Let’s Talk About Self-Awareness and Control
Have you ever considered how often you try to control something (or someone) that is out of your control? Are you able to discern what you can control and what you cannot? What happens to you when you try to over-reach your control? What do you think? What do you feel? What do you do?
Let’s take a benign example. Picture this: You are driving to work (people still do that, right?) and you are running a little bit behind. You look ahead of you or on your Google map and see stopped traffic. You just drove past an exit. You are now stuck. What are you thinking? What are you feeling? What are you doing?
Any of this sound familiar?
· Why oh why did this have to happen today?
· Seriously!! You have got to be kidding me!
· N-N-N-O-O-O-O!!!
· If my (fill in the blank) hadn’t (fill in the blank) I would have left on time and avoided this.
· I can’t believe it- this ALWAYS happens to me!
What emotions or feelings come up from these thoughts? Blame. Shame. Anger. Victim. Are any of those reactions or emotions pleasurable? Of course not. Then, to top it off, once you finally arrive you re-tell anyone who will listen about how horrible your day has been. That means you get sucked right back into the re-living of those negative emotions and nasty reactions.
Self-awareness means turning towards your habitual response and recognizing you have no control over the traffic. Instead, self-awareness allows you to choose acceptance of what is. Maybe you say, “Shoot, this is unexpected. I’ll take this time to practice my meditative breathing that I always mean to do but don’t.” Or “I’ll call my sister! I never get to talk to her for more than a few minutes.” Before you know it, traffic is moving again, and you are in a great state of mind because you didn’t get hijacked by control.
Self-awareness helps you to see the opportunity instead of the obstacle.
Join me on Tuesday, May 17th at 7:30pm as we dig into self-awareness and what it could mean for you to increase your ability to be self-aware. The class is free and on Zoom- but you do need to register in advance at: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0sdequqzMuHdYZfBeE2HseAHoqgzYH31R_
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