marking my words

self-awareness as a logical understanding

Many fellow writers can probably agree, to some degree, that we're on the scale of somewhat self-aware to being very self-aware. Through our journaling, curious & observant behavior, and re-reading our own blogs and entries, we can see the stuff we're made of through our creations.

(Edit: Scratch that - even voracious readers will likely agree to similar claims of self-awareness. I won't underestimate the powerful ability to find our ooh's and ick's through reading other people's words and stories.)

Nonetheless, toss in the tendencies to being introverted, a people-pleaser, and yearning for belonging, many of us learned what would be beneficial for us to 'mask' so we can fit into certain groups.

Despite our self-awareness, we still fall in the trap of performing or contorting ourselves in ways that can self-aggravate, cause confusion, and even disgust.

"If I know better, why can't I get myself to do better?" "I feel pretty awful that I keep repeating the same patterns, even though I'm aware of it." "Maybe I'm just not a good person or capable of anything more."

Okay, perhaps I'm just describing myself, but who am I if not one in a million? Given there are about 8 billion people out there... then the chances are, there at least 8,000 people exactly like me; or at least that many people that can fit the description above.

Fun hypotheticals aside, I know there are plenty of people who can relate due to the sheer fact that I can relate to so many fellow Bear bloggers.

After reading lanadelrue's post, I was inspired by its concluding statement:

Sometimes I remind myself of a fantastic and cutting remark from my first ever boyfriend, who said to me, ‘since you’re so self aware, why don’t you change?’ That was such a good comment that I’m still analyzing it years later. Still don’t have an answer!

And what was I inspired to do? To muse on the idea that self-awareness is widely expressed as a logical understanding of self. To transform our patterns and incite change, we must include other categories of understanding, like emotionally and spiritually.

In my second blog post, I talk about how I can logically understand something but it does not act as enough of a catalyst for real change. To summarize a little, a massive positive change in my creative practice occurred by an external loss that invited me to change my habits. As much as I'd like to say I decided one day to just be more creative again, that wasn't the case.

How can we initiate change and self-start into new habits and patterns that align with who we are today, instead of a version of ourselves who we were years or decades ago?

I went through years of talk therapy to walk through the confines of my mind - and while my excellent and clever therapist was essential to pointing out blind spots and planting new seeds of values and beliefs, that wasn't enough to prevent me from reaching professional burnout, leaving me income-unstable and unable to afford her services anymore.

What I am learning, and not nearly on the other side of, is that emotional and spiritual understanding are key components to self-activate into a new pattern of being. Whether we're trying to transform a habit with how we approach our work, how we make new friends or nurture our relationships, or even how we have fun and let ourselves rest without feeling guilty, it's hard to brute force a change based on pure logic.

If it was, we wouldn't be in this conundrum of falling short of real change despite "knowing better".

What I'm trying to tease out of this writing is that we are not only logical, but emotional and spiritual beings.

To illustrate just how influential our emotions are, I immediately thought of a crime of passion. A crime of passion is defined as "a criminal act, often violent, committed under intense emotional distress or in the heat of the moment, rather than as a premeditated action. These crimes typically occur when someone is overcome by strong emotions such as rage, jealousy, betrayal, or heartbreak."

As much as we want to improve certain aspects of ourselves, oftentimes in order to do that, we must obtain a more holistic understanding of self. And I believe that's something we have lost touch with in a fast-paced, logic-centric & capitalistic structure.

What's even more troubling, is that logical self-awareness can inadvertently cause emotional suppression. By putting logic on the pedestal, we tend to smush down the emotional aspects of selves, saying they're lesser or shouldn't play a part doesn't make it a moot point. Emotional suppression is akin to bottling it all up until it can't be bottled up anymore. This is typically where emotions override logic, demanding it deserves space and recognition by forcing its hand via drastic action, like a crime of passion.

This is a pitfall that I fall into often - not the crime of passion, but ignoring my clearly distressed emotional cues, like when a boundary has been crossed and feeling upset & drained. My life can be traced through big leaps of faith, typically when I have outgrown the container I kept or found myself in. An example? Deciding to move out of my mom's house the very next day - after I found out she had racked up thousands of dollars of debt under my name, behind my back.

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Emotional understanding means acknowledging that there is a reason why we do that annoying thing we do but it doesn't play by the same rules of logic. It's a different system of understanding, which is through a range of perceived safety. If you developed a pattern as a coping mechanism to prevent or reduce emotional or physical wounds, then attempting to change it without acknowledging and integrating a sense of safety in its place will be met with lots of yo-yoing. A quick example is how one might fall into the cycle of dieting fads, believing that it can cure an emotional wound of being criticized for their body not aligning with societal beauty standards or family expectations.

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What does spiritual understanding entail of? I'm still very much learning this myself, but so far, I've noticed understanding your spiritual nature leads to feeling more compassion for yourself rather than self-criticism.

Developing a spiritual practice, one that nurtures witnessing our thoughts and behaviors without judgment, allows us to detach from being "good or bad". My spiritual practice helps me accept however I am, and part of my practice means building a bridge to the parts I have trouble accepting about myself. I think it's important to note that it's hard to transform a part of ourselves if we aren't even willing to look at it.

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This post has become a little gnarly and thornier than I expected, so I employed '...' dividers to emphasize these are just my thoughts in the moment about how self-awareness is primarily communicated as a logical analysis of self.

As I attempted to expand on what emotional and spiritual understanding means and can look like, I found myself unequipped and under-qualified to do that task justice. I'm grateful for your grace as I muddle through what I believe deserves more critical thought and reflection.

I'm still very much exploring and forming my own understandings of self-awareness: logically, emotionally, and spiritually. I can only express my personal experience and observations but I'd love to hear others thoughts on this as well.

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Unrelated to the topic of this post, I'm still really digging Bear and writing on here. I envision setting up a few things to my blog like a now page, a status.cafe, a guestbook, and a contact page to drop me an email.

My current method to this Bear blog is:

I'm uncertain of how my method and process will develop over time, so no promises on what to expect here. Plus, the uncertainty is really part of the fun for me! And I have to remind myself constantly that I'm writing here for my own selfish reasons - for catharsis, expression, and ok - maybe also for the off chance that other people can relate and that we can become friends or at least fellow respectable peers.

If you happen to be one of those people, will you let me know by being my first email? I'm genuinely looking forward to meet you and immersing myself in your writings as well.

I believe everyone is a wisdom-keeper in their own right, meaning everyone carries stories that can be balms, cures, and potent medicine for the right people who come across it.

So don't be afraid to share your stories, your words, your craft and presence. Take up space and let yourself be known. It might be the very thing that tips someone over the edge to inspire meaningful change in their life.

Hope to connect soon... and looking forward to writing more tomorrow.

Thank you for being here. ♥︎

Sincerely,

Nadine