Self-Knowledge Archives – Page 35 of 39

Are You Living a Self-Aware, Creative Life?

February 27, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy - 2 Comments

Self-awareness and creativity go hand in hand because, when you understand your own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, you are able to draw upon them to think unconventionally and inventively.

Creativity is one of the most effective ways to overcome any challenges in our lives. Moving in a different direction is often a matter of thinking creatively and doing something differently. Here’s what some smart people say about creativity:

Albert Einstein:

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

Arthur Koestler:

Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.

Beatrix Potter:

Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.

Being self-aware and creative is wonderful because you get to experience life to its fullest; with passion, courage, and always open to new ways of seeing things. You also get to explore exciting possibilities you might not have encountered if you were stuck being unimaginative. What will you do to develop self-awareness and enjoy a creative life?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Dealing with Your Feelings

February 27, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

When you possess self-awareness, you’re able to live in harmony with your feelings. A common deathbed regret is that people wish they had dealt with their feelings instead of trying to ignore or cover them up. It’s vital to feel your feelings so you can live a healthy, happy life. When you don’t experience your feelings, you cut off a huge part of who you are. We are all feeling beings with a wide range of emotions.

Much damage has been done to people by societal norms that minimize feelings but what could be more normal than acknowledging what you feel inside? If you’re sad, you’re sad. If you’re scared, you’re scared. If you’re happy, you’re happy. There’s no mystery to feelings, they’re just natural states of being that your brain and body produce.

My years of helping people build self-awareness have taught me that feelings have to be recognized and dealt with, you can never ignore them. That sadness you feel will never completely go away unless you deal with it. Feelings are so important to your well-being that you literally can’t live a truly happy life unless you understand how to manage them positively.

How can you begin feeling your feelings? Each time one comes up, acknowledge it. Simply realize that, no matter how uncomfortable they may be, you can handle them and they are a natural part of you. The key to living a happy life is to gradually heal the difficult feelings and emphasize the positive ones.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and feel your feelings?

Cheers,

Guy

Welcome to The Self-Awareness Guy Ver1

February 26, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

I’m self-awareness consultant, workshop and retreat facilitator Guy Farmer. I love helping kind, creative people take a deeper look at their thoughts, emotions and behaviors and learn how to live consciously and deliberately. It’s wonderful to see open-minded, courageous individuals let go of what doesn’t work and discover new ways to enjoy deeply fulfilling and meaningful lives.

I wrote about self-awareness for many years at my previous website, Self-Awareness Workshops, http://www.theselfawarenessguy.com, and decided to apply my knowledge and experience to transition from a corporate training based practice to a person-centered approach.

Self-awareness is the process of discovering who you really are and living your life authentically, based on who you are deep inside. I started this blog as a resource for anyone interested in taking a candid look at themselves and understanding why they think, feel and behave the way they do. Your comments and questions are welcome.

Cheers,

Guy

Beginning Your Self-Awareness Journey

February 25, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Beginning your self-awareness journey requires examining what you actually think, feel and do in the physical world. It’s one thing to say that you do something but it’s quite another to understand how it affects you and others and consciously decide to direct it. A lot of people recognize that they do certain things but don’t take the additional step of working toward improving what they do or creating change in their lives.

When you’re genuinely building self-awareness, you’re in an ongoing process of examining what you do in life and consciously moving in a positive direction. You listen to your inner voice, let it guide you toward who you really are deep inside, and the rest of your life follows. You can begin this process at any time, all it requires is your decision to look at yourself as objectively as possible. What will you do to begin your self-awareness journey?

Cheers,

Guy

12 Examples of Self-Awareness

February 25, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Here are twelve examples of self-awareness:

You’re in touch with your feelings and comfortable with them.
You know who you are deep inside.
You’re not afraid to examine and work on resolving the difficult issues in your life.
You consistently work on improving your understanding of yourself.
You treat yourself and others kindly.
You’re living your dreams.
You behave consciously and mindfully.
You heal your hurts.
You feel like your life is genuinely meaningful and fulfilling.
You understand that self-awareness is an ongoing process.
You contribute positive things to the world that benefit as many people as possible.
You live authentically.

Self-awareness is a state of being where you deeply understand yourself and live based on who you really are deep inside. Each of the examples I’ve mentioned here are things you can work on starting today in order to help you live a happy life. All you have to do is decide to work on one of them and keep going until you’re good at it, then move on to the next item. Over time, you’ll develop your self-awareness.

Cheers,

Guy

2 Self-Awareness Exercises

February 24, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Self-awareness refers to your ability to understand how your emotions, thoughts, and actions affect you, the people around you, and the world in general. Here are two self-awareness exercises to help you start getting to know yourself better:

The Writing about an Emotion Exercise

Sit in a comfortable, quiet area with paper and pen and think of some emotion that pops up in your life and causes you some kind of discomfort.
Name the emotion by using one of these four words: happiness, sadness, anger, fear.
Once you’ve named the emotion write it down.
Under the emotion write down three undesirable results that emotion has created in your life.
After each result you’ve written, jot down the actual results you’d like to see, the positive side of things.
Once you have the positives written down, pick one of the positives you’d like to work on and decide on one small thing you can do to make it happen.
Keep taking small actions to reach the positive result you would like.

This exercise works by encouraging you to focus consciously on what emotions you feel and to direct them in a positive direction instead of letting them run your life. The idea is to repeat this exercise for any emotion that is causing you discomfort. It builds self-awareness by asking you to carefully examine what you feel. At first, it will seem hard but, with practice, you’ll get good at repeating these steps.

The What I Did Exercise

Think of a time when you did something that hurt someone, write it down.
Write down how you feel about hurting that person.
Write down what they might have felt.
Write down ten positive things you could have done instead.
Picture the the scenario in your mind again and insert each of the alternatives into the scenario. Repeat the process through all ten positive alternatives.
Write down what you would do differently if that kind of situation arose in your life again.

This exercise encourages you to examine some action you did in the past that hurt another person and think about what you might have done differently. It raises your self-awareness by asking you to consider what you did and provide a positive alternative. It also asks you to think about other people’s perspectives and how they might have seen the event.

Try doing these two exercises a couple of times a week until they seem second nature. The idea is to continue becoming more self-aware by carefully examining what you feel, think, and do.

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware People Know What Emotional Intelligence Is

February 23, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

What is emotional intelligence? You know that feeling you get inside when you encounter an emotion and you’re able to experience it fully without falling apart? That’s what it is. Self-aware people know what emotional intelligence is because they are in touch with what’s going on inside themselves and how it affects what they do each day.

You are a human being that has emotions. In an ideal world, you would deal with or manage your emotions so that they always lead in a positive direction, but that doesn’t always happen because you likely haven’t been taught what to do when you or others feel things that are scary or uncomfortable.

You were raised in a certain way and move in circles that tell you what role emotions should have on your life. The problem is that the information you get about how to feel things may be fatally flawed.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and effectively deal with or manage your emotions when they arise, and do the same for others. It means you’re an emotionally stable person who isn’t afraid of feeling things or interacting with people when they’re experiencing their own emotions.

As you continue your journey through life you’ll find that it will benefit you greatly to learn how to manage your emotions in a positive way. What will you do to develop self-awareness and emotional intelligence?

Cheers,

Guy