#13: Self-Awareness and Story
Comfort in Constant Change
Welcome to Recalibrating! My name is Callum (@_wanderloots)
Join me each week as I learn to better life in every way possible, reflecting and recalibrating along the way to keep from getting too lost.
Thanks for sharing the journey with me ✨
This week we are going to talk about story and finding your Voice through self-awareness and story.
The online version may be read here.
Introduction and Connection to Last week:
Last week, we levelled up to the third tier of Maslow's Hierarchy: Belonging and Love Needs. I discussed the value of finding True Community and developing why many people struggle with the idea of change.
This week, we are going to continue with the idea of change with some practical steps on how to embrace the value of change. I have prepared this entry as an introductory operating manual with steps to improve self-awareness and find your Voice through story.
Lack of Self-Awareness
"95% of people think they’re self-aware, but only 10-15% truly are." - Tasha Eurich
That's a pretty wild statistic. Almost everyone thinks they are self-aware, while relatively few people are.
But what does it actually mean to be self-aware? Verywell Mind has a good definition:
Being self-aware is all about having an understanding of your own thoughts, feelings, values, beliefs, and actions. It means that you understand who you are, what you want, how you feel, and why you do the things that you do.
The above definition can be thought of as internal self-awareness. There is also a component of self-awareness that is external: understanding how others see you.
Understanding how we see ourselves and how others see us can be difficult. It requires a shift in our perspective to begin noticing these aspects of our selves.
Recalibrating is a journey of self-actualization. Self-actualization requires a change of self, necessitating a certain comfortability with change and a reduction in fear of the unknown. Self-actualization is not possible unless we become aware of the "self" that is being actualized.
The concept of the "self" is one that has confused people for thousands of years, bringing up existential thoughts of what it means to be human.
Over these thousands of years, humans have developed an incredible means of understanding the self and communicating that understanding through the shared experience of story.
Story
Story provides a medium through which we can bring others into our experiences; we can show them a glimpse of our selves.
Story is how humans evolved to survive as part of a community. Traditionally, story was used to impart knowledge and wisdom for the sake of humanity's survival. See Wired for Story for great insight on this development.
We began with simple stories that were communicated by drawings and words: "don't eat that kind of berry, Joe did and he's dead now."
Over time, the stories got more complex, enabling humans to communicate across greater periods of time. We began to track seasons over years, star movements across decades. The complexity of story evolved, but the format has remained very consistent.
The Hero's Journey
One of the most common stories of identifying the self and watching its transformation is through Joseph Campbell's hero's journey.
The hero's journey is the age-old story of a hero living in the ordinary world (the known) before being thrust into adventure (willingly or unwillingly). The adventure occurs in the "special world", the unknown. The hero undergoes trials and tribulations, making friends and fighting enemies, developing skills along the way. The hero then reaches a climax where they undergo a transformation of the self, a test. Upon completion of the test, they receive a reward that they bring back to the ordinary world, transformed.
Joseph Campbell analyzed the structure of countless stories to identify the consistent elements of the hero's journey. He referred to "The Hero With 1000 Faces" as a monomyth, the single myth that permeates all stories.
While this may be a slight exaggeration, the structure of the hero's journey does find it's way into almost all stories, with slightly different variations in its structure.
Giulia Gartner and I talk in greater depth about the Value of Storytelling in our Podcast: The Bigger Picture.
If you would like to hear more about modern forms of storytelling through photography, creation, and film, I recommend giving the episode a listen. I'd love to hear your thoughts if you do! Note that these episodes are available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Amazon Music.
If you want to learn more about the different segments of the hero's journey, here is a good summary.
Each of us is the hero to our own story, but 80-85% of people are operating on auto-pilot, moving through life without much thought or intention. We avoid change at all costs, preferring to remain in the safe and unchanging ordinary world, the known.
We cannot grow without change. We cannot self-actualize without transforming the self.
How can we begin to change?
Overcoming Fears of Change and the Unknown
*Note that this section is going to be a bit metaphysical, so bear with me as I give context before providing more practical advice. Metaphysical = dealing with abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.
Fear of the unknown is a primal instinct that we have as humans. When we were preyed upon by other animals, this fear was quite valid. However, in modern times, most people do not need to let this primal fear rule them.
