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DEFINITION - The ability to be aware of your own thoughts, emotions, behavior and values, and how they impact yourself and others.
This is a tricky one. We are not taught how to be fully self aware, let alone to pause to be aware of our thoughts and feelings at all, and often we are told the contrary because thinking about ourselves is often considered selfish. I so disagree and as do many others. As Plato once said, “The beginning is the most important part of the work”. We must start with ourselves because that is our true beginning, isn't it? I know how challenging this is. I spent years avoiding any attempts to better understand who I was in the world in order to protect myself from actually looking at, and feeling, long buried pain, grief, and fear. But I found the courage along my own journey to look at these things with curiosity and compassion. This courage came from therapy and self-led learning through reading books and listening to podcasts. Like many of us, I lived through some childhood trauma. In my case, my mother struggled with undiagnosed mental illness and I suspect, sexual abuse from her childhood. She was not equipped to practice healthy parenting and we kids suffered those consequences. I won't spend a lot of time delving into all the harm I experienced growing up, but I will likely share some experiences as they speak to the topics I will be writing about when it makes sense to do so. Not looking at those experiences and then starting the process of understanding things kept me at a fork in the road, stuck, for many years. In my childhood, I didn't know this of course, I just wanted to be safe. But as I lived more years and discovered how I was in the world based on what felt important to me and how others perceived me, it became more and more the norm to learn how to be self-aware. Honestly, we can't live in our own bubble by ourselves for very long for obvious reasons. It is up to us to grasp the necessity, power, and beauty of understanding who we are in the world with a look at the inside and also how the outside world contributes to shaping us. I highly recommend that if this is a brand new thing for you to look on the inside and you discover some really tender spots due to trauma, please work with a therapist because that support can provide the initial guardrails that you will need to start your journey. If you've arrived at a point using skills to help you with self-reflection, working with a coach would be a fantastic way to lean into it a bit more. I will also share some tips and resources at the end of each chapter that may also prove useful to start your engine of self-awareness. Personally, I found the tool of writing daily morning pages to be life-changing. This is something that Julia Cameron, author of The Artist Way, created and I've been practicing it for several decades. If I happen to miss a day due to traveling or a full schedule, I definitely feel the loss. Do check out her book, but at minimum, Google the topic and I'm guessing you will find a plethora of explanations about how to do it. It is in my daily writing that I can put my thoughts to paper, and look for a potential understanding of what may be underneath it. It's also a space to remind myself of my inherent worth that I sometimes forget on the tough days. My intention is to be as fully self aware as I can be because, (1) it helps me live my best life experiences based on what feeds my spirit, not what displeases it and (2), to understand what I can put out into the world as it might help someone else to understand something they have experienced. I don't kid myself into thinking that it is my job to fix things for anyone else, only to be the best version of myself in these experiences. So here's the power that lies in this first step: by knowing yourself, you, too, can lean into joy, learning, connection, and to stop solving problems that simply do not belong to you. A good reminder: we are only in charge of ourselves at the end of the day. Personal accountability and responsibility inform how we show up in this wacky world and that always starts with looking inside. Start at the beginning. Personally, I have seen how my own missteps have caused harm due to a lack of self awareness around my mindset or emotional state. In comparison, when I do check in with myself by taking my emotional temperature, frequently, the experience proves to be much more invigorating in some way. The other side of that coin is what is long buried such as my dreams. By looking inward, I have found I could start excavating in order to reconnect with them. This is my favorite thing when it comes to this personal work! For example, when I became a parent, so much of my identity was unraveled, some of which were very healthy to release. I was a smoker, for example, for many years, and it was deeply embedded in how some of my socializing took place. I wasn't in a stable relationship at the time, so the jarring unpredictability and lack of emotional safety were also contributors to it. Of course, tossing in all of the biological and hormonal chaos were also contributors of feeling uncertain and off balance. I recall days of feeling grief that I had lost chunks of myself in this new role or identity. I had no energy to look inside at things - that simply had to wait. It was during an emotionally crushing time a few years later when I had to face the demons and the Scaries. Although at times I felt terrified to do so, it was through those experiences I was reacquainted with “me” once again, but a new version. It was due to that cracking of my existence that I was forced to figure things out and once that started, there was no going back. It was because of that major life experience, I learned how to ask myself good questions by reading a whole mess of books like Broken Open by Elizabeth lesser. She is a profound thought leader whose wisdom in assembling others' stories with her own lived experiences shouted words of encouragement for me to look at my own cracks in my skin of identity. I've mentioned several ways that you can start this process but what I will stress as truly very important is to make sure you have what you need to feel safe and also know that this hard work will pay off. This, dear reader, is the start of your epic road trip of your life and collecting some foundational understanding about who you are will fuel your sense of purpose and adventure. So take the first step by honoring yourself by knowing thyself. RESOURCE LINKS https://juliacameronlive.com/the-artists-way/ https://bookshop.org/p/books/broken-open-how-difficult-times-can-help-us-grow-elizabeth-lesser/8538810?ean=9780375759918
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Seven years ago today, I started an epic adventure: I left Portland, Oregon - my home for almost three decades - to start a new chapter in Providence, Rhode Island - a place I had never been to before. I bid farewell to a life of epic proportions and my True Blues in Oregon and my bestie - the late, great Uncle Liam - hopped into the car with me to drive East. I'll never forget that journey. We saw some beautiful spaces, ate delicious food, and chatted it up with other adventuring folks along the way. To write that much has happened in those seven years is an obvious an understatement. Too much to document all of it here, but I will share a few moments of my personal experiences .... ...I became a business owner. ...I became a professional actor and writer. ...I gave back to my new community as a volunteer at many different places. ...I dreamt up an event to celebrate women artists in Rhode Island and co-founded ShePVD with Alyssa . ...I saw an opportunity to create a space to bring women together to collaborate and co-founded Cocktails & Conversations with Carrie. ...I floundered in disappointment when things should have gone one way but didn't turn out as hoped & expected. ....Relationships shifted and in some cases, ended. ....I found a spiritual community to join that I later lost. ....I grieved. ....I reconnected with friends of long ago in Pennsylvania, where I spent some of my growing up years. ...I had my first-ever art show as a photographer at @sindesserts . ...I lived in Italy for a month and traveled to Spain, France, Ireland, and Scotland. ...I stopped to smell the roses - so many times, I lost count. Who the heck knows what will happen in the next seven years. I have not doubt more adventure and disappointment await. I wouldn't have it any other way. ❤️ |
AuthorLet's create a BIG life one small adventure at a time! Here are a few of my experiences - perhaps you may find a little nugget or two that inspires you to take your own baby step to living your dreams! Archives
December 2025
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