4 Ways to Become More Emotionally Self-Aware

Being self-aware is at the heart of emotional intelligence. Emotional self-awareness is the ability to identify and understand our emotions and their impact on our thoughts, behaviours, and others.

In my book Stress Wisely, I write about how emotions are a multiplex mosaic that shapes the lens through which we see the world. When we tune into this insight into our internal world, when we meet all the feelings with curiosity and compassion, we can find inner strength and resolve that will serve us well.

Here are four practices that can help improve your self-awareness and emotional well-being:

1. Get curious about your emotional home. Our emotional home is a learned emotional state of being. It is the place we seek out and stay most of the time because it feels familiar. Going back there has become a habit because the patterns are recognizable, even if it might not be the healthiest and safest place for us to be.

For example, someone’s emotional home could be anger. This person could be on vacation, looking out at the most beautiful vista in the world, and still find something to be angry about. Someone else’s emotional home may be chaotic and dysfunctional. This person may find themselves in workplaces or relationships that are chaotic and dysfunctional because, on some deep level, this feels “normal.” Others may have lighter emotional homes of peace, ease, or joy.

I invite you to ask yourself: What is my emotional home? Where do I find myself emotionally most of the time? Are there renovations I’d like to make to cultivate my desired emotional home?

The beautiful thing is that once we take inventory of our emotional home, we can use that deep and personal insight to move into transformational change. There’s power in knowing that you are the architect of creating an emotional home that is in alignment with what the well-life looks like for you.

2. Explore your inner emotional ecosystem. Our emotional tapestry will look very different depending on our upbringing, lived experience, culture, geography, and our values. Each of us holds so much wisdom about our emotional landscapes. You are your own expert; you know you better than anyone else. Be kind to yourself as you explore your inner world of emotions. There is no room for judgment, blame, or shame.

I encourage you to engage with the following prompts at any level of comfort that best serves you:

• What is my relationship with emotional health like?
• When I was growing up, I was encouraged to express the following emotions: ____
• When growing up, the following emotions were discouraged: ____
• It is easy to express these emotions: ____
• It is difficult to express these emotions: ____
• My most trusted response to uncomfortable emotions: ____
• I want to feel more of these emotions: ____

If you notice that you don’t like one of these questions, that can be useful data as well. I encourage you to spend some time there when you’re ready because that is often where you’re going to get the biggest insight.

3. Practice being mindfully present. Emotional self-awareness requires us to be present, which can be hard when so many of us are on autopilot and busy multitasking. Mindfulness is the practice of slowing down long enough to bring awareness to our thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations without judgment.

Being present on purpose allows us to tune into our emotional experiences with curiosity. Noticing how we feel as we move through our days is key to working effectively with our emotions. When we are truly aware of how we are feeling, we are able to give ourselves the attention we need to take care of our emotional state. Then we can move toward how we truly wish to feel.

4. See it. Name it. Place it. Action it. We don’t get to pick the emotions that show up for us, just like we cannot pick all the thoughts that pop into our minds. Where we do have control is in how we respond. We get to choose the actions we take. Through identification and compassion, we can allow ourselves to feel the feelings and learn how to use the information from our emotions as guides, not as directives that have power over us. This strategy helps us to do just that:

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• See it: Notice what you are feeling.
• Name it: Name the feeling as specifically as you can.
• Place it: Where is the feeling likely coming from?
• Action it: What am I going to do with it?

Shifting to a place of being an observer of our emotions can cultivate self-discovery and awareness building. Rather than saying, "I am anxious," try, "I notice I am feeling anxious." The shift in language from "I am" to "I notice I am feeling" creates a bit of spaciousness between you and the emotion you are experiencing.

Here is an example of how this might work for you:

• See it: I notice I am feeling anxious and experiencing a tightness in my chest.
• Name it: I see you, anxiety.
• Place it: This anxiety is likely coming from my upcoming presentation at work.
• Action it: Thank you for reminding me that I need to feel safe. I will do some deep breathing exercises to bring myself to a calmer state before the presentation.

Our emotions are meant to trigger actions. The mind is able to let it go as soon as we see it, name it, place it, and action it.

Final Thoughts

Cultivating emotional self-awareness is not easy, yet gaining insight into our emotional landscape, honouring our emotions as allies, and incorporating these small practices into our lives can make radical improvements to our emotional well-being.