3. The Practice of Self Awareness
The Practice of Self-Awareness
Practicing Self-Awareness (1:58)
What Does it Mean to be 'Self-Aware'?
To be ‘aware’ means to pay attention; therefore, to be ‘self-aware’ means to pay attention to ourselves including our thoughts, feelings, habits, physical sensations/feelings and our reactions.
By practicing greater awareness of how these things interact and impact how we behave, we create healthier and stronger relationships with those around us. Developing self-awareness requires ongoing dedication and self-reflection, continuous learning and accountability for ourselves.
As we work to grow awareness of ourselves, we in turn grow our awareness of the kinds of emotional challenges that other individuals may experience. Although we are not striving to be experts in others, this practice can be helpful in learning how to develop authentic and compassionate connections6.
Emotional Wellness:
Why does it matter if we spend time to intentionally notice how we are feeling?
When we take ourselves off autopilot, and step back, we are able to reflect on what we are truly feeling in response to a thought, behaviour or situation. Our goal is to learn how to self-regulate and control our reactions while feeling through an intense emotion and attempting to avoid falling into 'thinking traps'. You can read more about thinking traps here.
Managing our emotional well-being is about learning how to cope with any emotion we feel; it is not solely about feeling happy or grateful all the time. It’s important to note that there are no ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ emotions; there are less desirable emotions to feel, but it is expected that over the course of our lives we will experience a wide range of emotions, it’s part of being human.
When we speak of emotional well-being, we are referring to our ability to express emotions in a way that isn’t harmful or disrespectful to others and ourselves. When we avoid feeling an emotion by ignoring it or bottling it up, we aren’t allowing ourselves to feel through our experiences. Taking care of our emotional well-being includes beginning to pay attention to what influences our emotions (sometimes called stressors or triggers) and how these things affect the way we think, feel and act7.
Examples of Emotions:
Activity Two: Emotion and Thought Tracking
In your Managing Stress and Mental Health Instructor Workbook, consider and fill out the following chart8.
Question 1: What five emotional words (descriptors) do you find yourself using or saying most often to describe how you feel? These could be in relation to yourself or when describing others.
Question 2: Using this chart, think of three different experiences or situations (at least one positive and one less desirable) you’ve had that stand out from the last week. In each corresponding box, track the emotions that were the most present, the automatic thoughts you had and the intensity of the emotions in the moment.
Situation/Experience | Feeling/Emotion | Automatic Thought | Intensity of Emotion |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
| | | |
By learning to break down situations, we can start to identify potential stressors and learn to cope with difficult situations.