Note #012

March 17, 2020

A Little Self-Awareness

Madness/anger, more a crisis of thinking and perspective than anything else, is brought on by an inability to soothe the amygdala and come into the rational mind. Maybe the chaos is a type of brain-stem storm? When we lack the ability to regulate our emotions, we can easily create things that aren’t there, that aren’t real, but that become our hardened perception of reality.

The first step to managing the self, is being aware of the self. To be self-aware, you have to quiet down a little bit, to shush yourself and let your mind relax. (Take a deep belly breath or two.) Self-awareness can come from the feeling experience, yet for Westerners, it usually comes through the thinking mind. 

Can they both happen together? Yes, and it’s probably more beneficial for us if this togetherness is how our self-awareness dawns on us. The richer the experience will be when we can feel deeply into our heart and think clearly with our mind. The key to this? A relaxed, non-judgmental attitude and emotion set (like a mind set). A great phrase to offer yourself is, “It’s like this now.” 

Say that over and over to yourself until you see the profound and liberating truth of it. Then, make a firm decision on how you want to behave and what you want to say. That decision is the first step of your self-management.