The Transformative Power of Self-Awareness in Marriage

Ever wondered why some marriages thrive while others falter? In this episode, we uncover the transformative power of self-awareness and its pivotal role in enhancing the quality of your relationships. Join Julia Woods as she delves into the essence of self-awareness—discovering your beliefs, thoughts, feelings, actions, and values, and understanding their impact on your spouse. Through engaging stories and actionable insights, Julia reveals how cultivating this ongoing, evolving process can lead to profound personal and relational growth.

Avoiding self-awareness might seem like the easier path, but it can wreak havoc on your marriage. Julia tackles this by exploring the dual nature within us all—the hero and the villain—and how ignoring our darker sides can breed resentment and contempt. By embracing self-awareness, you can set healthier boundaries, make clearer requests, and nurture lasting change. Julia emphasizes that personal growth is a choice, one that can lead to a more fulfilling and resilient marriage by fostering mutual trust and deeper connections.

Community plays a crucial role in developing self-awareness, and Julia highlights the importance of having others help us see what we might miss about ourselves. Practical strategies are discussed, such as daily self-inquiry and making clear commitments to change. Julia invites you to join the Marriage Growth Community, where couples receive the tools and support needed to transform their relationships. Whether you're already part of the community or thinking about joining, this episode offers valuable guidance on nurturing self-awareness for a more loving and intimate marriage.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to hey Julia Woods podcast. I'm your host, julia Woods, founder of Beautiful Outcome, a coaching company focused on helping couples learn to see and understand each other, even in the most difficult conversations. On my podcast, I will share with you the real and raw of the messiness and amazingness of marriage. I'll share with you aspects of my relationship and the couples I coach in a way that you can see yourself and find the tools that you need to build the marriage you long for. Today, I am excited to talk with you about how self-awareness can transform you and your marriage.

Speaker 1: 0:44

This topic is very dear to my heart. It is at the heart of the work that I do. If you have worked with me or are working with me, you may have also heard me refer to this self-awareness as personal responsibility. They are really very similar and what I'm recognizing is that a deeper level of personal responsibility is self-awareness, and the more I give myself to developing and growing self-awareness, the more meaningful my life gets, the more impact I'm able to make, and I am excited to share with you today really a lot about what is self-awareness and what does it actually look like in day-to-day interactions, and why is it vital in marriage and how it can actually transform your marriage and how you can grow it. So we have a lot to cover and I am excited to jump in. So let's start with looking at what is self-awareness. The best definition I can give it at this point is that it's the ability to discover yourself, including your beliefs, your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, your value, and take 100% responsibility for what you're up to in the world, the impact you make on others. This is at the heart of self-awareness.

Speaker 1: 2:21

Now, as humans, it's easy to think that we are self-aware, and I often am talking with people who are interested in working on their marriage or interested in coaching with me, and I explained to them that you know we're going to get really, we're really going to spend a lot of time focusing on self-awareness and growing self-awareness, and I will often hear them say well, I'm pretty self-aware. Or when I have someone who is complaining about why their marriage isn't working and I'm inviting them to consider they might be a little lower on self-awareness than they realize and I often hear them say well, I am really self-aware, I know myself really well. Hear them say well, I am really self-aware, I know myself really well. I say that if you think you're self-aware, that's your first sign that you are not, because when you are self-aware, you realize that self-awareness occurs moment by moment. You are a human becoming so. You are an endless experience of discovery, an endless experience of growing awareness. You know, saying that you are self-aware is like saying you know the ocean because you've been on it in a boat. The ocean is too vast to ever really know it. And you know, you may know a section of it. Let's say you're a fisherman and you've been on this section of the ocean day after day throughout your whole life. Well, what's true is you know a section of the ocean. You don't know the ocean. You can't ever fully know it, even in a lifetime, because the ocean is continually evolving. And this is exactly how we are as humans. We are a continual becoming. Every day we're evolving and changing and developing and new things are triggered. New awareness comes, new discovery comes. Awareness comes, new discovery comes. The more self-aware one becomes, the more one discovers just how unaware they really are about themselves. No one is self-aware. It's not like a destination that we arrive at. Each person is becoming self-aware and every day there's more awareness to develop. Now, before we get into the nitty gritty. Growing self-awareness is best done in community, because we need to. You know, in order to grow self-awareness, we need to have others who can help us see what we can't see about ourselves. And if you recognize you want to grow self-awareness and develop a community of others who are committed to the same thing, your tribe is waiting for you in the marriage growth community. In the marriage growth community you will find the tools that you need, the coaching where I can coach you into deeper levels of self-awareness, and the community that can support you, and you can access the marriage growth community. It is I'm really excited about what's happening in there and what's what's possible, as more couples are couples and spouses are becoming self-aware and becoming aware of how to grow self-awareness, and so if you want to learn more about that, you can find the details in the description under this podcast in the podcast description, and you'll find the link. And, just so you know, the community is a closed community, so enrollment only opens up three times a year. So if enrollment is not open right now while you're listening to this, you will find your access to the waitlist, where you can get on the waitlist and you'll be notified as soon as it opens up again, so I would love to see you in there.

