One of the more inconvenient things about self-awareness is that once you see something about yourself, you can’t really unsee it.
You notice the impatience. The need to be right. The tendency to overthink something that probably didn’t require quite so much thinking. The desire for things to go according to plan, preferably the plan you had in mind.
And for a moment, there is a small sense of accomplishment.
Aha. I see what I’m doing.
Surely this is progress.
Then, sometime later, you find yourself doing exactly the same thing again.
This is particularly humbling when, as I have, you’ve already written publicly about some of these things.
I’ve written about my impatience. I’ve written about being wrong. I’ve written about my ongoing negotiations with reality.
Apparently, writing about them did not make them disappear.
It would be convenient if awareness worked like that. Identify the pattern, understand where it comes from, make a thoughtful observation about it, and move on.
Problem solved.
Unfortunately, I don’t think human beings work quite so efficiently.
There are things I understand about myself now that I didn’t understand a few years ago. I can sometimes see why a particular situation bothers me. I can recognize when my reaction has more energy behind it than the situation itself seems to deserve. I can notice the familiar urge to control, fix, hurry, defend, or explain.
Knowing this helps.
But knowing and changing are not always the same thing.
There can be quite a distance between the two.
Perhaps that distance is where some of the real work happens.
This month, the Compassionate Inquiry® community is exploring the quality of Integration. I’ve been thinking about what that means beyond simply understanding ourselves better.
Because I can understand something intellectually while another part of me is apparently operating under a completely different set of instructions.
My mind may know that there is no need to hurry, while something in me still feels rushed.
I may know that someone disagreeing with me is not a threat, while still feeling an immediate need to explain myself.
I may know that plans change, people behave unpredictably, and the universe has not agreed to consult me before making decisions, yet still experience some resistance when reality takes an unexpected turn.
There is what I know.
And then there is what happens.
Maybe Integration has something to do with allowing those two things to meet.
Not forcing one to defeat the other. Not using what I understand to tell myself that I shouldn’t feel what I feel.
Just noticing the whole experience.
There is something quite different about saying, “I know better than this,” and saying, “I know this reaction.”
The first contains a small judgement.
The second contains curiosity.
That distinction matters to me.
When I notice an old reaction now, I’m trying to become a little less interested in whether I should still be having it and a little more interested in what it might be telling me.
Why did that comment land so heavily?
Why am I suddenly in such a hurry?
Why does it matter so much that this goes according to plan?
Why am I rehearsing an argument with someone who isn’t even in the room?
Sometimes there is an answer. Sometimes there isn’t.
And sometimes the most useful thing I can do is simply notice that my thoughts are saying one thing while the rest of me seems to be communicating something else.
That feels relevant to Integration too.
We spend a lot of time living from the neck up. Thinking, analyzing, explaining, planning. The mind is very persuasive, particularly when it has constructed a convincing story about why we are perfectly fine.
Meanwhile, the rest of us may have a different opinion.
Perhaps the shoulders have tightened.
The breath has changed.
Something in the stomach has contracted.
There may be no dramatic revelation attached to any of it. Sometimes it is simply information we hadn’t been paying attention to.
And maybe Integration begins there: not with finding the correct explanation, but with becoming willing to include more of what is happening.
I used to think personal growth might eventually result in becoming a calmer, wiser version of myself who would no longer get irritated by trivial things, resist reality, or occasionally prefer being right.
I have revised my expectations.
These days, progress sometimes looks much less impressive.
Perhaps I notice something sooner or recover a little faster. Maybe I can recognize a reaction without immediately believing everything it tells me. Perhaps there is a little more space between what happens and what I do next.
I’m beginning to think this may be closer to Integration than finally becoming the person who never has those reactions at all.
There is something reassuring about that.
We can spend years learning about ourselves and still find familiar parts waiting for us around the next corner.
Maybe the question isn’t, “Why am I still like this?”
Maybe it is simply:
“I know this about myself.
Now, how do I meet it?”
