Meditation and Awareness.

Continuing this series on the “rewards” of meditation, the topic of this post is increased self-awareness. 

First, a quick primer on self-awareness and reasons why we would want to improve it in the first place. 

Self-awareness is the ability to objectively interpret our own thoughts, feelings, and actions. It helps us better assess our life direction, our personal growth, and manage our emotions. 

Individuals with high levels of self-awareness are able to determine how well their behaviors are aligning with their core values. Like the other “rewards” discussed in this series, it is a skill crucial to living a joyful and fulfilling life. 

(As mentioned in previous posts, a meditation practice can also be helpful in the initial development of core values, life tenets, etc. Once they are established, maintaining consistency with a practice provides the opportunity to assess day to day alignment with said values. Basically, it keeps you on a path you have identified you want to be on.)

Increasing self-awareness is also beneficial to personal and romantic relationships. An individual who is able to regulate their own feelings and emotions is someone you want to be around - they are often great partners and friends. 

Further developing self-awareness also leads to an eventual improvement in recognizing the emotions of others, leading to greater attunement with the world around us. 

Finally, folks with high levels of self-awareness are often better leaders - able to check their own biases and and better include the perspectives of others.  

So what role does meditation play in all of this?

In meditation we are training our ability to “expand the amount of time it can rest in awareness” - basically, just teaching ourselves how to “zoom out”. 

When we do this, we are able to create a buffer from our thoughts that typically drive our emotional state and behavior. This often leads to slower and healthier responses to the inevitable twists and turns life provides and also a sense of freedom as we are able to start “holding things” that once held us. 

Meditation also leads to a silencing of internal chatter and judgment, creating a deeper and more loving relationship with ourselves. 

The end result of all of  this is reduced stress, better romantic relationships and friendships, and generally just more joy as we cruise through life. 

“Awareness is not the same as thinking. It is a complementary form of intelligence, a way of knowing that is at least as wonderful and as powerful, if not more so, than thinking.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn