UNCOMMON OPINION ON LACK OF SELF-AWARENESS
Instead of oversimplying a person’s lack of self awareness by telling them to take a good look in the mirror and realize that they must take responsibility for their own life, I believe it is wiser to dig deeper for those of us that do not lack self awareness to share grace and empathy, if we have the capacity.
Sharing is a gift.
Sharing grace is a beautiful emotional and spiritual gift more valuable than any physical one.
At the end of the day, aren’t we all just overcoming challenges as we walk each other home ?
Be kind.
It would be kind to share with grace and empathy our awareness with those who do not have or those who have less self awareness. A lack of self awareness may be attributed to several influential cultural forces, a variety of learning environments, relationships, organizations and of course a person’s childhood climate.
Understand those who lack self awareness
As humans, as big or as small our character flaws may be, we are not reduced to our biggest flaws.
We are more than that. We are a spiral of forces that have influenced our life starting from childhood to the present cultural climate. Think about sexuality or absence thereof. Think about healthy and unhealhty relationships. Think about career trajectories. Think about values. Think about mothers, fathers, siblings, grandparents, great grandparents, extended family and the roles they have played in our lives and how they have impacted us. Think of attachment patterns.Think of intimacy blueprints. Think of oppression. Think of early traumas. Think about elementary school to college and beyond. How has these organizations reinforce or counter things we learned at home from our family? How has these social systems and the environment they create define our characters? Think of religion, political systems, laws, geographical location, racism, sexism, capitalism, and all the rest of the ism and how they may be an influential factor that influence who we are? How may they be influential factor that influence our flaws, our gifts, our talents and our qualities. Or how may they be influential force to why we are oblivious to certain issues in society and within ourselves.
As we reflect, the challenge is to think of our blindspots, think about what is absent. We are a culmination of all our known and unknown mistakes, faults and misadventures. We are also a culmination of all of our known and unknown triumphs, accomplishments, acts of kindness and shinning moments.
What we know and are aware of is just the beginning of a larger much needed conversation which is what we do not know and why we do not know what we do not know.
What has been left out in our reflections and left out of our conversations? And since it’s missing how can we be fully sure of what is absent in our self reflections? And maybe those who claim to be self aware are only self aware to a certain extend because how can we fully be aware of what we do not know if we do not know ?
Author Anne Katherine, M.A. states:
“Focusing on survival always eclispse development. How can your self-awareness expand if you’re cold or if light deprivation is robbing you of energy ?”
(extract of book: Boundaries where you end and I begin)
Growing up they consistenly did not get their needs met and as a result they can not emotionally cope. There was a sporadic, consistent or unpredictable overwhelm where dissociation became a chronic state. Often times, when there is a dysregulation a caregiver is there to help us co-regulate and identify what is really happening and create safety which calms our nervous system. It’s the atunement connection with the infant or child from the caregiver that allows the coregulation to happen. Co-regulation helps with self-regulation.
But when our nervous system experience dysregulation due to XYZ and we are left to deal with XYZ with a infant brain or child brain our only way out is to cope by dissociating because the present moment is not safe. Children and infants brains are not fully developed or meant to understand. It is a trauma response where one disconnect physically and mentally from the environment they are in. Being dissociated for extended periods, one might have a lack of memories, or confusion as to what is reality and what is not reality. Our reality or our experience can also consistently be denied or ignored and this denial may alter our ability to truly see ourselves. Theses state may be problematic when come times to self reflect and build self awareness.
Some people who lack awareness often have unhealed emotional wounds. Some people did not grow up in an environment that was warm and safe. In response there was an adaptation or construction of our own sense of internal safety by developping a belief system about ourselves, others and the world to explain the neglect, deprivation experienced. These belief become a reflex similar to walking or swallowing. In this example the reflex can be: not asking for help, keeping our “self’’ internal, giving care but not receiving. It can also look like a pervasive relational patterns of neglect meaning pursuing avoidant or unavailable partners, a lack of touch, a lack of affection, or not pursuing emotional intimacy at all.
Yes, therapy may help but the truth is that we live in a culture that ignores and belittles abuse at home, at school, at work, within religious organizations, within legal systems and even within healthcare systems.
Here’s an unpopular opinion about lack of self awareness: instead of sharing our own perspective on a person lack of self awareness, how can we be supportive ? Can we learn to tolerate people’s limitations? Can we honor the people we claim to love for what they are able to give instead of what they can't give? Sure we can cut people that lack self-awareness, it’s an option- but here’s an option for people that choose not to cut people who lack self awareness out.
With a posture of grace, mercy and empathy can we just be a friend, not a consultant, just a friend ?
Help those who lack self awareness
One thing that may help individuals who lack self awareness is: attunement.
Dr. Dan Siegel says, “When we attune with others we allow our own internal state to shift, to come to resonate with the inner world of another. This resonance is at the heart of the important sense of “feeling felt” that emerges in close relationships. Children need attunement to feel secure and to develop well, and throughout our lives we need attunement to feel close and connected.”
‘A strict definition of attunement ‘is a kinesthetic and emotional sensing of others knowing their rhythm, affect and experience by metaphorically being in their skin, and going beyond empathy to create a two-person experience of unbroken feeling connectedness by providing a reciprocal affect and/or resonating response’. (Erksine 1998).
