Been thinking a lot about “self-awareness” lately and how often we hear that term thrown around in wellness marketing.
What does it even mean? And is it really the thing we need more of to live better?
In this episode (it’s a solo dolo this week btw), I make the case that there may be something more important than self-awareness when it comes to creating more fulfilling relationships, work, and everyday experiences.
It’s also a bit of an ode to how incredibly complex our minds and bodies are, and why I think we should give them more credit for what they already do.
Enjoy!
Paige xo.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 — The self-awareness trap: why “knowing more” doesn’t fix it
1:41 — Your system is already doing the work
2:51 — The real problem: honesty, not awareness
4:47 — When you know exactly what’s wrong but can’t say it
6:01 — The Gap Theory: the space between stimulus and response
7:26 — Why slowing down is an act of rebellion in 2026
9:07 — The language of body sensations (and when it doesn’t help)
9:48 — “I don’t know” — the most underrated tool in all of psychology
11:30 — What you actually need instead of more self-awareness
YOUTUBE + TRANSCRIPT:
(00:00) If you’re somebody that’s into personal development, wellness, spirituality, you have probably heard the term self-aware before. And I think this is a really interesting one, right? If you like my content, if you watch my channel, you know that I enjoy taking a more zoomed out philosophical existential approach to these kinds of things.
(00:21) So when we hear the word selfaware, the term self-aware, often it’s from a context in which we’re trying to have a better understanding about what’s unfolding. Usually that’s in a relationship or maybe the relationship is between you and yourself, but really it’s about a deeper understanding of what is creating um the conditions in which something is unfolding or what is the driver of something that is unfolding.
(00:47) Becoming more self-aware about the role that you play in that. Don’t get me wrong, I think this is an incredible pursuit. And if you are someone that has been told you need to be more self-aware by a really good friend or a therapist or a partner, that would be hectic. But if your partner has said that to you, I’m sure they’ve done it with loving intention, then maybe that’s what you’re deeming as the thing that they want from you, more of more understanding of why you do the things you do and why they result in the outcomes they do. For what
(01:18) other reason are we here than to learn about this whole human existence thing? But I do often think that in these contexts, this idea of self-awareness can get really bogged down in the knowing. And I don’t know if that actually helps us get the outcomes that we want when we say we want to be more self-aware or when we respond to someone else saying you need to be more self-aware.
(01:41) First of all, you are pretty self-aware just in general. Like your body is an incredible machine that is constantly scanning its environment. You are constantly getting feedback from your nervous system, your fascia, your perceptual doors, your eyes, your ears, your nose, your tongue, your skin is constantly taking in information and interpreting it, making meaning out of it in your brain and then updating its predictions on what it thinks is going on based on that information.
(02:10) And that is happening all the time below your awareness. In fact, if you look at it like that, you’re so self-aware that you’re self-aware even when you’re not aware. And I think that’s pretty cool. But I think when we look at the conscious brain and what we are actually conscious of trying to become more self-aware can often lead to more self-p policing um more scanning of your environment more um the need to sniff out more threat um and yeah more anxiety which is not what we need in the chaotic and very distracting world that we live
(02:45) in. Having said that your body and your ex your your your your being is already pretty self-aware. What do we want to do with this term self-aware? Well, I think that actually what we mean is we need to be more honest about what we are aware of and that’s tricky, right? Being honest about what sensations you do feel in your body, what meaning you are making out of things, what is actually going on for you internally and perhaps even externally.
(03:15) That is the tricky part and that’s the part that people I think find hard because it requires slowing down. And then second to that it requires being vulnerable. Honesty and vulnerability I think go hand in hand is you have to be willing and brave enough to report back. And when we’re talking about a relational dynamic in which more self-awareness needs to come to fruition, yeah, that’s that’s really tough is is like how honest do I want to be with someone? The other thing that I want to say is that if you are a person that has been doing therapy and that is
(03:49) you know later in their adulthood, you are self-aware beyond just you know how your your body is responding to your environment. You have probably noticed across your life patterns. You probably know what it is that drives your behavior. You probably have some idea of the loops that you get caught into your um predispositions to do things a certain way.
