The Importance Of Self-Awareness In A Relationship

Being self-aware means taking an honest look at the way you behave, carefully examining your strong points as well as your weak ones.

This conscious realization of yourself also means paying attention to how your mind works and being comfortable with yourself.

Equally important for self-awareness is a decision you make to face your insecurities and fears.

If your sense of self is poor, it will cause disturbed relationships with those close to you.

A healthy sense of who you are, on the other hand, will give you the confidence you need to embark on a relationship and to make it a success.

Deciding to learn about yourself is admittedly challenging and scary, but it’s something you need to do because only by knowing who you really are, can you build and develop healthy self-esteem.

Good self-esteem means feeling worthy and having respect for yourself, while low self-esteem suggests you don’t love yourself enough.

Self-awareness and self-esteem are closely related, if you don’t have self-awareness then you will most likely have low self-esteem.

Read on to find out why being self-aware is one of the most important things for your relationship.

Healthy self-esteem

Self-esteem depends on a lot of factors including your family environment.

If you come from a loving supportive family background, you will most probably have good self-esteem.

But not everyone is that lucky, a lot of people come from families where although professionally successful, family members weren’t always allowed to explore their inner feelings, thoughts, and worries.

Relationship and marriage breakdown is very often due to a lack of self-awareness. Partners who have not spent time identifying areas of their personality that needs improvement find it easier to blame the other person when things go wrong.

The journey to self-awareness might seem an arduous task but is important for relationships.

Self improvement

Once you acknowledge your weak points you can start working at improving those weak areas.

No one is perfect, it will take time and commitment and you will need to communicate with your partner admitting to each other and apologizing if you’ve made a mistake.

The end result will give you much joy and satisfaction.

Tolerance

With this inner knowledge, you can now be more tolerant and accepting of those around you who are still not aware of the importance of self-awareness.

You become more sympathetic to your partner; you will appreciate his perspective, the situation he is in and his feelings. This will bring more togetherness in your relationship.

Flexibility

Don’t be that person who is always right, but try to be a more lovable and understanding partner. You will be appreciated for your flexibility and your willingness to be more open towards your partner.

Making decisions will become easier

With this knowledge of who you really are, you can make decisions in your love life.

This means that if your objectives are not the same as your present partner’s you will have the courage to walk away from the relationship if you consider it unhealthy and bad for your well being.

Also, you will be more assertive and your world will not collapse if your partner makes the decision to end the relationship.

It’s so easy to blame the other person when things go wrong, but often it’s because partners have not worked out the importance of self-awareness in relationships.

Self-awareness exercises for protecting your relationship

If you and your partner are going through a difficult period, it may be helpful to have an honest review of how you act with each other and your long term objectives.

A good self-awareness exercise would be to discuss these questions together:

Are you able to accept criticism? 

Are you able to listen to what might be constructive criticism and think about it or have you built a wall of self- defense around you? 

Do you see yourself as perfect?

Do you have a tendency to avoid facing the negative aspects of your relationship?

Do you stand up for what you believe in?

Do you accept that others around you may have different ideas?

Are you comfortable with being alone? 

Have you got a list of personal aims, things you want to achieve? 

Do you feel you have a right to pursue these goals or do you feel someone should look after you?

Does self- awareness make you uncomfortable, do you find that the truth hurts but are you still willing to ask yourself these four questions?

What can I do better in this relationship?

What are my three biggest strengths and what are my three biggest weaknesses?

How do you see this relationship developing?

What’s stopping this from happening?

If you’re hoping to create a more meaningful intimate relationship, you could start by discussing these questions together, thus activating the self-awareness mechanism.

It is more positive approach instead of assuming that the other partner is the one with the problem.

You might not be able to answer these questions immediately and it might take considerable time to process your feelings.

Bear in mind though that self- awareness is a gift to yourself; it allows you to take responsibility for your relationship and to make the right choices.

Once you grasp the importance of self-awareness, you will gain respect and empowerment.