Growing Your Self Awareness

By Michaela Choy, AMFT

This poem is a beautiful representation of how we grow and change. It acknowledges our pull to the familiar; we are patterned beings, the longer we’ve done something a certain way (manage conflict, date, etc.) the harder it feels to show up differently. And, good news, it’s also very possible to show up differently.

The path to growing our self awareness is winding and not linear. It’s common to have moments where you break harmful patterns and then moments of sticking to them. Just because you fall back into a pattern doesn’t mean you’ve regressed. It means that is a big pull for you that you will need to watch and take care of.

As we are confronted with our patterns, we build awareness of what we are doing. And we must give ourselves compassion in choosing the familiar path even when we see the alternatives. I have deep respect for where old patterns come from and how they’ve benefited us. At some point, your old pattern most likely served, protected, or helped you survive.

Too much compassion, however, can leave you stuck, so we must be accountable for our behavior. We must commit to building awareness of our patterns, find choice points, and do the newer, harder thing. When we deepen our self awareness, we must hold compassion AND accountability tightly.