(04:12) um you probably understand why you piss people off. Like really, you know, I at least know the things that I do that are um you know, bad habits, I suppose. But what I find really hard sometimes is to admit that they’re happening because there’s so much shame and so much embarrassment around not being perfect. so much so much um head noise that happens when we are aware of what’s going on in the inside about that awareness.
(04:42) It’s kind of like anxiety about the anxiety and trying to communicate that in a relationship can be really challenging. So, let’s just say that you make a plan with someone, you’re really excited about this plan and just before you’re about to walk out the door to go and do the plan with this person, they call you up and they cancel last minute.
(04:58) This is super inconvenient. I’m totally validating that if this has happened to you lately. Um, but in that moment when they cancel on you, you probably are pretty aware that what’s coming up is disappointment and anger. And maybe you’re even aware enough to know that that manifests as a tightness in your chest, a tightness in your throat, tightness in your hips, whatever it is that happens in your unique body, you’re probably pretty aware of.
(05:20) But deeper than that, there’s a meaning likely that you’ve made out of being cancelled on that hits way harder than somebody just saying, “Look, hey, um, my car’s broken down,” or, “Hey, I don’t feel up for it today.” And that’s the thing that I think is really hard to be honest about, not because you’re not self-aware of it, but because it requires a level of vulnerability that we’re just not initiated to into in our relationships.
(05:42) And, you know, hopefully the newer generations will be better at it. But it does require a few things that I’ll talk about in a second um that our world just really doesn’t our fast-paced world really doesn’t support. But anyway, so you’re in this moment, you’ve been cancelled on and you feel the feelings that you feel about being canceled on.
(06:01) And there’s a gap there, right? There is a small gap always and sometimes you know if you’ve been doing a lot of selfwork then it might be bigger but there is a gap there where you get to choose what you do with the sensations that arise over that outcome of of of being canceled on. In that gap, I think is where you get to choose whether or not you’re honest about those sensations or whether you’re going to react and then, you know, you’re you’re you’re actually not going to be honest about what you’re aware of and potentially
(06:30) fall into old patterns of of being, you know, passive aggressive or um uh you know, being a people pleaser and not actually speaking to the fact that you’re disappointed by this or whatever your thing is, right? And you know what your thing is because again, you’re self-aware. So in order to actually lengthen that gap so that you can drop into a space of vulnerability and honesty about that which you are aware of, you need to slow down.
(06:56) Sorry to interrupt this incredibly important conversation, but I do have something I want to tell you. A note from our sponsors. Just joking, we don’t have any. So if you would like to become a sponsor of this show, then head down to the description and find the link to buy me a coffee. A little coffee goes a long way in supporting this work and it means I can bring you more of the conversations that answer your questions about reality, consciousness, perception, the subjective experience and if any of it is something we can
(07:24) influence. Okay, now back to the episode. Often I hear this advice of of of slow down. You know that a lot of um the way that personal development is really going is is about how do we slow our lives down. I I hear this and I I I agree with it, but I think that the slowing down of time so that in moments where things come up that are uncomfortable, you can react differently that that actually isn’t something you can execute on in that moment if it’s not for sorry if if you don’t actually have a lifestyle that is slow. You know,
(07:55) it’s very hard to try and do something in a moment of tension that you’re not practicing all the time. And again, like I said before, it’s it’s incredibly difficult and it’s an act of rebellion to slow down in the world that we currently live in. So, back to that moment where you have the thing that happens that disappoints you, someone cancels on you and there is the opportunity there to be truly honest about what you are aware of.
(08:19) This is also hard because we don’t often have the language for that. you know, we we we often have a pattern that says, well, I either people please and say it’s fine and ignore the fact that I do have a sensation in my body because I’m not sure how to communicate that or we react with um anger or emotional manipulation because we want we think or we hope that that’s going to change the situation.
(08:38) So, you have this moment, a sensation arises, what language do you use to communicate that once you’ve slowed down and actually given yourself the time and space to tap into, all right, what am I aware of? I think that, you know, this can be hard and and and we do um we get the advice that’s communicate what you’re feeling in your body.
