Become self-aware!

. . . communication starts with the self

From the beginning of human time, we have needed the benefits, safety, and comfort of social living. Early humans had clearly defined roles. Men did not question their need to hunt. Women did not ask if it was personally fulfilling to wash clothes. Children did not wonder if they had to help with chores. People’s very survival depended on being able to work together in order to hunt for and gather food, raise families, and find protection from the elements and predators.

Today, however, we have a great deal of choice about how to live as social beings. The groups to which we belong are often very complex, and the roles we play within them can be unclear. The shear number of choices can sometimes feel overwhelming—like doing a keyword search on the internet and receiving more than a million responses. What a strange and wonderful position to be in, but if we don’t know specifically what we’re looking for, too many choices can be confusing.

People around us live socially complex lives, too. That means all people involved in an interaction (including you) are motivated by an extended and complex network of thoughts and feelings about who they are, what they want, and where they fit in. And, to complicate matters further, they will not consciously be aware of all their motivations.

In such a social setting self-awareness becomes critical. If we are unaware of our own motivations and goals, how can we fulfill them? If we do not understand another person’s feelings, thoughts, and motivations, how can we truly understand and communicate with them? The simple answer is that we can’t.

Self-awareness dramatically increases our odds of satisfying communications with others because it not only gives us a map of our desires, intentions, goals and dreams, but it helps us understand the need of others to lead their own fulfilling lives.

The truth is that without self-awareness—without that map—we will have great difficulty finding our way. We will be at the mercy of others who, even if they truly want to help, will not be able to offer direction because they do not know our destination. This is information only we can provide.

With information in hand about ourselves, we can make more confident choices about where our lives can go and how to communicate that. We may not always know how to reach our destination, and we may from time to time become lost, but at the very least, we’ll understand when we’re off track and be able to search for a new route.

Knowing where we’re at and where we want to go also increases our understanding—our compassion—for others. It’s somewhat ironic that in order to pursue intimately personal dreams, we will find ourselves relying on others again and again. But we are, after all, social beings, and others will be part of the landscape of our dreams—just as we will part of theirs. With this understanding in mind, we can extend our compassion to others as they take their own journeys through life.

If self-awareness comes with such clear benefits, why aren’t more people actively interested in increasing their self-awareness? Because we are so busy with our day-to-day lives that we forget to check in with ourselves. We don’t think we are unaware of ourselves. We think we are fine communicators and that our communication skills have always been “good enough.” Like any attempt to change behavior, becoming self-aware requires some effort and the world already places many demands on our time and energy.

Shawna and I believe, however, that the rewards far outweigh the effort. Learning to be more self-aware requires simply this: curiosity, commitment, and consistency.

We all experience a degree of curiosity about ourselves and the world around us. Selective self-awareness comes from a limited degree of curiosity. We are selectively self-aware when we question our thoughts and feelings only enough to maintain where we are at.

Enhanced self-awareness comes from a greater degree of curiosity. It occurs when we ask many questions about our senses, thoughts, feelings, and intentions, and we are not overly afraid of tough questions or difficult answers. The benefits of enhanced self-awareness are increased communication skills and personal growth.

The list of questions that follows can help enhance self-awareness and may be used when alone or speaking with someone else. The questions are simple and few enough to remember without having to awkwardly refer to a written list while having a conversation. Asking the questions regularly will create a habit that, over time, builds a more complete picture of yourself and your desires. This, in turn, will enhance your ability to communicate your thoughts and feelings to others.

Questions for becoming more self-aware

• What am I thinking?
• What am I feeling?
• What am I sensing (seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching)?
• How honest am I being?
• What is my intention?
• What action am I going to take? Will I speak, listen, touch, move?

Even if we cannot always come up with clear answers, asking these questions regularly will increase our awareness of possible answers and options. Over time and through many different situations, the questions will remain the same, but the answers will change as we become more self-aware.

When Shawna was twenty-five and going to her mother’s every Sunday for dinner without question, she sometimes felt resentful. There were times when she wanted to stay home or go somewhere else. Sometimes this resentment led to a less than desirable visit, and she went home feeling upset.

As she asked more questions about her real feelings and intentions, she found a non-threatening way to share them with her mother and they agreed that they did not have to have dinner every Sunday.

The relationship never suffered because Shawna’s actions changed. The process, for her, meant slowing down enough to know what she needed in the situation, understanding how her mother felt, and sharing her feelings responsibly and compassionately.