Speaker 1: 6:22

What does it look like? What does self-awareness look like on a day-to-day basis? So let me start this section by asking you when was the last time you were surprised by one of your reactions or your responses towards something or someone? Whatever we are surprised by is simply what we haven't wanted to become aware of. Self-awareness is something that we might in a given day. If a given day there's a hundred percent self-awareness available to us at, we might be aware of 10% of the whole. Like we really can't ever consume all of the self-awareness that is available. What's true is we are far more un-self-aware than we are self-aware is we are far more un-self-aware than we are self-aware.

Speaker 1: 7:25

Here's some examples of some signs that we are pretty low in our self-awareness. When someone asks us what we want and we don't know, that's a significant sign that we are low in self-awareness. When someone asks us what we're feeling and we don't know, that's a sign of low self-awareness. When someone asks us what we're feeling and we don't know, that's a sign of low self-awareness. Now, two hours ago, someone might have asked you what you were feeling and you knew exactly what you were feeling, but two hours later someone asked you what you're feeling and you don't know. This is an example of how self-awareness is a moment by moment thing and within a given day I can be aware quite a few times, but I'm likely going to be far more unaware a whole lot more times than I'm aware.

Speaker 1: 8:14

When we say I don't know why I did that, or I don't know why I feel this way, or when we start telling other people you make me react this way, or you make me feel this way, or you're the problem and until you change, I'm stuck. We can't evolve, you know. Or we tell people if you'll stop doing that, then I'll stop doing this, or I'm not being defensive, right? These are all examples of how you can listen to your language revealing to you your lack of self-awareness. As human beings, we really see life and we see ourselves through a tiny, tiny little pinhole, but the problem is that we think that we're seeing everything there is to see. This is the biggest human problem is we don't realize we have a problem in that we have a very skewed view of the world and of ourselves.

Speaker 1: 9:20

The more self-aware you become, the more you will see how low you are in self-awareness, because growing self-awareness it's uncomfortable work and as humans, we are wired for comfort. We literally, if you choose to grow self-awareness, you literally choose to be like a salmon swimming upstream. It is the road less traveled. It takes fierce honesty, humility and courage. It is a work of facing your shadow. The parts of yourself that you'd rather not admit are there and as humans, we don't like this work. Some refer to this work as hugging the cactus. No one gets excited about thinking about hugging a cactus, but this is the beauty of self-awareness and we're going to talk about what comes out of it and why you'd want to do it, because there's so much value in it and yet, because we're so deeply wired for comfort, we are quite crafty in the different ways that we work at avoiding it.

Speaker 1: 10:41

You know we do things like we blame others or we, you know, become experts at being aware of what other people are doing, like we think we can read their mind, we think we know what they want, we anticipate their needs before they even know they have them. And in the world we live in we pride ourselves in. You know how wonderful we are and how much you know we help other people, how helpful we are, when the truth is, it's just often a way of avoiding growing self-awareness, because it's far easier to be aware of other people, because we don't really need to take responsibility in what we become aware of in them. Right, like? How often do you find yourself being much more clear, telling your spouse what it is that you think they're feeling, what it is that you think they're doing, what it is that you're that they shouldn't be doing or you they should be doing, but the truth is you really don't know. The only thing you actually have the power to know is what you're doing, what you're feeling, what you need to do differently. But that's much harder than becoming an expert of who our spouse is and what they're up to.

