Self Awareness Talk: The Yoga Of Resilience For Challenges

In week 3 of the Yoga of Resilience Series, we will look at how Self-Awareness is the foundation for effective self-regulation and a core skill within yoga. Working with the questions "How do I (really) feel?" and "What do I need?" as a regular practice of checking in builds the skill of inner awareness. This awareness allows you to tend to yourself, change unhelpful patterns, and offer self-soothing before life becomes overwhelming. This is about knowing yourself deeply & caring for yourself effectively.

Transcript

Welcome to week three of working on the skills that build resilience through the practice of yoga.

This week we are talking about the skill of self-awareness and we're building on the topics that we've looked at of growth mindset,

Big picture of understanding that change is possible and we have some influence over how that change happens when we keep our hands on that metaphorical steering wheel and building on the concept of self-agency that there is choice moment to moment of what we want to put our energy and our effort toward but also choice of how we want to meet our experience and that's going to be really helpful as we start to look at self-awareness,

This U-turn of bringing our attention inward,

Paying attention to our own experience because the way that we do that is very important.

Self-awareness can easily step into self-criticism or self-judgment and start to feed into some unhelpful patterns so we have to be really careful to make sure that our mind is in the right space,

In the right attitude before we go through this process of self-awareness.

So let's look at what this concept of self-awareness is and it's really,

I always think of it like a U-turn.

We almost always have our awareness out in the world of where we're going,

What we're doing,

What we're trying to accomplish and this is this U-turn of gathering your awareness in,

Paying attention to your inner experience in a lot of different ways but being curious so that you can know yourself better and I love that.

Yoga is a vehicle to be more connected to ourselves and to really know who we are.

So when we look at a little bit more detail of what self-awareness is,

There is a clear and honest understanding of some of your inner workings,

Your thought patterns,

Your feelings and sensations that you experience in your body,

What your personal strengths or weaknesses are.

We all have things that we're better at and things that are challenging for us.

Patterns of behavior,

Patterns of choices,

How we react to different things.

So it's a lot that can go into this process of paying attention and noticing.

And the other aspect of self-awareness that's very important for our interpersonal relationships and just our relationship with the outside world in general is understanding how our own behaviors,

Words,

Choices impact the people and the world around us in a larger scope.

Okay,

So understanding yourself,

Understanding the ripple effect that that has to those around you.

And this ability to turn your attention inward and self-reflect is the foundation,

It's kind of the starting point for self-regulation.

Self-regulation is the process of noticing how you feel and giving yourself some inputs to move in a direction that is helpful or constructive.

It's a process of self-support.

So awareness of what is here in your experience from that place of understanding,

Choosing how you want to move forward.

There's that choice that we were talking about with self-agency.

Perhaps it's simply the choice of how you want to meet this moment and what's coming up in your life.

Looking at self-awareness through these four different segments,

Starting with how this plays out on our yoga mat.

This is such an important piece here.

I see the cultivation of self-awareness and the thought patterns pulling your skills of observation and curiosity into your own experience as one of the most important things that we practice in yoga and meditation.

That pulling in of your attention because as I said before,

We get so good at paying attention to the outside world and being very externally focused,

Goal-focused,

That it creates a disconnect from ourselves and it's a really common experience to feel like you don't really know who you are or you don't understand why you do certain things can create this lack of trust and lack of depth with the relationship to yourself.

So self-awareness is how we deepen that relationship to yourself.

It's how we start to understand and kind of connect the dots of why did I say those things?

Why are these behavior patterns showing up regularly?

So within our practice,

Usually when you come to a yoga class,

You will start with a centering.

It can look like a bunch of different things,

But it's settling on your mat,

Drawing your attention in.

Sometimes the teacher will have you focus on your breath or feel support under your body,

But all of that is just an invitation for your awareness to come in.

Often we will close our eyes so that we're not looking around the room,

Comparing ourselves to other people or thinking about external things.

So closing your eyes,

If that feels safe,

Can be a way to really draw attention in.

