Self

Awareness
Self Awareness
Definition.
 Self Awareness is having a clear perception of
your personality, including strengths, weaknesses,
thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions.
 Self Awareness allows you to understand:
o Other people,
o how they perceive you,
o your attitude and
o your responses to them in the moment.
Self Awareness
Introduction.
 We might quickly assume that we are self-
aware, but it is helpful to have a relative scale
for awareness.
 If you have ever been in an auto accident you
may have experienced everything happening
in slow motion and noticing details of your
thought process and the event.
 This is a state if heightened awareness.
Self Awareness
 With practice we can learn to engage these
types of heightened states and see new
opportunities for interpretations in our
thoughts, emotions, and conversations.
Why Develop Self Awareness?
1. To develop the ability to make changes in
the thoughts and interpretations you make in
your mind.
Self Awareness
 Changing the interpretations in your mind
allows you to change your emotions.
 Self awareness is one of the attributes of
Emotional Intelligence and an important
factor in achieving success.
2. Self awareness is the first step in creating
what you want and mastering your.
Self Awareness
 Where you focus your attention, your
emotions, reactions, personality and behavior
determine where you go in life.
3. Having self awareness allows you to see
where your thoughts and emotions are taking you.
 It also allows you to see the controls of your
emotions, behavior, and personality so you can
make changes you want.
Self Awareness
Until you are aware in the moment of the
controls to your thoughts, emotions,
words, and behavior, you will have
difficulty making changes in the direction
of your life.
Self Awareness
Self Awareness in Relationships
 Relationships are easy until there is emotional
turmoil.
 This is the same whether you are at work or in
your personal life.
 When you can change the interpretation in your
mind of what you think you can change your
emotions and shift the emotional quality of your
relationships.
Self Awareness
When you can change the emotions in
your relationships you open up entirely
new possibilities your life.
Having a clear understanding of your
thought and, behavior patterns helps you
understand other people.
This ability to empathize facilitates better
personal and professional relationships.
Self Awareness
How do we Develop Self Awareness?
 Self awareness is developed through
practices in focusing your attention on the
details of your personality and behavior.
 It isn’t learned from reading a book.
 When you read a book you are focusing
your attention on the conceptual ideas in the
book.
Self Awareness
 With your attention in a book you are
practicing not paying attention to your
own behavior, emotions and personality.
 Think of learning to be mindful and self
aware as learning to dance.
Self Awareness
 When learning to dance we have to pay
attention to how and where our feet
move, our hands and body motion, what
our partner is doing, music, beat, floor
space, and other dancers.
 Self awareness isn’t learned from books.
Self Awareness
 When you become more self aware you
instinctively begin to see aspects of your
personality and behavior that you didn’t
notice before.
Ifyou have an emotional reaction of anger
or frustration, you notice many of the
thoughts and small triggers that build up
towards those emotions.
Self Awareness
You also notice moments when you can
change the interpretations in your mind, or
not believe what we are thinking.
In this heightened awareness you
instinctively make better choices in your
thought process long before an emotional
reaction or destructive behavior.
Self Awareness
Making changes in your behavior is much
easier to do when you catch them early in
the dynamic, before the momentum of
thought and emotion has gathered steam.  
The changes in your mind, and behavior
become simple and easy steps when you
develop self awareness.
Self Awareness
Self Awareness as applied in Counseling.
Introduction:
Because of the intimately private
counseling work that qualified counselors
and psychotherapists do with clients, it is
vitally important that a counseling
professional is fully self-aware.
Self Awareness
Being able to self-reflect enables a counselor
to identify and develop personal awareness,
and to remain emotionally detached from the
relationship he/she is developing with a client.
How self awareness helps counselors:
1. Relating to Others
Counsellors will naturally draw their own
conclusions about self-awareness.
Self Awareness
Their work with clients may present many
personal challenges, but also an on-going
opportunity to assess personal strengths,
feelings, thoughts and limitations, as they relate
to other people.
Understandably a counselor may also
experience a sense of personal familiarity,
whilst counseling clients, but must remain
emotionally detached at all times.
Self Awareness
Relating to clients, in a positive, open manner,
encourages the client to disclose in a
comfortable, confidential environment and
provides the counselor with the ideal setting in
which to communicate in a supportive way.
 Using their own life experiences, a counselor
can demonstrate empathy, compassion and
understanding without becoming personally
involved in the counseling process.
Self Awareness
2. Becoming More Self-Aware
Self-awareness is something that grows over a
period of time and with exploration.
 Techniques, to access information about oneself,
can be learned, and personal experiences can affect
personal thoughts and feelings.
A counselor will experience all of these issues and
concerns, and must use the knowledge gained to help
their clients overcome their own personal issues.
Self Awareness
Throughout a counsellor’s training he/she will
be exposed to a series of opportunities that will
allow them to question their own beliefs,
awareness and values, and how these impact
on their personal lives, work and others.
It is this self-awareness and self-knowledge
that forms the foundation of their counselling
career.
Self Awareness
A person’s growth and understanding can
only be assessed through self-awareness,
and it is no different for those working in a
therapeutic profession.
 Being continually open to personal, and
career, development will help a counselor
fully understand their values and self.
Self Awareness
3. Dealing With Intimacy
Counselling is a very personal, private and
confidential process for each individual client.
It is also a challenging experience for the
counsellor who is supporting the client through
the counselling process.
Dealing with intimate information, on any level,
will make a person feel exposed and a
counsellor will experience this also.
Self Awareness
Maintaining a professional attitude
throughout the counseling process will
enable the counselor or psychotherapist to
assist the client, to the best of their ability.
However, at the end of the counseling
relationship a counselor must be able to
close the door on the relationship.
Self Awareness
A good counselor will not also not allow
their own beliefs, attitudes and values to
compromise the client-counselor
relationship in any way.
Self Awareness
4. Changing Attitudes
Through supervised counselling sessions
and consultations with experienced
professionals, a counsellor will be able to
explore their own self-awareness and
personal development.
 Difficulties in counsellor-client attitudes
can also be expressed.
Self Awareness
This should be an on-going process
throughout a counselor or psychotherapist’s
career, and can provide the therapist with
clarity, focus, further understanding and
personal growth.
Without a positive outlet to explore these
ideas a counselor will lack the opportunity
to Develop Their Skills.