Speaker 1: 11:53

Another way we avoid growing self-awareness is we stay busy. We get so busy that we turn down our noticer to the point where we barely notice that we're up to stuff. And as human beings, we're always up to something because we are hero and villain. The cartoon that represents we have the devil on one side of the shoulder and the angel on the other side of the shoulder. This is the hero and the villain that's in every single one of us. One moment you want to hug your spouse's neck and the next moment you want to choke it right Like this is who we are as humans. So everywhere we go, we go with our shadow and our light. We go with our villain and our hero. So, no matter what we're doing, our humanness is still there and therefore we're always up to some levels of no good.

Speaker 1: 12:49

And the more we grow our self-awareness, the more we become aware of that. We become aware of the villain inside of us, and so when we don't want to do that, we just find lots of ways to avoid it, and then we don't understand why our marriages feel lonely and why our marriages feel empty and why we feel all this, you know, resentment and bitterness towards our spouse. And we find ourselves making excuses to why we don't go on dates and we just fill our calendars to where we don't have the time to be with each other, because we know if we actually showed up with each other, we need to become aware of ourselves, we need to actually do the work, and that this is so vital. Self-awareness is vital if you are choosing to be married or you're in a marriage, because marriage is for our growth, and growth occurs in self-awareness. It's like the soil self-awareness is the soil to grow a marriage in, and you know in a marriage if you've been married or you've been with someone for a while, you know you likely know that blaming them is far easier than actually looking at yourself and seeing what you're up to. The truth is is that what happens when we don't choose to grow self-awareness is we do the default within our DNA which is to blame, and what that does is it grows bitterness and resentment and contempt, and these are the most common causes of divorce. All because two people are unwilling to grow self-awareness and they just find it easier to blame and get pretty good at deceiving themselves as to the excuses they have for avoiding this personal work of personal growth.

Speaker 1: 14:58

For those of you that do choose to grow self-awareness, those of you that do choose to, first and foremost, look at yourself and your impact on how things are turning out in your relationship, the beauty of what could come out of self-awareness is incredible. You will become a person of great character, and what's going to come out of that is that you're going to be able to really own what you want and need. You'll be able to set healthy boundaries and actually stick to them, you'll be able to make clear requests and get your spouse's buy-in and be able to negotiate. When you don't, when you have differing opinions and want different things, you're actually able to produce lasting change in yourself. So when your spouse is struggling with something and letting you know that the impact of what you're choosing is really not working for them, and you know, the easiest thing is just to be like well, hey, this is just who I am, so you might as well get used to it. This is who you married, right? That's the opposite of self-awareness.

Speaker 1: 16:14

True self-awareness allows you to actually look deeper and recognize what am I up to? What am I doing that is bringing hurt to another? And if it's hurting them, how's it hurting me and how's it hurting our children, and how's it hurting our legacy and how's it hurting our impact in the world? And let me look a little bit deeper, or a lot deeper, as to what I'm up to and what wounds might be there that need healed, or what beliefs might I have that are bringing me to see a very skewed view of the world. What might my partner see that I'm blinded to? That's the beauty of what self-awareness draws us to is it allows us to go deeper and actually take control of the one thing we have control over, which is ourself and the impact we make moment by moment on the ones we love and the world around us. When we are choosing to grow self-awareness, you know we can own it very quickly when we miss it and wherever we miss it, we're excited because I can become more aware of greater growth that's available to me.