That's the process that you're going through.

The transition into yoga or meditation practice is quite a challenging shift for our brain,

For our energy to pull in.

And then throughout the practice,

We are working on staying in that space of being immersed in our experience,

The sensations in the body,

Noticing the thoughts in the mind,

Hopefully without getting carried away with them,

Being aware of any emotional responses that come up without feeling like we're drowning in them.

And that's a constant relationship that we're trying to strengthen throughout the span of the yoga practice,

Bringing yourself back to what is my experience?

What am I going through right now?

And then when you step off of your mat,

It is taking that awareness,

That feedback loop with you.

When we're in the rest of the world,

We can't have that strong of a degree of constant internal awareness.

Of course,

We have to be watching what's going on around us,

Interacting with other people.

But it's this ability to touch base with yourself throughout the day so that you don't end up completely disconnected.

I know it was an interesting experience for me when I would be at work and things would get really busy and I would get toward the end of the day and be like,

I'm starting to get a little headache.

And then I would realize I have not had a sip of water since I walked in the door because it's been go,

Go,

Go.

So there was this complete external focus of accomplishing the tasks of my work day,

Not even realize that I was slowly dehydrating because I was so externally focused.

So that's an interesting thing that can really happen in a lot of different aspects of our life.

How do we prevent that disconnect from happening?

It is working with these questions in our practice of how do I feel?

Not the surface level,

Small talk kind of,

How are you doing today?

How's your day going?

Fine.

Right?

That's very surface level,

Just kind of a nice back and forth interaction.

When we ask ourselves,

How do I feel,

I always like to say,

How do I really feel?

Because it cuts through that expectation of,

Well,

We're supposed to be calm and fine all the time.

Right?

Like we practice yoga.

Nothing is supposed to ruffle our feathers.

But the reality of being a human is that we're not going to be calm or fine all the time.

And when we acknowledge that and notice it,

It actually is a huge source of power and connection.

Recognizing when you're not okay.

Recognizing when you need something.

Okay?

So these are the questions that we can work with.

When you step into your practice with a very kind voice,

Asking yourself,

How do I really feel right now?

Notice what's there.

There's nothing that's,

You know,

Not allowed.

You can feel any way that you feel.

And then the follow-up question is,

What do I need?

Is there anything that I need at this moment?

And again,

That could be anything.

You might need a rest.

You might need to drink some water.

You might need to speak kindly to yourself and offer yourself reassurance.

There's so many different things that we might need.

But practicing these questions of drawing your awareness in and touching base with yourself so that you can use that as the point to craft your practice and outside of your mat to craft your day.

Okay.

So it really brings us back to this concept of yoga mat,

Meditation cushion,

Or chair is usually where I meditate,

Or my couch.

Wherever your practice happens,

That is your laboratory for understanding,

Curious,

Kind awareness,

Noticing these patterns that come up.

It is observing how you interact with the elements of your practice.

When a certain pose comes up,

When a certain breath is used,

Does it change sensation in your body?

Does it shift your mental focus?

Does it bring up an emotional reaction?

Kind curious awareness to say,

Huh,

When I did that pose,

A lot of self judgment came up.

I see that.

Okay.

So you get to recognize that pattern.

This is the process that we're using to create a greater understanding of yourself and what kind of support you might need.

And within practice,

You know,

Sometimes it's hard for us to admit,

But self judgment can come up in so many different ways,

Whether it's,

You know,

The way that our body does move or doesn't move,

The shape of our body,

The sensations that are there.

There can be so much judgment and so much criticism that can find its way in little sneaky corners of our practice.

And noticing that can really help us to understand a little bit of what's going on underneath that and figure out where we're going to put some energy toward to create more supportive patterns.

When does the experience of relaxation arise?

That can be such a helpful thing to take note of when you're building relationship with your practice.

There's a certain breath that you do and afterwards you just,

Oh,

My nervous system feels like it is so different now.

