Self-Awareness requires Courage

Jun 22, 2023

True emotional awareness takes courage. I mean, real courage. There is a huge movement out there aimed at becoming conscious, and I was a part of it for many years. Unfortunately, I never really got anywhere with it. I am going to go out on major limb here by confessing that I was frustrated by platitudes and positive affirmations. They just didn’t help me get to where I wanted to go. They didn’t move me forward, and they didn’t encourage me to step up. For years, I remained ineffective, unproductive, and unchallenged. The truly sad part was that, while I felt frustration, I also had no idea how to fix this.

While this frustration was going on, there was also a huge part of me that didn’t want to feel uncomfortable. I’ve said before that I wanted to be conscious, not that I wanted to be aware. I have encountered this idea a whole lot, especially in the spiritual end of the personal development pool. I had this idea that if it was hard, it wasn’t meant to be. That gave me permission to avoid anything hard.

That gave me permission to remain stuck in my own mud, metaphorically flailing around as if this flailing was progress and yet being frustrated because I also deep down recognized the stuckness.

The Story

Through a friend, I got my hands on some genuinely good quality professional development tools. In the following years, I’ve learned that the professional development sphere more often focuses on results, while the personal development sphere focuses on feelings. While I may be a water sign, my Mars in earthy Capricorn rules my chart – and results-driven approaches, it turns out, really spoke to me. As I’ve heard from my architect sibling and my many engineering friends, the bridge doesn’t care how you feel about it – it either stands, or it falls. That’s now my yardstick for anything I start to work with – will this approach yield results (in which case, the bridge will stand) or am I just wasting time to make me feel good (in which case, the bridge will fall)?

That first professional development tool was a values assessment. It came with a stack of cards with different values printed on them (safety, adventure, companionship, etc). The assignment was to rank them all from 1 (most important) to 3 (not important). Once finished with that first pass, I had to go through all the ones that I had ranked as most important and then again sort them 1 through 3. I was to keep doing this until I had no more than 5 which were ranked as most important.

What had me a bit shocked was how difficult this exercise proved to be. What about this was difficult? Because actually ranking my values required that I be aware of my true value system. See, the first time I did the exercise my values pile was full of “shoulds” (future episode – should on your self) – the things I WANTED to be valuable to me, but deep down really weren’t. Interestingly, the very exercise began a slow cascade of awareness which started with a sense of “wrong” when I looked at the values on the cards in the Most Important pile – IF they were not genuine.

In an unintentional flash of insight, I switched from asking the question “why isn’t this right?” to “what is wrong about this?” That simple switch of questions opened a door and what tumbled out had me shocked, upset, angry, and feeling more than a little betrayed by myself. Here I had spent over 20 years actively striving for “consciousness” but getting nowhere, and yet one tiny shift in questions allowed me to understand more about myself in mere minutes. WTH? This simple question lead me into a personal Dark Night which systematically unraveled everything I thought I knew about myself – the Emotional Blender period that I spoke about earlier.

Now I’ve been a long time listener of Robert Ohotto, and he’s the first person I heard use the phrase “Dark Night of the Ego” – a term I’ve since adopted. It was during this phase that I think my soul was relieved that I-the-ego-self was finally getting somewhere. The soul was completely undisturbed by the 5+ year process of unmaking; the ego however was a basket case. What I ended up being truly surprised by was how absolutely much courage and mental fortitude it took to actually face myself, to truly see myself with as much honesty as I was and am capable of. In truth, it was brutal, I’ll not sugar coat it! But the end result? Wow. The end result is a level of emotional maturity that is very desperately needed right now.

The Point

I want to congratulate and encourage everyone who wants to step up, who wants to take ownership of themselves and their lives to whatever degree you are capable of or want to take. A core piece of that stepping up is actually understanding what you have to work with, how to work with it, and then where to take it. All of this is built on emotional awareness – both of yourself and ultimately of those around you. See, when I learned how to see myself more clearly that is when I realized that I hadn’t been seeing anyone else clearly either. I was unknowingly trapped in the Hall of Mirrors, seeing warped reflections of myself until the moment I realized …. wait, that’s me!

It takes a high level of courage to own some of the darkest and lightest parts of ourselves. Genuine courage! It’s terrifying to realize that everything I hated and loved about that other thing, were actually disowned aspects of myself. It’s intimidating to realize our power, because power should come with responsibility to act (I am so deliberately refraining from saying that Spiderman line…) and that means I can no longer ignore things. I’m not sure if having developed an Observer Self was critical for this process, but I will say that for me it seriously helped keep me grounded and put a limit on the guilt, shame, and self-judgment that was starting to kick in with every new realization. My own Observer Self provided at least some ability to see myself objectively. A person intent on judging themselves will never have the courage to own their darkness, or their light.

Whether you want to take your journey into true self-knowledge or not, that’s entirely up to you. I applaud and encourage you regardless. Every step up is a major move, especially if the upward trajectory is new. Everything new takes courage because it opens doors, and what lies beyond is unknown. Humans are terrified of the unknown – we’d usually rather live in misery than face that. Please, believe in yourself. Know that you would not be inspired in any way to step up, to move forward if you truly didn’t have it in you. This was a prodding from my soul to step into potentials that I had all along, if only I chose them. It’s worth choosing them! I did not want to get to the end of my life and realize I lived small. There will be learning, there will be falling down, there will be bruises, but that’s ok. You have the courage to get back up and keep moving. I know you do.

Onward.

TL:DR

Spiritual bypassing is a term used to describe emotional avoidance of difficult subjects – but it’s in these challenging places where true growth happens. Developing genuine self-awareness requires a great deal of courage, and the reward is completely worth the investment.

About the Image

Courage isn’t about being fearless – it’s about doing what needs to be done despite the fear. In this image, I was water rafting the Colorado River in Arizona during monsoon season. We were about to hit a spot of serious churn. One part of me noticed the majority of the folks bracing themselves for the giant dip, while another part of me noted the camera. Rather than brace as everyone else did, I leaned into the moment and completely hammed it up for the camera – yes, that’s me there. Fortunately, the shot was perfect … because in the next instant, I almost went overboard. Fun times!

Audio

Subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, and more. Like what you hear? Share it and leave a review. It means a lot and I believe that the message of owning ourselves and our potential is what this world needs right now. When we are individually standing in our power, we have the make the real choices which lead to a better world for all. Every review and like helps others to find the message, one more voice asking others to bring forth your light!

This audio file was masterfully edited by Scotty Sanders. I enjoy working with him and recommend him to any other podcaster who maybe doesn’t enjoy the editing the part of the process as much as other parts.

Video

Video is also available through the YouTube Channel. The background features a section of Spanish Lavender in my yard. Lavender is renowned for it’s calming properties. Whenever I have to face things I know will require courage, I stack the deck in my own favor so I have the emotional fortitude to do what needs doing. This lavender has helped me a lot. I figured it would make a good background for this topic.