What Does it Mean to Be Self-Aware?
Conscious knowledge of one's character, feelings, motives, and intentions.
As young persons impacted by the many systems experienced through juvenile justice or child welfare, our experiences train us to respond and take action in a fight or flight, instinctual survival mode. But data and personal stories point to our constant distress, suffering, and impact on our person and highlight the lack of appropriate role models for healthy social and emotional connections with ourselves and our environments.
Let's take control of that aspect of our lives and take control of ourselves, heart, mind, body, and soul.
SEL advances educational equity and excellence through authentic family-community-school partnerships to establish learning environments and experiences that feature trusting and collaborative relationships, rigorous and meaningful curriculum and instruction, and ongoing evaluation. SEL can help address various forms of inequity and empower young people and adults to co-create thriving spaces and contribute to safe, healthy, and just communities.
Self-Awareness Exercise
Make 6 columns on a blank sheet of paper
Challenges, Effects, Feelings, What I Did, Needs, and Lessons, Skills & Values
1. In the “Challenges” column, list any major obstacles you face --anything from major health or family issues to experiencing racism or violence.
Spend at least 3-4 minutes on this first column. The more these challenges affect you, the more productive this exercise can be.
2. In the second column, list the Effects (aka repercussions) that you experienced as a result of each challenge you’ve listed.
How did each challenge impact you? How did your world change?
Important: Don’t yet name the emotions/feelings you felt as the result of the challenge, as those will go in the next column.
The purpose of this column is to differentiate your experience of the challenge you named in the first column (e.g., divorce or moving around a lot) from the effect/feelings it elicited. Spend at least 3-4 minutes on this column. See if you can write down 3-4 effects for each challenge.
3. In the third column, name the Feelings that each effect elicited.
You can name the main emotion you felt or several different emotions. If you had difficulty making friends, for example, maybe you felt afraid, isolated, or vulnerable. Maybe some part of you even felt relieved. Don’t worry if the feelings you write down contradict. Mixed emotions are normal and noting them can actually make for a more interesting, nuanced personal statement.
What did you feel? Spend 3-4 minutes on this column. See if you can list 3-4 feelings for each challenge you experienced.
4. In the fourth column, write the word “Needs.”
Consider that each emotion you feel has an underlying need that can help you understand why you feel what you feel. Ask yourself what need may have been underneath each feeling you wrote down. Perhaps underneath a feeling of isolation, for example, was a need for connection, or beneath a feeling of vulnerability was a need for safety. Spend a little extra time with this column, as it’s the heart of this exercise. Based on the emotions you’ve listed, what need was or is underneath each one?
5. For the fifth column, “What I did about it,” consider the steps you took to meet the needs you wrote down.
Maybe to meet your need for safety you shared your feelings with a loved one or a counselor and that helped you feel better; so you’d write down “talked to a counselor.” I know this is a big question, but ask yourself: What deeper need is it meeting for me? If you’re still in process (i.e., haven’t done anything yet to meet those needs), what could you do? Spend 3-4 minutes on this column.
6. In the sixth column, “Lessons, Skills, & Values,” ask yourself: What did I learn from all this?
And what did that lesson lead to, if anything?
For ideas of what to put in this column, take a look at the list of values (below).
List 3-4 values you’ve developed based on each of the activities you’ve listed in the previous column. Spend 3-4 minutes on this. Normally this column ends up being really full.
*Adapted from the College Essay Guy
Consider and Reflect
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