One reason we fear the unknown is because it takes us out of a place of safety, away from our source of stability (the ordinary world). Thus, we fear that our sense of safety may change, leading us to fear change itself.
This fear of change inhibits us from having new experiences. Our default is to revert back to the old sense of safety rather than risk the uncertain future.
There is the old saying "the only constant in life is change". While I agree that change is constant, I think that it is more helpful to consider what it means to have constant change.
Time never stops moving forwards. Each moment is unique. Our perception of the movement of time is also unique in the sense that each moment we experience will never happen again.
"You cannot step in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and you're not the same you" - paraphrased from Heraclitus
Not only is change constant, but so is our experience of life. In fact, the ever-changing nature of our experience is the only thing we can know with certainty.
To begin, let's consider what it means to experience.
Paying Attention to Change
Once you begin to pay attention and recognize that your experience is always changing, the thought of change begins to be less scary.
While we may think we are living in the known, we are in fact perpetually living in the unknown. Being mindful of this fact, that the present moment is always unknown, we can begin to become comfortable with the perpetual motion of our own experience.
The only stability in life is knowledge that the only stable aspect of life is constantly changing experience. The only constant is constant change.
This thought is uncomfortable. We like stability. We like consistency. We don't like change. It can take some time to wrap your head around becoming comfortable with perpetual change. Even thinking about these concepts can dysregulate people, triggering their fear response.
When you begin thinking of these concepts, you may start to notice dysregulation of others around you. A difficult topic comes up in conversation and people immediately look away, pulling out their phone to distract themselves from their discomfort rather than face it.
We have an instant distraction device on us at all times (phones, watches, computers), making it more and more difficult for people to learn to face their fears of change and the unknown. When the default response is to avoid the issue, we do not face our fears, preventing the hero's transformation of the self. We cannot grow or change. More on the topic of decreasing attention and its harmful impact can be found in Stolen Focus (I highly recommend reading this book).
But how are we to avoid our avoidance? How can we change our default response to one of acceptance rather than fear?
In the novel Dune, Frank Herbert uses the litany against fear to help in situations when fear has begun to control their behaviour:
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.If you want to learn more, here is a great article that summarizes the litany and its connection to psychology.
In my experience, most people do not control their fear. Their fear controls them. They have not woken up, operating in habit loops of reactivity rather than acts of intention.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness practice (often through meditation) provides an action we can take to improve our attention by noticing the ever-changing state of our reality. Try sitting still for a few minutes without doing anything. It is a strange feeling, but one that gets easier with practice.
As framed by Verywell Mind:
Meditation can be an especially useful practice because you don't have to worry about changing anything—simply noticing what happens during a meditation can bring greater awareness of your thoughts and feelings.
I also have an introduction on how to get started with mindfulness here, including a free month to the Waking Up app if you are interested in learning more. The Waking Up app also has a great business model where you can request a free year if you are unable to afford the cost. I did this for several years and recommend requesting the free year if you are hesitant about trying it.
With regular mindfulness practice (I recommend starting with 5-10 minutes of meditation first thing in the morning each day), people begin to "Wake Up" to their more self-aware state. They can become comfortable with sitting still while the world changes around them. Being present and aware despite the ever-changing nature of reality.
Thus, the first step to self-awareness is to pay attention to yourself and allow yourself to be without trying to do.
Journaling: Adding Stability to Change
By waking up and recognizing your fear (stress) response, you can begin to pay attention to your reality in a different manner than before. A shift in perspective.
Once you have come to terms with the fact that change is constant and not something to be feared, you can begin tracking how you react to experience itself. Which experiences do you enjoy? Which experiences cause you stress?
Stress is actually an excellent indicator that you are ready for change but have not become aware of it yet. Stress is the body's signal to you as the self-aware person that something is wrong and needs to change.
Through regular mindfulness, you can practice moving between the known and the unknown, getting more comfortable with the thought of change as you train yourself to avoid/regulate your fear response (see Entry # 10 on self-regulation).
In my opinion, the best place to be begin this process is by journaling. Journaling is an extremely helpful practice to improve your metacognition. More on metacognition in Entry #8 and Entry #10.
