What is self awareness?

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What is self awareness? This is a very interesting and complex question.

My take on it is that it starts with very clearly knowing, and defining, what your personal values are. For example: compassion for underdogs; honesty; deception; commitment to status.

People (human beings generally, in respect of themselves), seem to have no difficulty whatsoever in identifying their positive values, and tend to be in self-denial about their less socially flattering values - which they then deny and project on to others.

This brings me to second main point IMHO about self-awareness: being aware of the projection process, where we dump unacceptable parts of ourselves on others and project these disowned parts onto others as if we are quite free of them. Discovering what you are denying, and having the awareness to own and acknowledge it, is a huge part of self-awareness. Clarity is essential.

Next: clearly and accurately knowing your own strengths/talents and weaknesses/lacks. This is very important, so that you don't go through like as a round peg trying to fit yourself in to a square hole.

Then: understanding how and why you are who you are: clearly seeing the influences, genes, experiences, reactions, heartaches, losses, triumphs and learning that led you to who you are today. We are dynamic creatures: who you are at 20 is not who you will be at 30, or 40, or 50 - as long as you don't resign from life and simply stagnate.

Finally: Discovering and knowing your one over-riding talent. Everyone has one. It may be something as simple as outstanding eyesight,
or whatever - any kind of gift, physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, psychological. Cultivate this wisely and use it for your benefit and that of others.

Awareness, generally, starts with deep soul-searching and self-honesty. This sounds simple, but it is not. Great novels can really help in this process, if the reader engages with these novels as an active thoughtful reader, rather than a merely passive one, taking in the words and themes without deeper reflection.

That's my take on it anyway

I believe there are different "levels" of "self-awareness."

I believe most autistic people have an awareness that they are a separate person from others, and that they have feelings. They also believe other people are separate from them, and have feelings as well.

However, perhaps owing to the pressures which are part and parcel of socializing, an autistic person might not be aware of how a person is feeling IN THE IMMEDIATE MOMENT. However, away from the IMMEDIATE SITUATION, the autistic person could usually reflect upon what occurred, and gauge what the other person was feeling.

Much to the autistic person's (and perhaps the other person's) chagrin, however, they did not discern what the other person was feeling in the immediate social situation, so the autistic person, to the other person (probably an NT), lacked empathy, sympathy, social awareness, other things that bond the autistic person to other people. It would be assumed, in this instance, that the autistic person was somehow selfish. This is almost always not the case at all; the autistic person does feel "NT"-type feelings, but only upon later reflection. However, away from the social situation, from the standpoint of the NT, it is "too late."

The same thing occurs when the autistic person attempts to determine the effect his/her behavior/words have on the other person. Difficulty is experienced, within the IMMEDIATE MOMENT, in being able to determine this effect; hence, the autistic person might not feel the need to modify the behavior/words to more appropriately fit the situation. Hence, awkwardness is experienced. However, away from the IMMEDIATE situation, the autistic person is usually able to cogitate over what occurred, and arrive at the correct solution. However, again, from the standpoint of the NT, it is "too late."

If I'm not making any sense, please ask me questions.

I agree with kraftiekortie.

It's not being aware in the moment of how you look to other people. It is also not being able to control your interaction with other people to meet your needs. It might be because you were behaving badly or something and a therapist said that to make an excuse for you to another adult. The meaning of the person who told you that you lack self awareness depends on their intention in the situation.

I know you said the for dummies kids version, so I'll try more. It is knowing what other people will think or do, because of what you do. Then doing xyz so things will work out the best for you. It also means understanding situations and how situations change what words and actions mean.

Trying to explain...someone has to tell me how I behaved (like when I should not wander or hit, or need to calm self) and when I need to communicate what's bothering me.

Perfectly thanks. I think someone misused the term in a thread and that's what threw me off. Yeah have no idea of how I appear to others at the moment. Don't think about it at all. Like walking out o my room through the house with nothing on when company is over is probably one of the best examples of what you described.

To me, self-awareness is a little like seeing yourself in the third person, both outer and inner, knowing something about what makes you tick, not judging and not jumping stereotypical explanations. For example, I know I'm lazy but I don't use that word. My self-awareness tells me that I struggle with motivation, because even for the things I love, I find it hard to get motivated. Self-unaware would fallback on lazy.

Yep....seeing one's self in the 3rd person, the same as any other person separate from you.

That's pretty much "hitting the nail on the head."

I believe this reflects the concept of "theory of mind," which autistic people are supposed to lack.

Possibly, autistic people, under social pressure, might temporarily lack "theory of mind" during social interactions, but regain "theory of mind" when they are detached from the immediate social situation.

Exactly!

You´re so right.

I know I have a lot of self-awareness. I was diagnosed with mild Asperger's Syndrome, and the way I see it I always say that I am half-Autistic and half-NT. I know some Aspies might take that the wrong way but it's how I consider myself. But anyway, I have always felt that conformity is important to me, and I've never liked being different so I have spent my life trying to fit in and be like the other people around me.

It gets frustrating when people on online forums say to me ''you might think you're self-aware and everything, but you very well might not be at all, and because of your lack of awareness of body language, people are probably ridiculing you all the time without you realising it''. And then it's so hard to get through to some people online that I do not go around thinking that I look perfectly normal but actually looking like a freak. I do not go around thinking that I'm walking normally when actually I'm oblivious to the fact that I'm actually frolicking. I don't go around with my trousers pulled up almost to my chest confidently thinking it's the fashion and oblivious that it is something people would take the mickey out of you for.

I did not have a chance to read every post but from skimming through, from what Kraftie and Narrator said, I recognize myself. I am very, very good at self analysis from a third person point of view and I do that a lot. But IN THE MOMENT, I usually can't do it at all. It is always a good bit after the fact. So my self awareness in the moment is usually pretty poor but way after the fact, I can analyze the situation and see myself pretty objectively.

We don't do real time processing. We do batch processing.
Too many processing demands, slow processing speed, faulty wiring, and a need to process things very thoroughly.

I have an interesting question with regard to this --- To those people on here saying they are self-aware, were you self-aware before you discovered you were autistic or did your autism diagnosis (or self diagnosis) play a part in you becoming self aware?

I was diagnosed with autism by one doctor when I was very young--maybe 3, about 1964 or so.

I don't think, at the time, that I was much aware of anything--I was pretty badly affected by autism, or some neurological disorder, until the age of 5.

I achieved simple awareness of myself as a separate person, and of other people as people, around the time I acquired speech--at age 5.

I did not really achieve self-awareness, in the sense of knowing how my behavior affects people, until late childhood.

There are times when I still do not discern people's reactions to my behavior during social situations--though that's improved dramatically as I grew older. This improvement was bought upon by my making use of my cognition.

I love this answer!

I don't think self-awareness is related so much to whether we have ASD or not as it does to how we reflect on life's challenges. ASD's may possibly have more self-awareness because we're in our head more.

When I was young, my self-awareness was low. I did spend a lot of alone time, analyzing the universe, but my social interactions were always awkward and baffling. In my late teens I started to look more inward and over time that became a big part of me. Like Marybird says, I could batch process in my down time, but on the spot I was still largely lost. Over the decades I have become very self-aware (as I imagine other ASD's do) and also conscious of how others are motivated. I can compensate to a good degree, but I'm still easily thrown. And it's only been 6 days since I learned I'm almost certainly an Aspie. Before that, it never really occurred to me. lol. So I guess my self-awareness has/had at least one gaping hole.