Becoming Self Aware
By: Stephanie Gagos

    For most of my twenties and early thirties, I merely existed; tossed to and fro by circumstances I believed to be beyond my control.  Despite having “turned out well” as an adult after a childhood full of abuse, I felt wretched inside.  The worse I felt inside, the more things around me fell apart and I wondered often; “why do these things keep happening to me” and yet I felt paralyzed to change. 
    
    I was used to being a victim and accustomed to feeling badly.  It was also much easier not having to think about what I was doing to myself and blame the world around me. Eventually being a victim and sleeping in the comfort of my passivity became intolerable and I awakened to the ruins I so effectively created. I started to make a conscious effort to become more aware in my life so that I could begin to make the necessary changes to have the life I wanted.  I could not fulfill my dreams, the way my life was going.  I was using food and fat to hide from men, smoking to slowly punish and kill myself, living a lie of a marriage, not practicing any self care, hating myself deeply; trying to avoid, run, detach every time anything was just too painful to confront  I started to become aware of the many ways I denied myself love, compassion, and joy. By taking the time to look at what I was doing I witnessed the abuser within and how I continued to punish myself even in the smallest of ways.  I was my mother now, I had taken over for her and the men who molested and dehumanized me.             

    Many of us live our lives, rarely taking the time to self examine our choices, how we behave and what we say out loud or to ourselves. We struggle with identifying how we feel, what we want or need.  We are so busy trying to survive the pain of our past that it becomes almost impossible to really pay attention to the NOW and what we are creating in it. As abuse survivors it is imperative that we get to know ourselves and observe how the abuse continues to infiltrate our lives.  Much of our suffering comes from not realizing how we are continuing the abuse.  If you are like me, you may be taking over for your abusers and hurting yourself.  Here is a small list of how you may have taken on the role of abuser:
 

·         Addictions (harming yourself with drugs, alcohol, compulsive eating, sex etc.)

·         Self Denial (not caring for your body, putting the needs of other over yourself all the time, denying your basic need for love, intimacy, food, protection, good hygiene, denying your right to your dreams, to your own happiness)

·         Punishment (after making a mistake berating yourself, sabotaging yourself, allowing others to treat you badly, harming yourself physically)

·         Mentally (putting yourself down, calling yourself names, being harsh when you consider yourself “weak” or not progressing fast enough, allowing thoughts and dwelling on thoughts that are harmful to you wellbeing; any thought that makes you feel badly about yourself)

Without awareness, we are left wondering why we feel the way we do, why we behave the way we do and continue to have the same deadly thinking over and over until we are consumed by it.  Shedding light on these deceptions born in our childhoods and nurtured by us as adults will empower us to create the lives we desire.    The following is what I chose to focus on in my journey toward self awareness:
             
What to Focus on:

·  What have I already attracted into my life as an adult ( I looked around at the people I now had in my life, my circumstances: financial, social, relationships, my body, my mental state, my career, how was I still a victim, what beliefs and thinking created this?)

·  The decisions both “good” and “bad” I'd made along the way (what choices did I make and why, how was I still controlled by the past?)

·  My reactions past and present to the world around me, how did I deal with conflict, with things going wrong, with things going right (this was especially important since it really gave me a window into what I believed and felt about myself)

·  How I interacted with the people around me, how I treated the people I love as well as people I encountered in my daily life, what did that say about me?  How were the people around me reflecting back to me traits that I'd tried to deny, suppress, and pretend were not a part of me?

·  The ways I treated myself: What needs did I take care of and which did I ignore?  Did I practice self care; did I put other people first all the time?

·  What kinds of thoughts did I have throughout the day?  What did I say to myself when things went wrong, when I felt triggered, when I felt good, when I was afraid, when I was just washing the dishes?)

·  The way I spoke about myself and my life in the presence of others: What did I say to others about my life, about me, about my family?  What masks did I use, what facades did I put up?

·  What were my beliefs about love, life, money, success, beauty etc.  This required some digging and taking a close look at my life as a whole over time.

·  How I felt most of the time (my dominant emotions and what was triggering them)

·  My body (symptoms, ailments, signals, my thoughts about it, my feelings, how I treated it)

Making this connection between the conditions of my life and my level of my self awareness did not come to me over night nor can I say that I was immediately liberated by the idea.  A part of me was terrified and felt naked without the cloak of my excuses. Mixed in with this fear was a knowing that I would grow and strengthen my power as a woman, as a survivor and as a human being; taking back the reigns stolen from me in childhood. 
Self awareness is an ongoing process; a way of being that helped me move through life in smarter, healthier and more empowering ways; The more I am aware of my life and the leading role I play in it, the more answers come my way so that I can make  adjustments and changes as I live and heal my life.  

I am learning to use my emotions as a guidance system and my mind as a powerful tool for attracting and experiencing what brings me joy.  Just by looking around I am able to determine what I need to give my attention to.  If I am feeling ill, I know I need to pay attention to my thinking and emotions as the mind and body are intricately connected.  If things are not going well in my relationships I know I need to take a good hard look at myself and how I am responding; how am I contributing to the problem, what is being triggered within me, why am I attracting this and what do I need to learn?  It is so much easier to look at the other person but often they are merely reflecting what is within us back to us.  It is why they are there, to show us what we still need to work on (definitely the last thing we want to hear when someone is pissing us off, but so true) This doesn't mean that I immediately think, hmmm, what am I doing here, what is going on inside of me, whenever things go wrong. I wish I could be so mature and reflective all the time, but there are many times that I can fall quite easily back into victim mode and I am unable to even consider my role in what is happening.  After some time; minutes, hours, days, weeks; depending on the situation, I am able to stand back and self examine as necessary.

It takes practice and eventually self awareness can become a habit.  There is no formula for how to do it, no set time to spend on it, it is a way of being and walking in the world that helps us expand and grow.  It allows us to find the answers to so many of our questions by looking within; the place where all of our answers live.