Self-awareness includes the ability to honestly appraise and understand your weaknesses as well as your strengths. Thoughtful self-reflection leads to freedom from negative habits and behaviors that stand in the way of responsible and effective leadership. It takes courage, honesty and dedication to acknowledge and change less-than-desired patterns.

 

What compels a leader to make the effort to do so?

 

Their willingness to become the best they can be in order to earn the trust and respect of their followers. It’s the desire to grow beyond their self-constructed barriers in order to lead from their highest level of understanding. 

 

Self-responsibility is asked for when you search within. It’s not easy to look closely at embarrassing behaviors such as anger, resentment, jealousy, impatience and a host of other harmful traits.

 

However, honest acknowledgement of these negative characteristics is the first step in letting them go. As you raise your consciousness higher and go deeper within, clarity begins to dissolve the destructive elements that have held you captive.

 

Letting the light in…

 

The practice of self-awareness takes us beyond our physical sensations into the realm of intuitive understanding. It sheds light on the deeper side of our nature – beyond the concrete world and the sole reliance on our five senses. It leads us to the truth of who we are and frees us from the shackles and layers of falsehoods.

 

We discover who we are. We recognize our common connection with all people and the innate core of goodness within ourselves and every single person. That is not just a trite platitude. Sincere self-reflection ultimately peels away all the negative illusions about ourselves – what we have labeled as the “bad” aspects of our character, that unfortunately, we came to believe as the truth.

 

 The gift of self-awareness…

 

With that realization, light dispels all the dark parts of your personality that were manufactured from fear. Clear thinking, calm emotions and greater insights begin to color and shape your life into a prism from which you see only good. This does not mean you’re blinded to your own faults or others.

 

It means that when you fall back into old behaviors, you’ll recognize the error of your thinking and address the fear beneath it. You’ll have a newfound compassion for yourself and others when going through the process. Above all, you’ll recognize and identify with your true nature, which at the core, is love.

 

That is wisdom.