The act of writing your thoughts as words takes thoughts that are incomplete and confused and forces them into clarity on the page (digital or physical). The act of writing has been shown to improve cognitive understanding.
Even better, when you make writing your thoughts a habit through regular journaling, you begin to document your sense of experience across time. You are documenting change itself, helping you to become more comfortable with change as a concept that applies to your reality. You are changing sense of self in the macro sense.
Pattern Recognition
By documenting your experiences, you are able to analyze your past to identify patterns in your thinking to help you move through the future. These patterns in thinking introduce stability across time in an extremely valuable way.
Change may be constant, but if you can identify how you react in different situations (how you think and feel), you are able to become more comfortable with the thought of change itself, helping you to fight against the primal fear of uncertainty.
This type of thinking in patterns forms part of cognitive behavioural therapy, which I address more in Entry # 8.
Note that it can take months of journaling before you begin to recognize patterns to this level, though with practice, I have noticed patterns in my behaviour within a week of journaling about a particular activity or problem.
I personally use mindfulness to prompt myself for journaling. I listen to a session of Waking Up, such as the Nature of Now, and then I meditate on what the session was about. I sit down at my computer and open my specialized Daily Note in my Second Brain (which has a dedicated section for mindfulness) and I begin writing my thoughts and feelings from the mindfulness session.
After a few minutes, my journaling begins taking a more personal path and I start applying the mindfulness concepts to my own life and current problems. I develop my self-awareness over time and track the development of that self-awareness in an extremely valuable way.
Prompting myself with mindfulness solves the blank page problem of not knowing where to start (the unknown) by giving me a prompt related to my own experience as a starting point to begin journaling. Journaling also acts a form of self-therapy to help me work through issues in my life to improve my self-regulation and happiness.
I will be getting deeper into the topic of journalling and second brain building in with my paid subscribers. If you are interested in learning how to organize your thoughts better and to think differently, please consider supporting me by upgrading to a paid subscription ✨
Share Your Experiences With Like-Minded People
As patterns in your thinking emerge over time and you become aware of them through journaling and metacognition, you begin to have an idea of what your story is.
We are each the main character of our own story, the hero. Who are you? Who do you want to be?
While these are life-long questions to ask, having gone through the exercise of exploring your own cognition and emotions, you will begin to have a foundational point to return to throughout this journey of self-actualization.
I have spent much of this entry discussing internal self-awareness, developing an understanding of how to understand yourself.
By starting with internal self-awareness, you have a better idea on who "you" are. This information is valuable for helping you identify others you may resonate with, your people and community.
The next step is to develop your Voice, to craft your external self, and to share your story (experiences) with others.
These are people who resonate with your cognitive and emotional interests and accept you for who you are (True Community).
As noted in the last entry, this shared cognitive and emotional interest can be difficult to find in modern employment due to the conformity projected by corporations.
Thankfully, we have an incredible technology that allows us to find our people: the Internet.
The Future of Story
The Internet facilitates social networks on a scale that humans have never seen before. It is both a blessing (communication with friends, families, and fans) and a curse (instant distraction whenever we need it, FOMO and other mental health issues).
As stated in this Psychology Today article:
Social behavior maps to human survival. Social networks allow us to see, as never before, the interrelated nature of society and the palpable development of social capital from the emerging and intricate patterns of interpersonal relationships and collaboration. The strength of our networks and our bonds improve our agency and effectiveness in the environment. Our need for survival through connection plays out through every successful social technology. - Social Networks: What Maslow Misses
Technology is merely a tool. The ethics associated with the use of the tool depend on the wielder, the hero.
You.
Next week
The tools suggested this week are an excellent way to begin your journey of self-awareness on the path of self-actualization. Mindfulness and meditation help improve attentions spans and comfort with change.
Journaling about your experience helps identify patterns in your thinking, enabling greater control over the change that occurs in your life as you develop an understanding of your own story.
Sharing your story with others helps foster community and can provide feedback for what resonates with you.
Next week, we'll get deeper into sharing stories and how to do so in a mentally safe way online.
Stay tuned ✨
P.S. I am almost done my first paid entry for this newsletter, available only to paid subscribers. In this paid entry I touch on Apple's latest keynote event "Wonderlust" and the hints they have provided for the future of technology, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. If you find my commentary valuable, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription ✨