MY NEW YEAR WISH

New Year is a big deal! In the run-up to saying farewell to the old and welcoming the new, we are bombarded with enticing advertisements. Everyone you meet wants to know your plans for 31st December. People make elaborate plans, party, travel or just sit by a born-fire. New promises are made and an attempt to make a “fresh start” is proposed. To turn a new leaf in 24 hours is frankly bizarre and amusing to me. So I just don’t understand the frenzy I observe around New Year’s Eve.

I mean, it’s another year of your life gone by, that’s it! And honestly, the excitement of a new year will soon fade. The calendar will be flipped from January to February to March and so on. Seasons will change, headlines will be made, and pollution levels and politics will be discussed. Upcoming films and T.V. shows will be talked about. New stuff will happen, not just in the world but for you too.

Therefore, for many years, my husband and I have stayed at home on New Year’s Eve to wake-up into the New Year well rested, sober and most importantly, alive!

We followed the same routine this year too and brought in the New Year, rejuvenated and renewed. Ready to work on ourselves to see the change we wish to bring around us. I extend this wish to all my readers and reinforce the essence of my blog that I began six months ago. And that is to love yourself but also analyze and be critical of how you think, act and behave. Because self love without self awareness is useless.

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." Carl G. Jung

So what contributes to self-awareness?

It involves questioning everything that you do. That does not mean questioning in terms of things beige, but rather asking yourself why you respond, think or act the way you do. In order to do this there needs to be an understanding that everything that you do, think and feel is just one of many options. You know this because different people often respond differently to the same situation. Therefore your emotional responses, behaviors and thoughts are all clues about yourself.

Self-awareness involves reflecting on why you felt, thought and responded in the way you did. This isn't the type of question that you necessarily get an answer to though. Asking why and doing the work requires you to try and find the answer and sometimes the answer is not enough. But the process itself is what is required to raise your self-awareness.

Asking WHY operates as a linear process alongside your usual day to day life. Adding in this “why layer” involves reflection. Reflection requires pausing and creating some space and stillness- in a literal way-but if it's not possible then some internal stillness and psychological space will do too.

Self-awareness also involves trying to see yourself from the outside. See how you interact with people. See how other people may experience you. This does not mean trying to work out what people think of you. It means, could they have experienced you as cold or irritated or dis-interested?

The process is different to identifying what you were feeling or what your intentions were during the conversation. Sometimes what we intend to communicate and how we actually come across don't match up!

Overall self-awareness requires you to try to see yourself from the inside whilst knowing yourself on the inside. It is an on-going process. No matter how many times you think you have done all the work, there will always be something new you discover about yourself. We can never “crack it” when it comes to self-awareness because we change, we are complex and no-one can ever truly see themselves just as they are.

But the journey is more important than the destination!

So here’s to you and your spirit of curiosity that may make you a more self-aware being in 2019.