Why are so many self-aware people so miserable?

Wake-Up Call #16

We talk about self-awareness as this gorgeous thing.

It is.

But, it has a dark side.

To know who we are, to be aware of our true nature, presence, gifts, desires, strengths, values, traits, tells, and smells. All the yada yada yada that make us uniquely us.

Knowing these is a good thing, right?

Self-awareness gives us the raw data to better align our actions with our essence, to step into and bring that gorgeous, essential being-ness to the world. To see and be seen, as we are. For who and what we are. To step out of the fog, into the light, and live as the person we know ourselves to be.

Then, riddle me this.

Why do so many “self-aware” people still live stifled lives?

I’ve wondered about this for years. I’d see it all the time when I was more deeply embedded in the world of meditation and yoga. People would show up for class, do retreats, develop practices, journal, read, listen to, and watch all the things.

I know myself so much better, they’d say. And, they did.

Still, there lives didn’t miraculously change. They didn’t become these beacons of authentic self-expression, joy, and connection. Not infrequently, they’d even tumble into a darker reality.

Turns out…

Just because we know, doesn’t mean we glow.

Awareness is the gateway to a more fully-realized life, but it’s not that life itself.

It helps you see more clearly the truth of who and what you are. But it doesn’t magically empower you to bring what you see to the world. To live as that person.

In fact, there’s a potential dark side to becoming self-aware that nobody talks about.

It tends to reveal how truly weird we are.

Rather than celebrate that, we’re rattled by it.

The more we own our oblong essence, all those circle-shaped spaces we’d been fitting our old veiled selves into in the name of belonging, including the big, fat one designated in our own hearts for our beloved facade, no longer fit.

That’s uncomfortable. So we start to judge our weird. And worry about how others will perceive the closer-to-the-bone humans we now know ourselves to be.

Self-awareness, it turns out, often invites an evil twin—self-judgment—which, for many, tips into fear, censorship, and self-loathing with alarming ease.

What do we do about that?

Stay unaware?

It’s safer. But, also, for most, relentlessly heavy.

Not the answer.

What if, instead, we built a toolbox to support own newly laid-bare selves as they endeavored to take the lead in our lives?

What might be in that kit?

One of the tools, I’d venture, would be self-esteem.

Awareness is the seed of expression, esteem is the water that allows it to flower.

Cool, cool.

But, isn’t self-esteem bullshit?

Kinda. But, also, kinda not.

Let’s start with a question…

What is self-esteem?

It’s often defined as confidence in your worth or abilities.

I don’t believe confidence is the right word, and abilities makes it a bit too surface-level for me.

My twist:

Self-esteem is a deep, internal knowing that who you are, regardless of skill or ability, has worth.

You don’t need trophies. You don’t need praise. You don’t need validation. You just know.

When we have this, it becomes far easier to live as the people our self-awareness practices reveal us to be.

How do we “get” the self-esteem, then?

That’s a bit more complicated.

The challenge isn’t the “…who you are, regardless of skill or ability, has worth” part. That is universally endowed to all at birth. The real struggle for most people is that first part, “a deep, internal knowing.”

How do we arrive at a place where we take ourselves seriously enough, love ourselves deeply enough, and own our value fully-enough to feel equipped, excited even, to let our newly self-aware, weird selves meet the world?

Oh, and while you’re noodling on that, how do we also not anoint ourselves so divinely, or love ourselves so blindly that we become pompous, self-important, overbearing assholes?

Lovely little dance, right?

And, it’s not quite over.

Strangely, this seeming inside-game, the one where we just shouldn’t care what others think, is wildly affected by the way those around us perceive us, welcome or reject us. As long as we choose to live among humans (and, some days I question that), social dynamics, risk of judgment, and rejection, will always be a part of the equation of how we feel about who we are. At least for the vast majority of our lives.

Somewhere in that inner and outer soup lies self-esteem.

There are tomes written on this topic, especially in the context of kids. And, a debate rages about building esteem based not on demonstrated merit, or internal knowing, but on lavish and universal praise.

Everyone gets a trophy!

It’s all about waking ourselves up, then building ourselves up.

But, I often wonder about a different side of esteem.

What if self-esteem was as much about building ourselves down as it was building ourselves up?

This is where the great exhale of levity meets the quest to love ourselves more fully.

What if, rather than doing all we can to elevate ourselves to the level of demigod, we actually stepped into the fact that, very often, nobody is really looking. Not even us.

What if our finely honed sense of self-awareness forgot to tell us that we may be the center of our universe, but not so much “the” universe? That if we show our true, gloriously aware selves to the world, and we will, over and over and over, there might not be a whole lot of people hanging around to judge us? Or see us.

And, even if there are, with the average attention span ranging somewhere between that of a bat and a gnat, that raised eyebrow, nasty Insta comment, or internal chatter will very likely be whisked into judgment lost sock land long before we ever realize nobody cares any more, if they ever did.

What if we discovered we just didn’t matter anywhere near the level we thought?

Terrifying, maybe. But, also freeing.

What if we are a beautiful, yet fleeting calamity of consciousness in a vast sea of humanity and maybe it’d be okay to take ourselves just a little less seriously?

What if we can still be respected, loved, do great work, love ourselves, but still not be center-of-the-universe important in the lives of every person whose approval we misguidedly seek to build our self-worth upon?

What if not so many people are lining up to judge us, let alone witness us, and that was actually okay?

Can you even imagine what you might do or try or make if you knew nobody was looking? Or, at least, far fewer people than you imagined?

What if part of the answer was less about building ourselves up, and more about lightening up?

It’s funny, for some reason, when I think about the embodiment of this, Kate Hudson’s character, Penny Lane, from the movie Almost Famous comes to mind.

It was the moment Penny turns to the a 16 year-old William Miller. He’d been posing as a journalist on the band bus, trying like hell to be respected. But at that point, he just wanted to be home. She gazed deeply into his eyes, the corners of her mouth rising into that Muse-like grin as she fans her fingers out before him. “Poof,” she offered, “you are home.”

What if it was just that easy?

What if home—being at peace with who you are—was this place, these people, this moment, minus the stifling, self-imposed self-importance we tend to bring to it?

What if, just for a day, we could point the spotlight somewhere else, like nobody was watching? Even if they were? What if we could take ourselves just a bit more lightly?

We just might discover something.

Unedited, unadorned, unfiltered.

You. And your bad self-aware, weird Self. Are. Enough. Always were. Always will be. No one else can give that to you, or take it from you.

And, lightening up is as much a part as building it up, then letting it out.

As always, just noodling on ideas. Not preaching a truth no one really knows.

Curious, what’s your take?

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Wake-Up Call #16

Short and simple this week. Think about a moment where, even for a hot second, you took yourself a little less seriously.

How’d that feel? Where were you? What were you doing? Who were you with? How might you create more moments of nonjudgmental lightness in your days?

Think on it. Journal about it. And, if you’re inclined, share in the comments.