, and we also don’t know other people as well as we think we do.
Nicholas Epley, Author of Mindwise

So what can we do to get over our flawed sense of self-awareness?

David Brook suggests, the exact opposite of self-reflection- “extrospection”, observing our traits and how we behave. Remember we create stories about ourselves? we just need to be more accurate in our narratives, we have to embrace honesty in our understanding of ourselves. In doing so, we will set into motion a complex network of positive mechanisms that will finally help us to be more informed and make better choices and decisions.

Thinking about these external environments is a practice of extrospection and challenges you to examine the actions that you take and how they influence the world and people around you. A good way to audit your external environments and the feedback loop on your introspective qualities is to question whether externally, you’re supported and in situations that complement your mind-set and emotional state; and vice versa.
Bryan Kramer

I am so grateful to my followers, you people never fail to surprise me. Last week I shared the aforementioned article on my Instagram, and some of you beautiful folks had some great insights, and how could I not share them here?

So here you go,

“ I think we act in daily life out of wanting certain things or feeling certain feelings. It might not be the right perspective to see a situation from, but we did feel what we felt. Self-awareness helps to go down to the person who you are and Realise what you really want There, at the core.

If we didn't have something inside of us that wanted certain things on the basis of who we are then we'd all be the same, then we'd all just be beings with a certain set of neurons and thoughts firing as soon as we are in a particular situation. Somehow, I believe we aren't limited to that because even 2 people in the exact same situation all their lives have some differences. Maybe these differences are our souls? Who we truly are?

Awareness helps us become the people we want to be. If it wasn't real then how would we even change at all?” - @totallynithya

@yours_harshly shared this photo, which tbh gives the question of self-awareness a whole new perspective.

“…isn’t the ideal self-awareness supposed to be the third person/ outsider/ rational eye for things? That’s how we actually keep ourselves accountable and have an honest understanding of self.” - @madamsajo

@twishamaniar shared these 3 videos with very provoking titles:

1. The Dark Side of Self Improvement

2. Alternative Self-help is Brainwashing You.

3. Why Self Improvement is Ruining Your Life.