(08:56) I feel a tension in my chest. I feel a tightness in my hips. I feel a a pain in my temples. I’ve got a headache coming on. Um or I just feel what I just I feel funny about that. I think that we can over complicate like how we communicate it. And even as I’m saying this out loud, I’m I’m I am myself overco complicating it.
(09:15) I do think that if bodily sensations doesn’t work for you, communicating bodily sensations doesn’t work for you or you are in a scenario where that’s not going to be helpful. What you can also say is just I don’t know. I don’t know how I’m feeling right now or um I don’t really know what to do next.
(09:34) And that is much more honest and much more self-aware than defaulting to these patterns um of of again like it could be people pleasing or it could be emotional manipulation or whatever it is that you’re trying to break um that you’re trying to be self-aware enough that you don’t default to saying I don’t know is like the most underestimated tool in the whole of of psychology and wellness and spirituality and in fact I think it is the whole point of spirituality is saying, “I don’t know.
(10:02) I don’t know.” And often when you say, “I don’t know,” it can lengthen that gap when you’re somebody that doesn’t have a a big gap. That is somebody that reacts really quick quickly um and finds that your self-awareness. And this is something that can happen often is is that your self-awareness becomes about communicating um the meaning that you make over the sensations in your body.
(10:26) So again, back to the example of someone calls you and they cancel on you last minute and you communicate, well, I’m angry. And that’s actually not what’s going on. That’s like the story that your brain has made up. What’s going on is tightening in the chest, tightening in the hips.
(10:41) I’ve made a story that I’m not important right now and you’re cancelelling on me because you have a better option or you’re cancelelling on me because you actually never wanted to see me in the first place. that um meaning that that happens that we don’t communicate because we’re scared of being vulnerable. Um that is also, you know, it’s hard and so you don’t have to you don’t have to communicate that.
(11:05) You can just say, “I don’t know.” On the pathway to eventually being able to communicate something like that very honestly and very vulnerably, the very messy options that I’ve given you that I hope you can take something away from are saying, “These are the sensations that are in my body.” if you feel called to communicate things in that way saying I don’t know I don’t know how I’m feeling I don’t know what to do next um to give yourself more time in that gap and then creating a slower lifestyle so you actually have a bigger gap in which
(11:33) you can sift through what you are aware of draw that out and then communicate that the hardest bit the vulnerability piece getting around the embarrassment of being of of being truthful about why you feel the way you feel and what’s coming up for you that I think I don’t really have an answer for.
(11:51) In fact, I think that that’s the um you know that is the hardest thing. That’s why we default to these patterns because you know being honest about how we feel is feels embarrassing. It feels like the antithesis to the perfection that we particularly as women are raised into that we shouldn’t have as many big feelings as we do have.
(12:10) And if you’re a sensitive person like me, that for sure would be your story of I don’t know how to communicate these big feelings because they feel so big that it’s easier just to do what I’ve always done, which is, you know, go in either directions as I’ve um mentioned before with with the patterns. I don’t think you need to be more self-aware.
(12:30) In fact, I think you’re doing all the awareness things and what you need is slowness, better language for communicating what you find when you do slow down and you are aware of things or the little tool of saying, “I don’t know. I’m not sure what to do next.” Most underrated tool in life, being okay with uncertainty.
(12:50) I hope you can take something from that. And um I look forward to hearing your feedback in the comments. What has this arisen for you? Do you have better tool? Um, what do you think about that gap that I spoke to? Yeah, drop me a line and let’s keep the chat going. I’ll see you next week.
(13:06) Thanks so much for making it to the end of the episode. I trust you had a good time. So, let’s stay in touch. I have Instagram, I have Tik Tok, I have Substack. All of those links can be found in the description and I would absolutely love to hear from you. I also really enjoy when you get involved in the comments on the episode.
(13:24) And if you really love this content, then please buy me a coffee. There is a link for you to donate to the show in the description as well. A little goes a long way and it really does support me to bring the conversations to your eyes and your ears that answer the burning questions. Well, no promises that we’ll answer the burning questions, but at least we’ll be asking them together.
(13:47) So, buy me a coffee or two or three. I’ll take whatever I can get. All right, see you on the next one.