What am I thinking?

Why ask questions about what I’m thinking? Isn’t what I think obvious to me? Not necessarily. The human mind has many crafty ways of protecting itself from threats, both real and perceived. It is our goal to see past the protective barriers to truth. We may for instance, think Mary, a highly productive co-worker, is a brown-noser when in fact, she may simply be striving to do the best job possible in a career that she loves.

Mary’s productivity, however, may seem to make us look bad in front of the boss, which may threaten our sense of security about our job. Instead of acknowledging our fear, we shift responsibility for our discomfort from ourselves to Mary by belittling her ambitions.

Often our thoughts happen because of assumption rather than fact. Mary’s situation shows the need to continually ask why we think the thoughts we do. We cannot otherwise make decisions that expand our awareness of ourselves and others. Decisions based on fear or faulty information lead only to more misinformation, confusion, and conflict.

What am I feeling?

Questioning why we feel as we do is equally important, but simply defining what we feel in a given moment may be very difficult. Men and women often have had different issues to confront in this regard. As a boy, I was not encouraged to acknowledge certain feelings, so I had to learn to do so as a man.

I was taught that it was okay for men to feel competitive, excited, confident, creative, even loving, but feelings of grief, confusion, sorrow, and fear were to be hidden. Becoming self-aware includes accepting and owning a full spectrum of emotions. When I first started asking myself about my feelings, I often found them difficult to define. Learning to recognize my whole range of emotions took practice and patience.

Women have traditionally received more acceptance about feelings, but their feelings have not been acknowledged as important or looked at as a strength. When Shawna, for example, would tell me that she wasn’t feeling connected or close and had an issue with the amount of intimate time we spent together, I would say she was exaggerating and making too much of a little thing.

It took very clear discussions over a long period for me to realize that Shawna’s feelings were significant and real. The old myth about women being overly emotional still persists, and although women’s rights have increased over the last century, western society still clearly favors the “less emotional” male in positions of authority.

To have one’s feelings continually disregarded or trivialized is as damaging a situation as pretending to have very few emotions. Many women must still fight to be heard in this regard.

Whether we’re male or female, emotions are part of who we are as human beings. Shawna and I believe that our feelings are our sixth sense and attach us to our spirit. To deny or ignore feelings means to ignore one of our senses and to give up a rich and rewarding part of ourselves.

Communication can and does occur on many levels. Sometimes we call it nonverbal communication, or intuition. Whatever name we give it, if we are aware of our and others’ feelings, we increase our odds of successful social living.

Efforts to question and understand more about our feelings will lead to greater self-awareness, increased ability to communicate our needs, and stronger connection with others. The more we question our feelings, the easier it becomes to define them. Sometimes we can do it on our own; sometimes we need the help of others.

I found the process of learning to define emotions easier, for example, with the help of Shawna, whom I consider a communications mentor. It was very difficult at first to answer the question, “What are you feeling?” I resisted it often, usually because I didn’t really want to hear the answer. But just as often I did want to hear it, and, with the encouragement of my mentor, the answers have enriched my personal and business life tenfold.

What am I sensing?

Each day our world bombards us with millions of bits of sensory information that we sort through, much of it unconsciously. We don’t yet have the ability to be consciously aware of everything our mind and body senses, but we can choose to take moments to focus on as much of the sensory world as possible.

Everyone knows how good it feels on a hot day to relax in the breezy shade of a big tree. But are there other everyday situations in which being more aware of our surroundings would be useful?

There are times when we could benefit from asking, What am I really sensing with my five senses? What did ice cream really taste like? What am I really hearing and seeing? Have I allowed my eyes to really look at everything in their range? Is something I've just seen or heard affecting my thoughts or feelings? Did I allow my ears to hear the full range of sounds available to them in this moment? What does the ground I'm walking on right now really feel like under my feet? What’s behind me?

Being aware of what is around us, and I mean around us—above, below, behind, in front, within, without—is not something we do very often. Achieving a deep state of awareness for an extended period requires solitude and can even lead to moments of bliss, but when we want to communicate, being aware of the sensory information available to us, even for short periods, has different benefits.

It can, for instance, help keep us out of past and future issues that may cloud our thoughts and feelings during an intense situation. If Shawna and I have an issue about who’s doing more in the relationship, and she begins to get angry, I can choose to say, “I see your mouth tightening and your fist clenching. I hear your voice quicken and rise. I think you’re angry, and I’m feeling scared. I want to discuss this calmly.”