That breath was very impactful for me.

You start to have that understanding of what your patterns are,

What your responses are.

Okay.

So it's constant noticing and awareness of how you interact with all these different elements.

And that kind of fills your toolbox of understanding how you personally interact with these things.

There's no right or wrong with any of this,

But it's very personal.

And to really wrap that up of saying,

You know,

It's not the pose that is the most important part of our practice.

It is the relationship,

The relationship of how you meet your thoughts,

Your feelings,

Your sensations that come up in practice.

It is the relationship that you are crafting.

Okay.

So in yoga philosophy,

I'm going to start with kundalini because in kundalini there's this concept of,

This really comes from the 10 bodies or these 10 different layers.

But my favorite piece of this to talk about are the three aspects of the mind because you can really watch this play out in real time in your life.

The three aspects of the mind are the positive mind,

The neutral mind,

And the negative mind.

You can think of them like a lens that we're looking at our life through.

And you've probably had the experience of just waking up kind of in a bad mood where everything is a little irritating,

Everything is not going the way that you wanted it to go.

And you're like,

Man,

I'm really like in a funk today.

You're in that negative mind.

Okay.

So you can kind of think of it like shifting gears,

Moving a little bit toward neutral mind,

Which we talk a lot about with discernment.

It's this very clear,

Like wipe off that lens so it's not dirty.

Look at the things that are unfolding in front of you with a very clear,

Neutral observation.

Or positive mind is this experience of looking at everything kind of through rose colored glasses,

Right?

Like everything's great.

Things will work out,

That kind of mindset.

And you know,

Sometimes there's some overlap.

Absolutely.

The mind is quite complex,

But watch how you might shift between these different mind states and be very aware if you wake up or you find yourself at some point in a negative mindset,

This is probably not the time to do some self-reflection about,

You know,

How your performance has been over the past three weeks or what you should be working on or any of these things.

When you're in a negative mindset,

If you start self-reflecting,

It's probably going to shift very quickly toward self-criticism.

Just looking for all the mistakes that you've made and,

You know,

Pulling that up into the front of your awareness,

Which is not going to be a helpful process.

So instead,

We might do some yoga or meditation and that can help us to shift into that neutral clear awareness.

That's the space where self-awareness will be the most helpful.

We're not kind of skewed toward everything is great or everything is terrible.

It's this middle ground of let me just look at what is so I know where I'm at.

That's where self-awareness is going to be the most supportive.

So you can watch yourself shift between those different mind states and see we are cultivating the witness awareness and it is that ability to discern of looking at what is there clearly because we have to know what is to make the choice of where we want to go next.

So discernment has been coming up over and over again and it makes sure that we don't shift into that self-criticism because when we all have an honest moment,

Most of us would say that we have a pretty harsh inner critic that likes to pop up from time to time and we have to be really aware of that so that we don't feed into it because I'll talk a little bit more in a bit.

It is not helpful and it is not constructive.

Self-criticism is not motivation.

Okay,

I'll say that again because I know somebody needs to hear that.

Self-criticism is not motivation.

Very clear in the research,

It does not motivate us.

So no need to beat yourself up,

Not helpful.

But as we go a little bit deeper into the yoga philosophy,

We look at the niyama or the internal observance that yoga tells us is essential to this process of truly knowing ourselves and that is my favorite Sanskrit word to say,

Svadhyaya.

Svadhyaya is self-study.

Very different from self-judgment.

It is rooted in neutral mind,

Clear seeing,

And discernment of how to move forward.

Really helps to build that bridge from self-awareness to self-agency.

What is here,

Let me look at it clearly and honestly,

Even when that is uncomfortable because we all know when you turn that mirror towards yourself,

It can be really hard to look at our negative habits or self-criticism or some of these kind of darker shadowy things that we all have.

It's hard to look at them.

So when we turn that awareness in,

It's not necessarily always comfortable,

But when we see it clearly,

We will know how to move forward,

What choice to make.

