Isn’t self-awareness a good thing? Well, yes, but it can also be painful. Self-awareness is good in that you are more in tune with who you are, better understand your wants and needs, and have a clearer point of view on what parts of yourself you’re happy with. However, self-awareness can hurt for the same reasons.
Self-awareness can make you feel uncomfortable because you’re able to see your glaring problems. An awareness of your shortcomings is good if you’re able to take charge of them and grow as a person. But not everyone can do that, whether that’s because they’re struggling mentally or don’t have access to the appropriate resources.
However, self-awareness is the first step in evolving, improving, and healing from the ongoing trauma that is life. Self-awareness is necessary, even if it doesn’t feel good, which is why we’re going to look at some of the reasons that self-awareness is a paradox and what you can do about it.
1. Self-awareness challenges your identity and sense of self.
Self-awareness is seeing the full scope of yourself, for better and worse. It’s easy to go through life and just do the things that you’ve been programmed to do. And by programmed, I don’t mean brainwashed. Rather, just planning your life based on social expectations because you never examined the reasons why you do things or why you believe what you do.
The most glaring example is a trap I found myself in when I was younger – go to school, get married, have kids, live happily, retire, and die. I didn’t even question that programming until I found myself struggling with mental health issues where I couldn’t go to school, hold a job, or maintain a relationship.
At first, it felt terrible because I “wasn’t doing what I was supposed to.” After some time, I came to realize that the only reason I cared about the path and felt bad was because of that unexamined social expectation. After that realization came the questions, “What am I meant to be if not that? Who do I want to be?” Then, I had to find the right answers to those questions for me. I had to find my own identity.
2. You discover uncomfortable truths you’ll need to confront.
There’s a significant chance you may not like what you see in the mirror as you gain more self-awareness. As Psychology Today informs us, people are messy creatures that often do things they regret whether they meant to or not. It can be far too easy to hurt someone you really care about through one bad choice.
Arguably, one of the most painful experiences for me was realizing the wrong I had done to other people just because I didn’t know any better at the time. You don’t necessarily have all the information you need to assess a situation properly and make a good decision, and you may not find that out until it blows up in your face.
Then, sometimes, we know we are doing wrong but choose to do it anyway. For example, substance abuse recovery. No, people don’t choose to be addicted to things. However, a lot of people can’t make the choice to get clean until they’ve lost a lot. They know what they’re doing is wrong, but they just aren’t in the right mental space to make a good decision.
3. You may need to find new coping skills.
There are two classifications of coping skills: healthy and maladaptive. As you gain self-awareness, you will start to realize that maladaptive coping skills only damage you further and make it harder for you to progress. At some point, you’ll have to realize that these maladaptive coping mechanisms are self-destructive. They are doing more harm than good, and you need to let them go.
Maladaptive coping skills are a way to get relief from long-term problems through temporary actions, and those actions may not even feel good. For example, self-harm.
Many tend to self-harm because they are seeking relief from what’s going on in their head. However, that feeds a dependence on self-harm to cope, which increases tolerance and demands more to reach the same result. It’s no different than substance abuse.
Unfortunately, these kinds of habits sabotage your present and future self. At some point, you’ll realize that you can’t keep doing these things just to cope and get by. That can make you feel vulnerable because you don’t have a healthy coping skill to substitute for the unhealthy one. Yet.
4. You will find that your relationships shift or end.
Personal growth is painful because you will have to leave some relationships as you grow. Being in unhealthy situations often means you’re around other people who are acting in unhealthy ways. Not always, but a lot.
Consider an alcoholic. They decide that they’re done drinking. It’s messing up their life, their health, and their personal relationships, so they decide they want to get sober. They start making that change, and then they find out that a lot of their friends weren’t actually friends; they were just drinking buddies. The only thing they had in common was drinking.
Many people recovering from substance abuse need to stay away from their substance altogether so they aren’t tempted. The recovering alcoholic may find themselves alone because they’re now the sober person and the drinkers want to drink, and they have to make sober friends.
Then, there’s the matter of values and goals. As you grow and evolve, you may find that your priorities, values, and goals shift, and they can shift out of alignment with your social circle. You may find that you need new boundaries, which may cause rifts in relationships.
The benefit, as licensed therapist TyaCamellia Allred writes, is that you can form stronger, healthier relationships as you become more self-aware.
5. You may feel lost when you realize what’s ahead.
Transitioning from a lack of unawareness to awareness opens up a whole different view, a view that can be overwhelming and disorienting at first. You’ve been living your life, minding your own business, when all of a sudden, some event causes you to start reflecting. Now, your future looks dramatically different.
It’s normal to feel lost when you realize that. It’s like opening your eyes and congratulations! You’re standing at the crossroads of a thousand roads that could lead anywhere! Which road do you take? Is it the right road? Will you be happy when you get to your destination at the end of the road? What if it’s the wrong road? What will you do then?
However, once you make that realization, you can start to look for solutions and guidance. There are a lot of podcasts, resources, books, counselors, and other professionals out there who can help you find your way. There are other people who have already walked those paths and can help you get to where you want to be, which makes the work easier.
6. You may become more emotionally sensitive.
Self-awareness brings with it a change in perception, which may cause emotional sensitivity. You may find that things that previously bothered you don’t anymore and vice versa. It could be that you become more acutely aware of how your actions affect other people, for better or worse.
It’s painful to realize how much you’ve hurt other people out of ignorance and bad choices. Sometimes, it’s obvious that pain could have been avoided if you just knew better. Similarly, you may find you struggle with those negative feelings that you previously ignored or kept suppressed. Sooner or later, they rise to the surface and demand to be acknowledged.
Unfortunately, it often feels terrible when that happens. Instead of slowly venting off and dealing with those emotions in a trickle, the emotional release is more like a dam bursting with all the chaos and confusion that comes with that.
Final thoughts…
Self-awareness is simultaneously one of the best and worst things that can happen to you. At first, it can feel terrible once you can finally see all the shortcomings, negative habits, and areas of improvement required. However, that feeling can evolve into something more positive and empowering if you decide to take charge of it.
You can’t solve a problem or grow unless you know what the problem is. The pain of self-awareness is so much lighter when you can accept that it’s just the first step on a much longer path that can lead you to happiness, health, and peace of mind.
