For decades, a billion-dollar self-help industry has been built around helping people find their true selves, discover their purpose, and unearth buried emotions, but I’m here to tell you that they’re wrong. People view self-awareness like money. If you have none, then you desperately need to get some, but if you even have some, you can always benefit from having more.
But recent evidence suggests that self-awareness is not like money; it’s a lot more like medicine. If you’re sick, you need some, but if you’re already healthy, too much could make you sick. In this article, we’ll explore the paradoxical nature of self-awareness, how it can both aid and hinder us, and what steps we can take to navigate this delicate balance.
Unraveling Therapy’s Mysteries
To understand how self-awareness can cut both ways, we need to start by taking a deeper look at a practice we’re all probably familiar with: therapy.
Despite data from millions of people over a century, psychologists still don’t totally understand why therapy works. Over the past hundred years, clinical psychology has produced as many forms of therapy as Adam Sandler has cheesy rom-com movies. The field is an alphabet soup of modalities. You’ve got CBT, AEDP, DBT, IPT, ACT, CPP, SFBI, and REBT. You’ve got gestalt, existential, interpersonal, Rogerian, Jungian, humanistic, regression, psychoanalysis, and of course everybody’s favorite, family therapy.
With so many approaches to therapy, researchers were rightly curious about which ones were the most effective. So, they ran a bunch of studies to see which therapies produce the best results, and the answer will probably surprise you. It’s all of them; they all work. Well, kind of. Pretty much every modality produces, on average, relatively similar results. Some have slightly better results than others, but on the whole, just that you’re doing therapy has way more impact than the type of therapy you choose.
Dozens of studies have struggled to find measurable benefits to the therapist’s training and credentials. Many studies show that people benefit from speaking to thoughtful amateurs just as much as professionals. Now, this is kind of stunning because it suggests that the content of the therapy itself isn’t that important for all the theorizing and frameworks over the last 150 years from Sigmund Freud to Dr. Phil.
What seems to be important is simply getting a person in a room regularly to talk about their problems to another thoughtful and attentive human being. That’s the 1% that drives 99% of the results. The value of therapy isn’t the therapy; it’s the context, the environment.
Journaling: Therapy’s Unsung Hero
So if most of the value of therapy is merely getting into a room and critically discussing your own thoughts, ideas, and emotions, couldn’t you just call a trusted friend and do it with them instead? Do we even need therapy at all?
It turns out, you don’t. This is probably why journaling is so effective. You are essentially accomplishing the same things as most therapy. You are creating a context in which you can express your feelings non-judgmentally to consider those feelings more objectively. And it turns out, in some ways, this might even be superior to therapy.
Understanding the Mechanics of Self-Awareness
So, why does writing out our thoughts and feelings on a piece of paper help us? Hell, why does sitting in a quiet room and meditating, observing our thoughts and feelings help us?
Well, it’s because doing these things help us dis-identify with whatever we’re experiencing. Let me explain.
The philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer argued that consciousness can be divided into two parts, the subject and the object. Think of the subject as the observer and the object as whatever is observed. Both aspects are required in consciousness. There’s always something being watched and something doing the watching. Generally, we are the subject of our consciousness; some external thing is the object. The microphone I’m speaking into is currently the object of my consciousness, it’s what I’m focusing on and paying attention to, but thoughts and feelings can also be the object of our consciousness. I can sit here and imagine the amazing dinner I’m gonna eat tonight; now that is my consciousness’s object.
As long as I am the subject and some external thought or thing is the object, then all of my feelings, impulses, and desires are bundled up into some intangible subjectivity known as I. This I is then not analyzed or considered. After all, it’s not separate. This unexamined subject is often referred to as the ego. It’s only when we focus on ourselves and make our thoughts and feelings the object of our consciousness that we can differentiate them and put them into perspective.
“Oh, I’m feeling angry today and didn’t realize it.” What was once the subject of my consciousness, my feeling of anger, is now the object of my consciousness and is now separate from me. Once separate from me, I can consider my anger as though it were not me. I can ask myself, “Why does it exist? “What’s the purpose? “Is it useful? “Should I even care?”
Ultimately, all the stuff you and I learn are just tools for building self-awareness and chipping away at our ego. Therapy does this by some thoughtful person inviting us to express ourselves and then helping us analyze our thoughts and feelings. Journaling does this by getting us to write down our thoughts and feelings, and then meditation does this by helping us observe our thoughts and feelings as though they’re separate from ourselves.
The Pitfalls of Excessive Self-Awareness
However, despite the benefits, we must acknowledge a flip side to self-awareness. Let’s dive into the potential downsides.
Let’s return to the example of therapy. Let’s say you’ve been seeing a therapist for a couple years, and in that time you’ve learned much about yourself and made much progress on problems. Tell me about that. You like your therapist and you feel some sense of loyalty to them. Yes, yes, yes, okay. But then, something weird starts happening. You start showing up to your therapy sessions with nothing to talk about. And how does that make you feel? But you want to keep improving and working on yourself, right? So you start thinking about “What could I talk to my therapist about?” And that’s where the problem starts.
Before, you simply came in and unloaded the big and heavy stresses and emotions that were burdening you, but now you’re actively scanning through your life, looking for anything that’s even somewhat uncomfortable, even the light little things, because you want to keep the process going.
Let’s say you’ve been at your new job for a year now, but you still don’t feel like you connect your coworkers. Now that you’re thinking about it, you’ve never connected with your coworkers. It’s always taken you a really long time to make friends, which has caused frustration and loneliness throughout your life. Why is that?
Your therapist predictably asks about your childhood. You mentioned that your mother was very protective. It would be like her to discourage new friendships with people you didn’t know well. Next thing you know, a faint memory materializes in your mind of your mother warning you against playing with kids across the street. You don’t remember where or how this happened, but you have this vivid image in your head of her standing above you, saying scary things about people you don’t know. Wow, another breakthrough, or is it?
What’s actually happening in this example is likely not self-awareness but self-delusion, and it’s dangerous because the two can feel exactly the same.
Navigating the Path to Healthy Self-Awareness
So, how do we avoid falling into the trap of excessive self-awareness? Here are some strategies:
- Reframe Discomfort: Stop seeing discomfort or challenges as something to be solved or fixed. Anxiety is a natural and healthy part of life. Anger can be useful. Fear helps you stay alive. These are not problems to be unpacked and solved but rather simple feedback, and you don’t always have to take it.
- Don’t Invent Problems: Don’t fix what’s not broken. If your life is going well, then let it go well. Don’t look for problems or inflate small problems into bigger ones. And if someone in your life pressures you to pathologize the normal, be explicit and tell them that’s exactly what they’re doing, and to go fuck themselves.
- Stay Active: Get some physical activity. The best way to quell an overactive mind is to keep the body busy. Not only will you feel better, but some physical activity will keep your mind off things.
- Let Go: Stop giving a fuck. If you’re upset about something you can’t change or control, just let it go. And if you’re still struggling to do that, seek guidance from resources like books or professionals.
In conclusion, while self-awareness is a powerful tool for personal growth and understanding, it’s crucial to recognize its limitations and potential pitfalls. By approaching self-awareness with a balanced perspective and employing strategies to maintain healthy boundaries, we can harness its benefits while avoiding the dangers of excessive introspection.
So next time you dive deep into self-analysis, remember to tread carefully, for the path to self-awareness is paradoxical.
And remember, sometimes the most profound insights come from simply letting go and embracing the present moment.