What Is Self-Awareness?

What Is Self-Awareness?

Understanding Begins Where the Wound Is Felt

“To understand awareness, we must first walk through our own darkness.”

Self-awareness is not a surface concept. It is a soul encounter. It does not begin in the brightness of knowledge but in the shadow of experience.

We begin to see awareness when we start to fall.
When we are hurt.
When the sharp edges of life wound us.

We fall, again and again—not always in the same way, but in a similar place. The situations change, the faces change, but the one who is falling remains the same.
And in that sameness, we meet something essential:
The depth of our awareness.

How Do We Know We Are Becoming Aware?

When the wound no longer becomes a cycle,
When the pain starts becoming a path,
When the question that once shattered us begins to shine like a lighthouse—

Then we know a step has been completed.

Awareness is not about having all the answers.
It is about recognizing the light hidden in the first step.

• When a single feeling reveals the shape of your entire journey…
• When your question no longer controls you but starts to guide you…
• When every moment begins to consume you with meaning…

That is when you are no longer reacting to life.
You are becoming it.

A Personal Example: Pain That Became My Path

There was a time in my early life when I suffered deeply from the thought:

“Why does nobody know how much I love them?”

People saw me as sweet, innocent—even foolish. I was praised, misunderstood, and judged in the same breath. I internalized that confusion, and it became stress, and later, depression. My behavior began to follow my thoughts. That was my question. My silent prison.

I first felt this at the age of 13. It seemed innocent then.
But it took me 20 years of life, love, loss, and reflection to truly understand that original pain.

At 13, I had already understood this truth:

“Even if I feel my grandmother’s love deeply, it does not mean she will feel my love in the same way.”

But what was understanding at 13 became experience over 20 years.
And what was experience became wisdom when I no longer needed others to reflect my love in order to feel it.

Where Does Self-Awareness Begin?

Where Does Self-Awareness Begin?

It begins in the difference between knowing and living, between insight and integration, and between experience and understanding.

You can read more about that distinction in the next chapter.
[What Is the Difference Between Experience and Understanding? (Read Here)]

Final Reflection

Self-awareness does not save us from pain.
It saves the pain from going to waste.

It is the path where our deepest questions stop being wounds.
and start becoming windows.

“When we are consumed by our moments, when we are guided by the first spark of our feelings, when our destination is already speaking in our first question, then we are not just alive. We are aware.”

Now, what should be our next step for self-awakening?

Now what should be our next step for self-awakening?

For self-awakening, first of all, questions will start coming from within us. Our questions will guide us, and this is the most wonderful and correct path. I understand and know myself, and no one else. So this is the right natural path. In which books, good and wise people, the most beautiful helper, and our own environment will help us.

How? Let’s move forward and solve this. How?