Self-awareness is the foundation of your health and well-being.
In our modern world, finding a reason to doubt yourself and feel like you’re not good enough is almost too easy. There’s so much to compare yourself to, so much to aspire to and dream of. Sometimes you need to step back, drop from your head into your body, and hit the reset button.
Comparison, self-doubt, anxiety, stress… they aren’t issues of the mind but of the whole body. Thoughts and experiences create beliefs and decisions in our minds, and sensations and symptoms in our bodies.
When we look to the outside world for validation, acceptance, and answers we are creating disconnection and doubting ourselves. When we choose to reconnect and turn inward to our values, our intentions, and our intuitive and instinctive selves we learn a lot more.
How you think, mentally, and feel, emotionally will affect your physical health and well-being, no doubt. I am super aware of how my self-belief, motivation, mood, and sleep are tangled up with my anxiety and stress. By recognising my unique stress signals I can better understand what I need for support and can guide myself back home to my body. I breathe to drop out of my head and give myself space to pause.
“Thoughts are the language of the mind. Feelings are the language of the body”
Space is a mental state; finding mental headspace, and allowing yourself time to pause and process everything you are moving through.
What if we tried pausing rather than pushing? Simply pausing long enough that we became present. Imagine how your body would feel. How would life feel? If you created a snippet of time for yourself between the doing, what would you do differently from that moment?
I believe the pause would create space between your thoughts and would invite a shift of perspective. A chance to be inspired by the idea of doing something differently. Change is essential although nothing is more constant than change. It’s why sometimes things can feel so uncertain.
But what is self-awareness?
Self-awareness is about developing your inner knowing by listening to your body and recognising your unique signals calling you to reconnect. Scientifically we can talk about interoception, which is one of our most important senses. And by paying a little bit more attention to the signals it sends you, you may be healthier in body and mind.
Sensing
Noticing
Listening with your inner senses
Using words to describe both physical and emotional feelings in our body helps us to acknowledge and honour how we are feeling. We can also make our emotions more tangible when we write them down rather than a sea of unhelpful thoughts racing through our minds.
Self-awareness is the foundation of your health and well-being.
To me, change means hitting the refresh button, tweaking, reworking, regulating, and mixing things up. Change is something I embrace now, after years of feeling stuck and disconnected. Some changes require courage and bonkers but brave decisions. Others simply need a healthy dose of self-discipline or less second-guessing.
What does the change mean to you?
Everything I do within Big Love Movement has supported me in my most challenging of times and day-to-day when life simply feels like the hardest job to do. Some days I have to dig deep and remind myself over and over again that all is well, I am not a failure. I am a perfectly imperfect wobbly and wonky human, and that’s OK. ‘I am here, I am safe.’ My inner mantra switches and self-doubt begins to soften.
I’m ever grateful for the tools and inner resources I have tucked away but without this level of awareness, they’d be almost pointless. Awareness means I notice. It may not be immediate but it’s fast. I pay attention, sometimes it’s as if I am behind a screen observing, hearing my thoughts, and feeling my feelings.
Awareness helps to build our inner knowledge and creates a deeper understanding of ourselves. With knowledge comes appreciation not only for how incredible the human body is but how unique we all are; in our experiences and our response to those experiences.
Self-Awareness + Self-compassion = Connection to Self
I've studied MBSR (mindfulness), specialised in yoga for anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic growth, and dived deep into the impact on our brain, nervous system, and mental health. I’ve realised the foundation is self-awareness. Helping others understand their emotions, and appreciate the impact they have on their well-being is my passion because I have struggled myself, and I am still in that ebb and flow.
My motto is ‘embrace your wobbles’ because let’s be honest, life is full of them, there’s a lot of potholes in the road!
When we give ourselves permission to pause we learn to listen. With awareness and compassion, we deepen the connection with have with our bodies and our sense of self. This is self-connection.
I feel it’s important as I write this to say I am an advocate for seeking professional support when experiencing challenging emotions and when life is overwhelming.
How mindfulness can help us to embrace change
Mindfulness has been defined as ‘paying attention’ to moment-to-moment experiences, on purpose, and resisting the urge to judge or compare.
Drawing your attention to the present moment in this way enables you to relate wholeheartedly to the world around you, to connect to your innate wholeness, and to play an active and powerful role in your daily health and well-being. Paying attention, noticing, being present, and ’checking in’ on ourselves, supports us in recognising that we have choices rather than living habitually or on automatic pilot.
This is about playing the long game.
The most effective way to reduce unhappiness is through conscious and mindful awareness of yourself in the present moment; learning to embrace life’s wobbles with compassion and meeting life as it is. This is no easy task when change creates constant fluctuations however by becoming more aware of our thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations we can slow things down.
We may notice that our attention is often, either on the past or the future, rather than in the present. We begin to realise how much of our time is spent being judgmental and critical of ourselves and others, and how busy our mind is with its never-ending lists of tasks, responsibilities, worries, expectations, fears, and ‘what-if’ scenarios.
By noticing where your attention is, you can choose what you want to give your attention to, rather than behaving habitually. You can recognise when you are engaged in unhelpful habits of thinking and can make the choice to change things. If we live our lives unconsciously things go unnoticed and can cause a worsening of our mood or increased symptoms of stress.
How yoga can help build emotional resilience
The word ‘Yoga’ means ‘Yoke’ in Sanskrit, and implies a harnessing together and a unifying of body and mind.
Somatic yoga is designed to help you become more embodied, or reconnected to your body. Being aware of one’s body as you move through space, within poses and sequences, often connected to your breath, and learning to listen to the feedback from the body as you move.
Slow mindful movements encourage a deeper sense of awareness and help to cultivate confidence, compassion, and emotional resilience. Through stretching, breathing, relaxation, and movement.
Your brain is always listening to your body, assessing heart rate, breathing rate, muscle tension, and all of the other bodily functions going on that we don’t have to consciously think about. Therefore, feeling safe, grounded, and connected to your body comes down to how you are feeling in your body, right now, in the moment!
Try this mindful Self-Connection practice
Allow yourself to be supported in a chair, or on the bed
Sigh a little to settle and lengthen your spine
Begin to slow down and deepen your breath
Invite a hand to your chest or belly, or both
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Get a sense of the touch points of your palms; feel their weight or heat
Notice the movement of your breath beneath your palms and between the belly and chest
Take three deep sighs as you exhale to anchor yourself
Connect to your physical body the moment, right here right now
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Cultivating space in your body with every breath
And perhaps relaxing your body that little bit more with every exhale
Ask yourself… What will support me today?
Noticing anything that comes up
Develop your self-awareness, feel less stressed & reconnect to your body
Movement and mindfulness become the solution to everyday stresses, a way to escape and reconnect. Body-mindful movement helps to calm the mind and release emotional stress from the body. Everything gets stuck from time to time so think about moving your body to help get things moving again.
If you're ready to lean into something different to be less stressed, build emotional resilience to change, and reconnect to your body, click here to check out my monthly wellness membership. This online community will support you to come back to the body, practicing body-mind movement and mindfulness from the comfort of your home.
You can explore the whole membership for 14 days when you sign up, for FREE!
Big Love,
Becki x