Awareness: Building the Foundation for Change

Anna Welch, Advanced Clinical Fellow

Think about a time in your life when you learned a new skill for the first time. How did you feel before beginning? Were there moments of failure and frustration along the way? What did it feel like the first time it went right?

Whether it was playing an instrument, a sport, or anything else, learning something new takes time, dedication, and patience. This is the mindset I encourage clients to apply to the skill of improving awareness. In this context, awareness means directing our attention to what is happening in our brain, body, and behavior in the present moment.

Borrowing from Eastern traditions of meditation and mindfulness, awareness can be understood as paying attention from an observational stance. We are not paying attention to make huge changes or to criticize ourselves. Instead, we are aiming to simply notice our internal and external reactions to different situations and stimuli without judgment. 

Developing awareness is a critical therapeutic skill because it allows us to recognize patterns, like ways of engaging that don’t feel good, instances of self-sabotage, or moments when we struggle to stay regulated. 

Until we are aware of what is happening and why, meaningful change is nearly impossible. Before we can choose a different way of being, we first need to understand what we’re choosing now, consciously or unconsciously. 

Just as we would not expect to run 26 miles on the first day of marathon training, we cannot expect to develop awareness and change limiting patterns overnight. Improving awareness is a gradual process, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately one that is deeply rewarding and worth the effort.