And the last thing that I want to say about this connection between self-awareness and yoga philosophy is from Sutra 1.

33.

There's a lot to that sutra,

But the one piece that I just want to highlight is this word karuna.

And karuna is a great word because some people take this as their spiritual name.

I've known a couple people who go by the name karuna and they're usually very warm,

Grounded people and they truly embody compassion,

Specifically compassion towards suffering or difficulty.

So this is what we're going to talk about a little bit more as we move forward.

It's one of the biggest patterns that I see with people going through this process of,

Okay,

I'm going to pay more attention to my patterns,

But it very quickly kicks over into that's terrible,

Why did I do that kind of self-criticism,

When what we're actually being steered toward,

Especially when we look at the yoga philosophy and some of the modern psychology research is that we meet suffering with kindness.

We meet it with compassion.

Very often it is easier to do that for other people than it is for ourselves,

But that's why we practice these U-turns.

So let's get into the psychology a little bit more.

The phrase that I really love right now is saying to yourself,

Don't ignore,

Explore.

You can say this when difficult feelings come up and our tendency is like,

I don't want to look at that,

That's uncomfortable.

But when we don't look at it,

When we kind of shove it over into a corner,

We're going to have to sort through it later.

You're just making future work for yourself.

So instead,

We build this pattern of exploring what is here and in therapy,

In psychology,

The term that we like to talk about is called interoception,

Which just think like inner perception,

Turning your awareness into sensations,

Feelings,

Emotions,

Like what is that experience in my body?

What signals are coming through?

Let me notice that.

This is really hard for those of us who are very intellectual overthinkers.

The comfort zone is kind of staying from the neck up,

Like I'm going to think this through and I'm going to solve all the problems so that I don't have to pay attention to those pesky feelings down in my body,

Right?

A lot of people,

That's the comfort zone,

Like neck up.

So we know with processing emotions and understanding our emotional patterns,

Having that self-awareness of kind of how feelings show up in the body,

That interoception is a skill that we want to build.

The more you're able to understand your inner sensations and kind of connect that with the emotions that you're going through,

You'll have a better understanding like,

Oh,

That pit in my stomach,

This is anxiety.

I'm nervous about giving that talk later.

I understand that that sensation is part of this experience of feeling unsure how this is going to go.

It's okay for that to be here.

It's part of this process.

So that's kind of the way that you're meeting some of your internal sensations.

That self-awareness allows you to step in and offer yourself comfort before things escalate to the point of complete overwhelm or of completely shutting down.

Very important.

When you notice that you're starting to experience some distress and you come in with support,

You come in with self-compassion instead of criticism or trying to like erase that feeling,

It will help you to find that way forward,

Exactly what we're doing here in this work of resilience.

Okay,

So it's not about trying to control everything and this is kind of mirroring from the last talk.

This is not about the grip of control.

It is looking at what's here clearly so that you know how to meet it skillfully,

So that you know how to take care of yourself and support yourself through that experience.

When we catch it early,

When you start to understand your signs and symptoms of when you're getting overwhelmed and then you can offer yourself some soothing or some space,

Maybe some somatic yoga practices,

Maybe a bit of breath regulation,

Whatever it is,

You start to use those skills to calm and to ground so that you can stay engaged with the experience,

So that you don't shut down,

So that you don't feel completely overwhelmed.

Okay,

That's part of what we call our window of tolerance.

It's like very often shown as kind of this rectangle of these are the things that I can manage well,

Where I feel safe and I have the capacity and the skills to meet these things.

When we start to get really challenged and we move outside of that window of tolerance,

It can feel very distressing.

And when we spend too much time in that like distress area,

Overwhelm,

Shut down is the place that our nervous system will go.

So what we're doing is trying to notice when we start to touch the edges of that,

Right?

It's a term we love in yoga,

Like we're working our edge and we're reassuring ourselves that this is uncomfortable,

But it's safe.

This feeling of sadness is not comfortable,

But in this moment,

I know I'm not in danger.