Focusing on what’s happening now keeps me from resorting to accusations like, “You don’t do your share,” or “You’ll never change.” These are statements that add fuel to the fire rather than douse it.

Another option would be to get angry, blame Shawna for being lazy, bring up old issues, and not resolve anything. Although if asked, most people would say this is not a desirable option, they often end up in precisely this situation because they haven’t been taught to pay attention to, and process all the signals they receive during a conflict.

Asking questions about what we’re sensing helps us remain objective during conflict because it helps us stay focused on the issue immediately at hand.

How honest am I being?

The level of honesty in our communication affects the level of connection we have with others. When we withhold some of the truth from others, we can ask ourselves, What level of connection do I want to have with this person? Our answer will determine the level of honesty we are willing to accept. It is our choice, and it does affect our level of connection.

Being honest with others about what we really feel or think often feels very unsafe. For example, all of us have at one point or another been dishonest because we were afraid someone else would judge us negatively or because we wanted to protect someone else’s feelings. Both cases point to an underlying fear of abandonment, the first because we fear negative judgment, the second because we fear hurting someone, which may in turn lead to disapproval or abandonment.

Instead of acknowledging that fear directly, we choose safety over honesty. We can learn, however, to communicate in non-threatening, honest ways with others. Throughout the rest of this handbook, we will show you how.

What are my intentions?

Intentions represent things we plan to do but haven’t done yet. They can occur as feelings, thoughts, or pure sense (we may, for instance, have an unconscious intention to scratch all itches).

Sometimes our intentions are clear and sometimes not. If they aren’t clear, it’s likely because they’re tied up in a complex web of desires, beliefs, and emotions. Becoming clear about our intention means learning to recognize the various strands making up that web. We can begin this process by understanding more about human motivation—including our own!

I find it helpful to find common ground with other people when I want to communicate with them, so I look for common denominators. Abraham Maslow, a psychologist in the mid-twentieth century, proposed that five basic levels of need motivate all human beings.

First he identified physical needs (for air, food, water, sleep, shelter, and procreation).

Second he identified safety and security needs (for protection and freedom from threats and danger).

Third he listed love and belonging needs (for love and ties to a group).

Fourth were ego and esteem needs (for respect, recognition, and self-worth).

vFifth were self-actualization needs (for becoming the best we can be and expressing ourselves creatively).

Maslow believed that these five levels of need had to be filled in order. That is, people couldn’t meet their ego and esteem needs without first having met their love and belonging needs. Shawna and I believe that once physical needs are met, the other needs swirl together and their importance continually shifts because they are affected by one another.

The relevance of Maslow’s hierarchy today is that it can still provide broad insight into our own and others’ behavior. Perhaps, for example, I yelled at my son unnecessarily or I gave in to a friend’s demand to go out drinking, despite my desire not to.

What purpose, motivation, or intention did yelling at my child or going for that drink serve? Was it a need for respect? Self-worth? Recognition? From there I may ask whether or not yelling unnecessarily or doing what I don’t want to is an appropriate way to fill those needs.

Maslow can also help us understand others’ behaviors. A conversation with a street person about the music of Bach might be difficult to manage because it ignores his or her basic need for food. On the other hand, a cellist playing in the New York subway system may be insulted by an assumption that he or she did not have enough money to buy a meal.

Knowing motivations, or intentions, helps us communicate more effectively. Maslow’s hierarchy provides a good starting point if you feel a little lost about how to begin. The more we understand about intentions, the more we can effectively respond to them.

What action am I going to take?

Depending on the complexity of any particular situation, our assessments of our thoughts, feelings, sensations, and intentions, may take only a second, or they may take days, weeks, even months of labored examination before we’re ready to act.

Think of the difference between trying to understand why a friend has not called recently and trying to decide whether or not to end a twenty-year marriage. Either situation will require delicate communication skills, but one is clearly more complex than the other. With an awareness of what we are thinking, feeling, sensing and intending, we are ready to act. In communication, the action is often speaking. Choice of words greatly affects how another person reacts. Being self-aware helps us choose our words wisely.

Becoming self-aware takes practice, courage, and patience. Self-awareness is an infinite process, but we will not go far in the process if we do not commit to it. The principles outlined in this handbook will help increase communication skills through enhanced self-awareness. If you commit to taking the steps outlined here and apply them consistently, you will achieve the results you desire.

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