Speaker 1: 17:33

Self-awareness powerfully allows us to grow our ability to live as our word. The people around us begin to trust us and know that they can count on us to do what we said we were going to do. They know that when we respond in a way that is out of pain or out of suffering, or we're triggered or we get defensive when our spouse says something, people around us begin to recognize and know us as people who will choose to dig deeper and heal whatever wounded place is in there that's causing me or driving me to transmit my pain onto my spouse or the ones that I love. Self-awareness brings us to be able to reconcile conflicts quickly because we're ready to own our part. We're ready to focus on our contribution, even if it's only if it's 5% of you know what contributed to what wasn't working or how things turned out. We're willing to take 100% responsibility for our contribution.

Speaker 1: 18:51

When you're self aware, you're consistently growing growth seeking. You're looking for what's the growth opportunity in this and you become a person who's very easy to connect with because you're able to be open and vulnerable, because you see yourself and the more you see yourself, the more you can see others. You're not embarrassed by what you see in yourself, you're not embarrassed by the dark side and when you are embarrassed, you recognize ah, there's an opportunity for me to become self-aware and I'm hope that you're seeing in this that this is a moment by moment work. Right, I can wake up, and in the morning I might be able to be all these things for an hour, and come lunch and I'm hangry and I'm like biting my spouse's head off, right, oh, great, okay, obviously, I'm not choosing to be self-aware. And how can I shift and get back to growing self-awareness in this moment and in the next moment, and in the next moment, and in the next moment and in the next moment?

Speaker 1: 19:58

So how do we actually grow self-awareness? Well, it is daily, consistent inquiry into what we're doing, what we're feeling what we're thinking, what we're believing in a way that produces life. Like, for example, when I started doing this work and I often find this. There are many times that this shows up for some of the clients in the beginning stages of their work, of growing self-awareness, they actually become like almost obsessed, like I became obsessed, like hyper focused on every little thing that I was doing. And as I grew self-awareness, what I began to discover is I was actually using this hyperfocus, this obsessive behavior was actually a wounded place in me that was trying to be perfect, so the world would love me. Perfect, so the world would love me.

Speaker 1: 21:04

And self-awareness brings an ability to be in this work in a way that's life-giving to you and to other people, because you're getting more clear about who you are and your strategies, your survival strategies and how some of the wounds from your past and your early thousand days of life drive you to go into automatic and become whoever it is that you think you need to be to succeed in the world. And the more aware you become of those strategies and those tactics or those rackets within yourself, the more you can notice them and have control over them rather than them controlling you. And, trust me, you can turn self-awareness into a racket, which is what I was doing Growing self-awareness. Another way that you grow it is you're able to look at what you're up to, and you want to look at what you're up to. When you recognize something isn't, you know that there's something breaking down or there's something that's missing, or you're feeling lonely, or you're you know, you thought you wanted to have this wonderful connecting experience with your spouse and you're in the midst of it. Griping at them, you're willing to say, okay, what am I up to here? I came into this moment saying I wanted to connect with my spouse and here I am, you know, picking them apart. What am I up to? And when you really sit with it and you really develop your ability to be self-aware, you'll quickly recognize what you're up to, that you had ulterior motives, that you were subconscious and that when you sit with it, you're able to bring what's in your subconscious into your conscious awareness so you can own it and take responsibility for it and shift, and that can allow you to take, you know, be in the midst of wanting to connect with your spouse and realizing that you're not connecting. Get clear on what you're up to confess it, shift the scenario and wind up having a beautiful experience of connection all out of your ability to be self-aware in that moment.

Speaker 1: 23:27

Another way that you grow self-awareness is you make really clear commitments and you own it when you break them. Not being self-aware is you know. You avoid being clear. You choose to live in vagueness like, hey, I'll um, you know I'll get that for you sometime this week, and you know you've made no clear commitment other than this week. So your spouse learns to not really count much on what you're saying. This is a sign of a lack of self-awareness. When you're really aware of self, of yourself and how much you have a villain in your hero, you're really one. You, you really work on being clear and specific. Hey, I will get that for you by the end of the day tomorrow. And if the end of the day comes tomorrow and or your day goes in a way you didn't expect, you contact your spouse and you say hey, I know, I committed to have this to you by the end of the day. And here's what's happening. Would it work for you If I have it to you by 8 am tomorrow and you own it?

