Mental wellness and self-care are important to every human being. Taking the time to reflect and understand ourselves better is often key to adopting new positive behaviours or neutralising negative mindsets.
For instance, journaling is a very popular and simple way to embark on the process of self-reflection. However, writing may not be your optimal medium to do this. You may find yourself feeling bored or bogged down with the idea of writing in a journal. Or maybe writing just doesn’t feel like enough. The key then is to find new ways to engage yourself so that you can create new ways to experience self-reflection.
Here are some other ways to do this.
1. Speaking aloud to oneself
Most people would say that self-talk is weird, but it is not. One study shows that people who explain ideas to themselves learn almost three times more than those who don’t. (Source: hbr.org)
Engaging in self-talk gives you clarity about your thoughts and enhances the element of self-awareness within you through a different medium or pathway; You are now engaging your aural sense i.e. you can now listen to your thoughts
When attempting this for the first time, it can often feel awkward or embarrassing. Therefore, choose a safe space that mitigates these feelings. Personally, I like my own room at home (or any room at home as long as I’m home alone), beaches or parks when there are few people around, or even the top story of a carpark. The key here is the sense of privacy that you create for yourself.
Once your safe space is chosen, you can begin your self-talk. It can begin with a simple acknowledgement such as ‘I am now ready to begin to talk out loud my thoughts and feelings.’ Just acknowledge and express whatever you are aware of in the moment and allow yourself to keep observing and expressing.
Once you have a good rhythm going, begin to truly listen to your own voice and what you are saying. And as you listen to yourself, allow yourself to reflect on the reactions you experience as you hear yourself speak your words out loud. Do not jump to conclusions or judge anything, stay focussed and just keep speaking until you feel like you have nothing more to say.
When you have stopped, take a few moments to collect yourself, then begin to talk out whatever you are experiencing or have experienced during your round of self-talk. Hopefully, you will have some new insights on your thoughts and feelings about the topic you have chosen to express.
2. Getting physical
This method is all about changing the environment and bodily state in which you conduct your self reflection. Go to the beach or park, hike through a nature reserve or sit by the sea; once again, we are trying out new ways to engage ourselves as we do our reflection.
You can incorporate what’s been described in the section above and see what results it yields for you as well. Just like how fitness enthusiasts claim to experience peace or calm during physical activity, you can attempt to do the same as well.
3. Making video or audio recordings
Videos or voice memos of yourself are very powerful ways to literally witness your self reflection in action. It can be quite confronting. You know how people often say things like ‘take a step back and observe the situation’? In this case, the process of witnessing your own reflections ‘come to life’ via a video or audio recording can often be very impactful to supercharging your personal awareness.
Use any audio-video software/hardware (your computer or phone), and store these recordings somewhere secure for your reference later. Personally, I have used Zoom to record myself and uploaded these video logs onto a private YouTube channel as a means to keep track of them easily.
In conclusion, I just want to reiterate that building your awareness is akin to building a strong foundation for yourself. It is a healthy way to process your experiences and glean new learnings and insights about yourself. And these will give you an opportunity to enact any changes you feel you might need to.
I hope these suggestions will inject fresh energy into the way you build your personal awareness and give you new ways to relate to and understand yourself. Also, there’s nothing wrong with engaging a life coach, or related personal development professional to support you in your journey of supercharging your self-awareness.