The ability to be attuned or tune into really comes down to how connected to people we are in the moment to moment, and how successfully we can communicate that to them. Our responses, our care, our help and our interventions are then all a result of this attunement. Attunement is similar to being able to recognize and appropriately respond to a person’s emotion beyond empathy.
To bring back discusion about nervous systems. During the first few years of life the ability of a mother, father or caregiver to be attuned to the needs of a infant is crucial to that infants development. This attunement is instrumental to a child’s ability to learn to regulate their nervous system and deal with distressing events when they happen. When a parent or a caregiver consistently fails to be attuned different types of insecure attachment can be formed and/or a lack of self awareness can appear. One could say that a caregiver’s attunement is the building block to how one learns to be connected to others, the building block to how one builds relationships with others and the building block to how one builds a relationships with themselves, as well as feels safe in the world.
Some infants and children weren’t seen or heard as children. Sometimes they are born in total chaos. It is a heavy weight and a heavy burden to be born in a family with inconsistent caregivers, and other close family members that have been dealing with their own personal struggles, traumas within the family the child is born in. Where is the space to be seen or to be heard in chaos and disfunction ? Are their feelings ignored ? Is there space for attunement ? What does that infant cling on to? How does that infant feel safe in a unsafe environment? The child is left alone to survive, create it’s own sense of safety and sometimes that looks like dissociation. And so if a child is used to dissociation, growing up as a adult this child might still dissociate the way some of us breathe. Its unconscious. How can you be conscious of your reality or your present state if you aren’t present ?
In addition to dissociation as a survival skill and then when they are present some may learn to put other’s needs and/or problems in front of their own. They learn to solve problems in which they are born in and not responsible for because that’s their way to communicate that they may want to be seen and perhaps even heard. Solving problems that aren’t their own may be like riding a bike for them. And so as adults with these skills of problem-solving and a strong ability to dissociate they have never looked at the menu of their own self, the menu of their own needs, the menu of their own wants and the menu of their emotions.
The possibilities are infinite. Or maybe in the past they have dared to ask for their needs to be met and they have been rejected. As adults they prefer the pain of not asking over the pain of not receiving because they learned that their parents and or their caregiver were not able to give them love/attention. In return, they learn not to expect and/or want anything more than what they receive.
With time, the absence of receiving, linked to the perpetual absence of asking, tied with absence of love/attention, associated with the absence of expectation can suppress emotions and ultimately create a pattern of unexpressed emotions.
That being said, challenging adult features such as lack of self awareness in a adult life does not necessarily mean it is rooted in childhood. That would be an oversimplification of humanity. As mentioned earlier, considering the cultural influences that have influenced our lives is as important. Our environment and social systems also play a role.
The reason attunement is key is because attunement will connect to the unexpressed emotional part of a person that lack self awareness. And by connecting to the unexpressed emotional part of a person that lacks self awareness it gives a voice to a part of that person that is unexpressed. And voicing the unexpressed emotion creates space. It creates an opportunity for the person who lacks self awareness to become self aware of their unexpressed emotions. As a result of this attunement at that moment they may gain self awareness. Little by little the more they connect with attuned people the more their own self awarenss gains a greater range of motion.
Redefining the struggle of those who lack self awareness
Self awareness is a resource. Self awareness is a quality. Being a friend or a person that is attuned is the recommended action to take share the struggle of a person who lack self awarenss. Telling someone to look into the mirror causes a disconnect and is not actually helpful. With a lack of self awareness attunement is more important than empathy and more helpful than compassion. The person may not have the vocabulary to name what their relational needs are. For them past relational dynamics, whether at home, at school, at work, or within organizations mostly used their problem-solving skills. They may not have developped the ability to be assertive and ask for what they need because they simply do not know what they need. Whether they acknowledge it or not, when we take the time to make ourselves available to share, to support and to be of service to those who struggle with a lack of self awareness the human bond and connection that is formed can actually releases oxytocin. When we share struggles and hardship, we can biologically grow closer. Oxytocin makes us social. It is because of oxytocin that we feel human connections and like being in the company of people we like. Our brain are wired to release oxytocin when in the presence of our tribe. Oxytocin boost our immune systems, makes us better problem solver and makes us more resistant to the addictive qualities of dopamine.
One may argue that it is our relationships- not work, not money, not fame- or our connectedness to ourselves -that provide the most meaning and quality to our lives.
Can a ties be made with the enslavement of people and self awareness ?
What is the level of self awareness of survivors of social terror, cultural murder and physical torment ? When you are consistently depicted as an object how do you tune into your humanity ?
What is the level of human self awareness of humans who choose to deliberately enslave another human ? Are they not self aware of their own humanity or the humanity of others? Or is a superiority complex such as white supremacy a lack of self awareness ? Did Hitler suffer from a lack of self awareness ? Did colonizer suffer from a lack of self awareness? Did the Hutu suffer from a lack of self awareness? A lack of self awareness as a cause of genocide and enslavement of other people can be a oversimplification of humanity but nonetheless helping those who lack self awareness is crucial. Because cancelling those who lack self awareness might be a life or death situation.
As mentioned earlier, one can try connecting to the unexpressed emotional part of a person that lack self awareness by being attuned. Thus attunement can creates an opportunity for the person who lacks self awareness to become self aware of their unexpressed feelings, emotions, ideas and thought patterns. As a result of this attunement at that moment they may gain a little self awareness which in the long run can make a big difference in their lives and the lives of other because all our lives are interrelated.