Speaker 1: 24:40

You work to face the humanness of you that seeks comfort above all else and easily wants to shift into the belief that you know they don't show up for you. So why are you going to show up for them? And all these things that are part of our dark side as humans. Another way that we grow self-awareness is we work to speak the truth, even when it hurts. We recognize that honesty when we're honest. That's all we need. We're honest, that that is, that's all we need. And self-awareness we begin. We begin to grow our awareness of how dishonest we really are.

Speaker 1: 25:28

We are very dishonest as humans and if you think you're really honest, you're likely not self-aware, because the more self-aware you become, the more clear you get on how dishonest you are. Dishonest with yourself, about what's possible for you. Dishonest with you know whoever you're talking to. You might tell them a version of what happened last night that's different than you would tell another person, because you can be honest about certain things with certain people and honest with other people about other things, but where you're not being honest with each of them is the dishonesty within us as humans. Right, and you know we're dishonest with time. We say, hey, I'll be there in about five, I'll be there in five minutes and we don't set a timer, we don't actually take account for what five minutes actually is, because by nature as humans, we are dishonest. That is our default.

Speaker 1: 26:30

And if you want to grow self-awareness, start looking at where you are dishonest, because there's not a day you go through that you're not dishonest to certain levels, but we're usually not aware of it. And that's the beauty of growing self-awareness. And you know, when you're growing self-awareness, life becomes this amazing adventure of discovery and growth. And life doesn't really present you problems, it presents you growth opportunities. When you're committed to self-awareness and developing self-awareness, it is powerful. It has literally transformed my life and it has transformed my marriage.

Speaker 1: 27:18

The more I grow in self-awareness, the greater meaning my life takes on. The deeper my relationships go, the more meaningful each day is, and this is coming from a person who I was probably the definition of a lack of self-awareness. I lived my life like a machine. I had turned myself into a machine and just did. Life felt like Groundhog's Day and I just did whatever I thought was going to keep people happy and make them like me and make them want to be with me. I was an expert at being aware of other people and a very, very, extremely immature at self-awareness.

Speaker 1: 28:11

And in the last 15 years I have grown immensely in self-awareness and yet I know that in reality I'm just beginning to scratch the surface as what's possible in self-awareness and if you are around an extremely self-aware person, you will usually they'll blow your mind what they're aware of, what they're aware of, what they are able to articulate about themselves, what they're able to own in the moment, and their humility and their honesty. It's transformative and it literally transforms the moment that they're in. And all of us have this capacity within us. It's. Are we willing to grow that muscle? Are we willing to develop that within ourselves rather than go along with the crowd and just do what's comfortable and coast through life and, you know, hit the easy button because that's far easier. It's far easier to numb and get busy and blame and feel like life is happening to us rather than recognizing life is happening for us. And the more self-aware we become, the more beauty we see in this world and how every single thing is happening for us, no matter how hard it may be to face it.

Speaker 1: 29:43

So I want to invite you to recognize the gift of self-awareness and grow it in greater ways in yourself. Give yourself to the journey and the commitment of a lifetime opportunity, a daily, moment by moment opportunity to grow self-aware, and if you choose to do that, you will literally transform your world and you will make an impact in the world and in the ones that you love in a way that goes beyond anything you ever thought possible. So thank you for joining me, and I would love to hear what's occurring for you as you look at your self-awareness and what it is that you want and need and what might be missing, as you look at the marriage that you long for and consider how much self-awareness or a lack of self-awareness might be contributing to the distance between what you have and what you long for. And I am here. I am passionate about standing with spouses to create the marriage that they long for. And I am here, I want. I am passionate about standing with spouses to create the marriage that they long for.

Speaker 1: 31:04

Regardless of whether you're doing the work on your own or you're doing it with your spouse, self-awareness will transform your marriage, even if you're the only one growing it, and, yes, your spouse will eventually need to join you. However, it starts with one growing self-awareness. That is my journey and it is the journey of many and many of the people that I work with, and you can join us in the Marriage Growth Community and let's develop self-awareness together and experience the love and the connection and the intimacy that we long for. Thanks so much for joining me today. Thank you.