Ep.1: Beyond the Mirror: Rethinking Self-Awareness in a New Light

Episode Transcript

Welcome to the Wisdom Practice Podcast

Welcome to the first episode of the Wisdom Practice Podcast. I can't wait to get all of this started with you guys.

This is the podcast where we really explore what it means to be self-aware, what it means to live wise, to live consciously, why those things are so important, and how they can profoundly change not only the way you view your life but your actual life. More importantly, it's a practical approach for how to get there.

I think there are a lot of people who aren't living the life they truly want, and if that resonates with you, it's not because of a lack of knowledge, it's not because of a lack of hard work, it's not because of a lack of intelligence. I think there's plenty of that in the world.

It's just not the way we were taught to see ourselves, to see the world. We were taught how the world works, and then we never really questioned that.

Asking the Questions We've Already Assumed the Answers To

I think self-awareness is, or at least part of self-awareness is, asking those questions that we've already assumed the answers to and making those decisions for ourselves.

I'm sure you've all heard of subconscious beliefs, beliefs that are below your level of awareness. But if you really explore what a belief is, it's just a feeling of certainty toward something: an outcome, a person, an event. It's in your head, you're saying, if I do this, I'm certain this will happen. If I jump, I'm certain I'm not going to float away, I'm going to come back to the ground. It's that kind of thing.

Your Beliefs Filter How You See the World

So your beliefs have a huge impact on the decisions you choose to make, because your beliefs filter the way you see the world. They filter what you think of as impossible, or good for you, or bad for you, or the right thing to do. Your organizing beliefs determine how you see the world, and how you see the world determines how you act.

Which is a scary thought, because if your beliefs dictate your actions, for example, you would never do something because it's just not what you believe to be right or wrong, good for you or bad for you, and if those beliefs affect your outcomes, your actions, and our beliefs aren't even conscious, are we really in control of our life?

If our beliefs dictate our actions and yet we're not even sure what our beliefs are, that to me is a scary thought, and yet that's how everyone lives their life, without questioning it.

If I asked you to write down all the beliefs you have right now, could you do it? I couldn't. I don't think anyone could. Yet those are the beliefs we run by, we operate by.

So to me, self-awareness is also understanding that, understanding how we operate in the world and how we operate within ourselves, our relationship to ourselves and the world. This is why it's the core of what I teach, and probably the biggest force for change, because fundamentally you can't change something you're not aware of.

How Does One Become Self-Aware?

So I guess the question is, how does one become self-aware? I reckon if you asked anyone, "Are you self-aware? Do you think you're self-aware?" they'd probably say yes, simply because it's not a nice thought to admit to yourself that actually you're not really sure why you're doing this, or why you react this way, or why your life is like this, or why you made that decision. So it's safer to think that we know what we're doing, to create that certainty that we have control over our life.

You might also know someone who claims to be self-aware, who knows exactly what they're doing and is really certain about that, and in the back of your head you're thinking, yeah, no, they have no idea how they come across, they have no idea how they're seen.

So what's the gap? A better way of saying it is: if you're not self-aware, how can you tell? Because I find most people's definition of self-awareness is just reflection. If I reflect on why I did something, then I'll understand it, I'll know myself better, there we go, I'm self-aware.

Everyone Reflects — Does It Actually Help?

But here's the thing: everyone reflects, almost addictively. I'm sure there are some thoughts of something that happened years ago, decades ago, an argument, or something that didn't go your way, and you're still thinking about it, or the thought still comes up at least. Does that make you self-aware?

Here's the gap, and it's actually a very powerful question to ask yourself: if you have an addictive thought, something that happened months, years, decades ago that you find yourself consistently reflecting on, does reflecting on that help? Does it serve you? Does it make you more self-aware? Does it help you understand why you made those decisions and actions, and why the other person did what they did?

The pitfall people fall into when reflecting is they reflect through the same belief, the same lens, that created the situation in the first place, or created the reaction in the first place. So something happened to you maybe four or five years ago, someone betrayed you, or anything like that, and you find yourself reflecting on it consistently, and the reason you keep coming up with is that person did that thing because they didn't like you, or they were not a good person. That's the justification. And all that does is pull you further down the rabbit hole of your own belief system, you're constantly reinforcing the justification you made when the situation happened, or the belief you had before or after it.

The Belief Becomes the Lens

Let's say you have this belief that you don't feel attractive, and you walk down the street and someone gives you a weird look, and for some reason it sticks. A few months later you're still thinking about it, and because you have that belief, the first justification you come to is, that person looked at me weird because they don't like the way I look. Even months later, when you ask yourself why did that happen, there's a good chance that belief is going to be the lens through which you look at that situation, even though the truth could be that person was looking at someone behind you, or something on the shop floor.

That's the gap most people find themselves in. Otherwise you could lock yourself in your room, reflect on everything in your life, journal everything you can remember, and emerge from that room completely enlightened, completely self-aware. But that doesn't happen, and it's not because people don't reflect, everyone reflects, whether they want to or not.

Is This the Truth, or Just My Mind Staying Consistent?

The mind is a way of keeping those thoughts, but when you reflect on something that's bothering you, ask yourself: is this the truth? Is this the truth of how the situation played out, or why it happened? It might be, there's no doubting that, but it might also be that your mind is skewing what you saw based on a belief, because the mind wants to be consistent with what it considers itself to be.

Going back to that example of walking down the street: before that person looked weirdly at you, you could have passed ten people who smiled at you, and the mind will still find a way to reinforce that belief. It may say, oh, they're just being nice, or they're not being serious. It's insane when you think about it.

When you have a belief system, the mind will change your entire reality to fit that belief, or fit that bundle of beliefs, because you don't see reality, you see your version of reality. The mind will bend your perception of reality simply so it can feel safe and consistent with who you think you are, who you define yourself to be, your identity.