Raising awareness is the first step toward healing. Awareness is a gift. Some have it naturally, and others must struggle to acquire it. Some can never hope to achieve it. Almost all patients I treat in my office have serious problem with awareness. Cultivating awareness is essential in coping with stress as awareness evaporates emotions to a great extent. Just becoming aware how angry you are could stop you from kicking your dog or yelling at your loved one.
The main purpose of counseling is to raise one’s awareness about his inner painful emotions to facilitate expression; about the connection between the current stress symptoms and various present and past traumatic events and problems; about why and how these experiences led to certain faulty thoughts, irrational beliefs, rigid opinions and hateful prejudices and the like. Awareness of a painful emotion, say, jealousy, within us may help us to give it up. Awareness of our stress-producing inner weaknesses (greed, dishonesty, excessive attachments, etc.) could give us the impetus to overcome them.
Awareness of our seemingly mindless behaviors (criticizing our loved ones; screwing up healthy relationships, etc.) helps us to behave in a more appropriate manner. Awareness of our life problems gives us the needed motivation to take appropriate action to solve them.
Cultivating awareness is not easy. It is an on-going struggle. It requires one to constantly ask himself: ‘What am I truly thinking’ What am I truly feeling’ What am I truly behaving like” Such questions could help us to overcome denial, self-deception and self-delusion. For example, if I don’t like a person and if I have to constantly pretend like I like that person, it would create mental tension in me. Sooner or later my behavior will reveal what I am thinking.
To cover up that behavior, I will have to show some extra niceness to that person. This, in turn, could create unnecessary complications in the long run. Most people are acutely aware of others’ faults but not their own. A father who is excessively close to his grown up, bratty daughter might say how terrible it is that so and so excessively caters to his grown up daughter. He does not think that his criticism of the other person applies to him. A ‘Christian’ businessman, who routinely rips off his customers, might lament on how badly fraud has entered into today’s business world.
When upset about a bad event (death, break-up, betrayal, etc.) one must raise his awareness about the seriousness of the event; about various painful emotions related to that event and quickly express them in words and gestures.
When upset about a bad problem (family, job, relationship, etc.) one must raise his awareness about it; admit to having a serious problem; assess the seriousness of it, and go about solving it.
Denial is an attempt at making awareness go away (‘I am not upset’). The original purpose of denial was to temporarily protect us from the shock of the upsetting event. However, many people abuse it to live in a make-believe world. Compare a chronic alcoholic who claims, ‘I have no drinking problem,’ to an reformed, ‘aware’ alcoholic who says, ‘I am an alcoholic whether I like it or not. I am tired of fooling myself and others.’ What a difference awareness makes! He regains respect of all around him instantly.
Here is a simple example of awareness-raising: A 32 year old woman complained of return of anxiety and depression shortly after she returned home from a two-week vacation to the Gulf Shore. She had done well on her antidepressant medication for several months. When asked directly she denied she was upset about anything. Suspecting a connection between her vacation and reappearance of her symptoms, I casually asked her about her vacation. She said she had a wonderful vacation with her family. She then casually mentioned that on the way back home she stayed with her elderly father in Mississippi. I asked her about her father. She said without showing any emotions that he had just been diagnosed as having terminal cancer. His liver showed a huge malignant mass. She had not known about this till she saw him on the way back from her vacation.
She appeared to be completely unaware of the impact of this major bad event. However, when I raised her awareness by saying, ‘You must be devastated by this bad news!’ she broke down and cried uncontrollably. Once she became aware of her inner emotions, I told her to go home and keep grieving over her father and shrink her balloon. She got well rapidly without having to add another medication.
As we discussed earlier, most people I treat in my office are unaware of the connection between their past experiences and their current misery. Much of my time is dedicated to teaching them, on an on-going basis, the art of awareness-raising. Every time they call me complaining of a new symptom, I ask them, ‘What happened or what is happening to make you feel this way now” The standard answer of a ‘not aware person’ is, ‘Nothing!’ Within a minute or two of conversation they reveal the truth: I had a fight with my husband; my dog died; my friend betrayed me….. and the like. Till that very moment they had no clue why they were upset! In the long run, people who cultivate the art of awareness keep feeling better over the years. The rest remain my permanent clients.