Few people know themselves deeply. My recent research, writing, and conversations about self-awareness have pushed me to develop more language around the way we experience our relationship with the Self and why many people who view themselves as self-aware don’t actually display the traits of self-awareness. I suspect we often confuse self-familiarity with self-intimacy (another mistake we easily make/mirror in our external relationships).
Before tackling that distinction, however, let’s take a look at some of the traits of self-awareness.
Like anything else, the nuances of how self-awareness displays itself varies from person to person, and it’s not like there’s an authoritative, exhaustive list of exactly how this rare and invaluable quality will show up in every person and every situation. There are some common denominators, though.
Self-aware people tend to exhibit:
Emotional Intelligence. You recognize, accurately interpret, and make appropriate space for your own emotions and the emotions of others.
Reflectiveness. This isn’t just about introspection: being able to look inward with a critical eye. It’s about being able to be both compassionate and curious as you examine your life for the purpose of growth.
Receptivity to feedback. Building on the previous two qualities, you actively seek and graciously receive feedback from others that will help you continue to hone how you show up in the world.
Integrity. You fully accept yourself as a multi-faceted human being with strengths and weaknesses. You are committed to healthy self-expression and have a high degree of honesty, personal accountability, and authenticity in your life and relationships.
Appropriate balance of humility and self-esteem. Because you are honest about who you are, you're less stuck in ego and more able to have realistic expectations and boundaries (for yourself and others). You do not have an over-inflated view of yourself, but you also don’t shrink. You seek health.
Commitment to growth and learning. You know that you don’t know everything, and you’re curious and pro-active in expanding yourself and your ability to see things from other perspectives. You are open-minded and interested in the experiences of others. You’re a good listener.
Empathy. You skillfully interact with the experiences and emotions of others without needing to deflect, defend, or fix. You are fluent in kindness and compassion but not in a codependent way.
Healthy boundaries and communication You’re tuned into your intuition, your needs, and your desires, so you’re appropriately assertive without being harsh. You can artfully and articulately translate your inner world into your outer world and invite others to do the same.
Expansiveness. You’re multi-faceted. Your curiosity has helped you developed a wide array of interests and experiences. You’ve also become highly resilient and able to learn from your mistakes.
Courage. You know how to take risks and face your fears, failings, and the hard things that arise in life from time to time. You’re not reckless or foolish, but you find that you’re able to show up bravely and vulnerably when the chips are down.
So now that we’ve dug a little deeper into what self-awareness looks like in real life, let’s explore how self-familiarity can masquerade as self-awareness…or what I call self-intimacy.
It might be easiest to look at from an external framework:
Have you ever been in a situation where a casual friend, coworker, or acquaintance makes an assumption about you that’s not true? They are not trying to be a jerk, but they’ve been around you for some amount of time and you feel familiar to them, so they think that they know you better than they actually do. They mistake familiarity for actual knowing, proximity for closeness.
We do this with ourselves. Because you live with yourself 24/7, it’s easy to assume that you know yourself very well. It’s easy to assume that you’re in touch with your range of emotions, needs, desires, hopes, dreams, fears, likes, dislikes, traumas, joys, and so on. It’s easy to assume that you know what makes you tick.
Often, though, without conscious investment in yourself and taking intentional time to discover what motivations, patterns, and formative influence are at play underneath the exterior circumstances of your life, you can end up blissfully ignorant of who you really are. You can be familiar with your life’s trappings but not really know the real you.
How to cultivate self-awareness? That’s a subject for another post.
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