Creating a meaningful life for myself has been an incredible journey. It has allowed me to experience and see life through a different lense. I realized that the first step in changing the way you create your life is self-awareness. Because self-awareness = happiness! We can also call it mindfulness. You cannot expect to change what you are not aware of.
As my children are growing, so am I. Feeling that what I am doing has a real purpose and meaning that matters to me makes a huge difference in my life. It makes getting up each day the most exciting thing in the world. Forget trying to force myself to work hard, it becomes more important to remind myself to take breaks to eat!
What is self-awareness
Self-awareness or mindfulness provides the clarity to choose whether you express emotions of love or express emotions out of reactions of fear. It provides the possibility to catch yourself in that moment prior to saying something harsh, or thinking and believing a negative thought.
Self-awareness allows you to identify your patterns and shed some light onto them so they can be changed. It is through self-awareness that you identify and change your core beliefs that drive negative behaviors and create happiness.
Secret of happiness
One important secret of happiness is to really know, understand, and respect your nature; your own individual blend (Like a perfect tropical drink!). We are all great and magnificent in our own unique way.
One of the 7 keys found in the Awakened Mama’s philosophy is to assess thyself, which means that it’s important to connect to the physical, mental, emotional and Spiritual aspect of ourselves, and pay attention to those intuitive hits that tell us when something is off. Mothers are known for their killer mommy instincts, so let’s learn how to use them as best we can.
Checking in several times a day can allow us to reconnect with ourself, to self-correct, and get back into balance, supporting and maintaining harmony within ourselves and our home.
How we can connect with all aspects of ourselves
Let’s go deeper into this key philosophy by first determining how we can connect with all aspects of ourselves in order to be able to use our intuition to our advantage.
Stop and listen
Pretty simple. We all need to take the time to stop multi-tasking and become quiet. Our monkey brain is usually going a mile a minute, which does not allow us to hear our inner voice.
Ways to stop and listen:
- Take a walk outside (without the iPhone!)
- Take a bath
- Do a puzzle
- Build something
- Meditate
- Tend to a garden
- Or my favorite…head on over to the Nordik Spa 😉
Get moving in the right direction
There are times when we need to get our energy going. This can be tricky because not all of us are alike, which means some may benefit from jogging, while others may feel worse. We need to be in sync with our body to give it what it needs. If we feel awful after a short run, then maybe swimming or playing golf is a better fit.
Identifying how we feel
It can be very difficult at times to know what we feel, much less why we are feeling it, but knowing what we are feeling is a very important step. Absolutely every transformation in life starts with greater awareness.
Ways to do this:
1. One of the best ways to start recognizing your emotions is by answering the question: What do I feel right now? Am I lonely, jealous, resentful, stressed, angry? Pick a word that describes what you are feeling in the moment.
2. Our bodies provide great clues to our emotions. What is going on when we walk around with tension in our shoulders and back? What are we feeling when we feel tightness in our chests or are short of breath?
3. Try this: The next time you are experiencing an uncomfortable sensation in your body, see if you can identify the emotion behind the signal your body is giving you. Did you just have a fight with your partner? Did you just finished watching an episode or a movie that your eyes well up with tears? What part of this created such a feeling within you?
4. Don’t suppress what you are feeling. Find a place where you can be alone and quiet. Breathe deeply and become aware of your body. Gently bring your attention to each area of your body in which you feel tense or uncomfortable. See if you can consciously relax that area, and let yourself experience the feelings that come up. Keep in mind that you may need some practice at this before you arrive at any deep insights. Above all, just let the feelings be and don’t try to change them. They are clues for you to understand yourself better.
The more we comprehend our individual nature and what we may be here to offer and receive, the more we can make efforts to create a life filled with purpose, happiness and harmony.
Let’s stay connected!
Photo credit: Julie Cloutier
A lot of truth to this post, I do agree self awareness can equal happiness. You do need to figure out who you are in order to learn how to be satisfied/happy with yourself which in return leads to overall happiness.
Totally agree! Thanks for sharing those words of wisdom.
To me a key factor was knowing my self worth first and than the rest begins to fall into place.
Our beliefs shapes us into what we become…recognizing your self-worth is essential. Thank you for sharing.
Great tips. Self-awareness is definitely the key to happiness; allows you to dig and analyse your true motivations and emotions (below all the reactive responses); I worked extensively overseas from 2001-2006 and came back with PTSD. Self-awareness therapy allowed me to get past it.
I’m so happy to hear you were able to get over that life challenge 😀
Very nice post and thanks for the tips
You’re very welcome 😄
I am feeling so frazzled these days… really like all these ideas and suggestions. Thank you.
Sarah,
I am happy this article helped you!
Yeah for OMC to give people a platform to express themselves and help others!
My favorite way to reconnect with myself is being outside in the fall. Something about it is so relaxing for me.
I totally agree! Just something about the smell of leaves 🙂
Thank you for this great advice on mindfullness I need to practice this
Don’t we all 😉