I know that I'm okay.

So working with that can start to expand,

I can be with this feeling,

I can be with this sensation in my body,

Starts to expand that window so that you can be with more experience without shutting down.

The picture here that I love,

And this actually comes from,

I'm training a puppy right now,

And as I'm refreshing some of my knowledge about training a dog,

This was one of the things that came up and I was like,

This is for humans too.

So it's basically this understanding that every behavior that we have outwardly comes from an emotion,

And if we go back another step before that,

The emotion is rooted in some sort of need that we have.

So this process that I like to talk about,

Like connecting the dots,

I had this behavior.

Why did I have that behavior?

What's the emotion underneath it?

Oh,

I was angry.

Why was I angry?

What need did I have that wasn't met or honored?

So that line of thinking and kind of going back and reflecting can be so helpful to connect the dots.

And once you see that need underneath,

Then you can start to say,

Okay,

Choice,

How can I get that need met in a healthy,

Productive way?

Because that's the root of the thing that I'm trying to manage.

Works with training puppies,

Works with regulating ourselves and understanding other people as well.

So we know that those behaviors come from the emotional experience they're having from that root of what they truly need.

Really helps to get a bit more understanding of what's happening.

Okay,

So in life,

How are we working with this process of self-awareness?

It's really practicing the pause,

Okay,

Because most of the time our awareness has to be out in the world and what we're doing,

And that's okay.

But throughout the day,

Check in with yourself.

It can be 10 seconds,

15 seconds of just saying,

How do I really feel right now?

Is there anything that I need?

And it could be something small.

This is making sure that you understand and notice early signs of stress or distress,

Really knowing your nervous system's signals so that they don't have to scream at you.

You'll make little adjustments earlier in the process so you don't hit overwhelm,

So that you don't hit shut down.

It's also,

On the flip side,

Noticing what is sometimes called glimmers.

Glimmers are the opposite of triggers.

Triggers are like the kick us into that automatic response,

A very strong nervous system activation.

Glimmers are when we choose a different way of relating to something that is healthier than the way we used to relate to it.

It's progress.

It's healing.

So when you see yourself choosing to interact with an internal experience or an external experience differently,

Notice that and absolutely celebrate and reinforce it.

I was so much more in touch with my needs today.

I did not ignore the fact that I needed a drink or I needed to go to the bathroom during the day or sadness came up and I didn't run away from it.

I allowed myself to feel exactly what was there.

That's progress.

Notice those things.

It's such an important part of self-awareness to see how the work that you're doing is actually playing out in your day-to-day life.

If you want to work a little bit more with your feelings,

There's this app that I started using.

It's completely free and I love it because it helps us to remember to self-reflect.

You can set a reminder if you want to,

But it's called How We Feel and it has you name the emotion.

Love that,

Right?

Name it to tame it.

You name your emotion and then you track the body sensation that you're experiencing.

It creates a somatic connection with whatever thoughts or emotional state we are in.

Check out that app.

It's free and it is quite wonderful,

How We Feel.

Then I'll leave you with this statement.

Self-awareness is not a one-time insight.

We don't just check in with ourselves once,

Understand the depths of our soul and then move on with our life.

This is a constant process.

It is that relationship.

This word comes up over and over again.

It is the back and forth relationship that we're building with ourselves to listen openly and honestly because the information that we get is not always the most comfortable,

But we need to look at it clearly from that space of neutral understanding and then we move into that next step of how do I move forward with wisdom and support.

That's the process that we are building and strengthening here.

When you have that skill set,

If something difficult happens in your life,

You're going to stay connected to yourself.

You're going to be able to tend to your needs in a much more effective manner than waiting until they get completely ignored or completely out of control.

It's working with those things in a small scale before they become overwhelming.

That is going to be essential to help you move through challenging life experiences.

So that's the work of the week.

Exploring this understanding of self-awareness,

How it shows up in yoga,

How it is supported in modern psychology,

And how we take it with us into our day to day.