The 4 Stages of Self-Awareness
Stage 5 (Awareness of Awareness)
You know when ideas hit you in the head out of nowhere.
Like a fly hitting your face while walking in the street. Maybe a squirrel jumping onto you from a tree or a pigeon trying to decapitate you. It’s essential to get those ideas down; otherwise, they may never come again.
So in an attempt to get my ideas down in a neat and helpful manner, I’ve come up with what I believe to be the complete list of the stages of self-awareness. Enjoy.
Stage 1: Awareness of the brain
“Self-awareness is the ability to take an honest look at your life without any attachment to it being right or wrong, good or bad”. — Debbie Ford
Jumping right into it, the process of self-awareness begins with the brain. You come across a moment, a change in life or an article (like this one) that causes your brain to consciously decide to ‘click’ and suddenly become aware of itself.
How do you find that moment?
Live. Do things, experience things, get inspired. Or simply meditate and focus on your brain for 5 minutes. Either way works.
I know it sounds obvious, but once you come to understand that your brain exists. You picture what it looks like. You feel a rush of energy spiking through your brain to the edges of your skull.
You appreciate that you have a brain and you start to accept that your brain exists and that you can utilise it in ways you’ve never imagined.
Stage 2: Awareness of the body
Most of our actions are done on autopilot. Which is great. It saves us a lot of mental energy and time. But once you’ve been able to supercharge your brain with awareness, the next stage is becoming aware of your body, which grants you the superpower of heightened senses.
You can feel the slightest cold breeze on your forearm, or the sudden strain in your neck. You begin to notice all these little feelings you didn’t notice before and make every movement with intent.
Do this by taking a good long look in the mirror. Look at yourself. Focus on everything — your flaws and perfections. Become conscious of where you are in life, what state you are in.
Becoming aware of your body can help you reflect truthfully. It allows you to be honest with yourself. It enables you to accept yourself for what you are and more importantly who you are.
Stage 3: Awareness of your surroundings
The next stage of awareness is an enormous shift. From going to an understanding of yourself to an awareness of something else is difficult yet possible.
Your surroundings are likely a reflection of yourself. If your room is messy, it probably reflects an internal mess. If your room is perfectly neat, it might indicate that you’re a perfectionist, like me.
Being aware of your surroundings is commonly associated with mindfulness. Which is a great skill that comes along with awareness. Yet being aware of your surroundings also gifts you the knowledge that you’re in control of your surroundings. You’re able to look not only at your room but at the whole world without any filters. With a clear vision, it becomes much easier to execute your ambitions.
Stage 4: Awareness of other people
Stage 4, the hardest and likely most powerful state of awareness. Lao Tzu famously said
“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” — Lao Tzu
Sorry Lao but I beg to differ. While reaching the first stage of awareness is powerful in itself. Being able to know others and be aware of others is an incredible feat to achieve. To learn other’s desires and intent gives us great power over them. It allows us to respond kindly and correctly, it can be used to attain what we want from others.
Being aware of others is difficult for me to describe because well, I honestly don’t believe I’m there yet. However, even having a fraction of awareness of other people will give you a sense of comfort and confidence as you will always know how to talk to people. You get to know people better than they know themselves. You become a people person, which is of extreme value.
(Bonus) Stage 5: Awareness of Awareness
Now, this isn’t technically a stage of awareness and can really be done at any time, yet its worth mentioning. Know that awareness is limited and in a way, is like a muscle. It has a capacity. The further you are in the stages of awareness, the more energy it will take. Constantly being aware can be exhausting.
Yet there is a solution, similar to building a muscle, begin practice with the lightest weights. In this case, stage 1, start practising awareness of the mind until your mind begins to ache and get tired. Then rest and try again later, you’ll notice you can be aware for a longer period of time. After plenty of practice, move onto the 2nd stage and so on. Until you’ve mastered the skill of awareness and can easily practice awareness of others every day.
Conclusion:
I recognize this being a somewhat hypothetical concept and one that’s challenging to practice and even more difficult to explain.
But know that I’ve tried my best to turn this possibly life-changing mental model of awareness into actionable steps to allow almost anyone to become a master of awareness.