Hey everyone,
I'm Stacey.
And I'm Barry.
And we're here for you.
We believe in you,
We support you,
And we're so grateful to spend time with you.
And I was thinking about something today,
Barry.
I was thinking about things I have noticed about myself.
Like today,
I noticed that my favorite color is purple,
And I noticed that I'm kind of hungry,
And I think I'm going to have a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch.
I've noticed that I want to spend time doing things I love,
Like reading and hiking.
And most of all,
I've noticed that I'm happy.
I'm happy I get to spend time with you.
Yeah,
I'm happy I get to spend time with you too.
And I think it's good noticing things about ourselves,
Noticing things about what we like,
What we don't like,
What we like to do,
Things that we're good at.
I think it's good to know things that we're good at,
And things that we've got to work at a little bit harder.
And to know how certain things make us feel.
You know,
Just the feelings that we get when we do certain things.
That's true.
So,
Knowing things about yourself,
That is called self-awareness.
Self is you.
Anytime you hear the word self,
You can think you.
That's you.
And awareness is noticing.
So,
Self-aware is noticing stuff about you.
And I think it's great to know stuff about yourself.
Barry,
What are some things that we might want to know about ourselves?
We want to know the things that make us most happy.
You know,
The things that bring us joy.
We want to know things that make us feel safe,
Things that we really look forward to doing.
You know,
There's stuff that we really want to do,
Like when we get out of school in the afternoon,
We want to be with our friends,
Or we want to go play,
Or there's sports that we're good at.
And so,
I think being self-aware helps us recognize the places where we feel most comfortable,
Where we feel most at home.
I know I like knowing things about myself for a lot of those things that you just said.
But why?
Like,
Why is it actually important to sometimes focus on myself and know about myself?
So that you're more connected with your feelings.
You're more connected with the truth of who you are.
And I think you can feel more relaxed when you're aware of yourself and the things that you like.
And I think it just helps us feel good.
So,
I like what you said that you added feelings in there.
I think knowing stuff about yourself,
And especially about how you're feeling,
Makes a huge difference in your life.
Because if I'm feeling really good,
All those really good emotions,
I might want to share that with people.
And if I'm feeling some of those kind of harder emotions,
I want to be able to know that and maybe change those feelings.
Or whether I'm feeling good emotions or hard emotions,
I might want to share that with somebody else.
And being able to know what I'm feeling lets me share and,
You know,
Talk to other people.
Connect with who you are.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I like that.
Exactly.
I like that.
So,
What are some ways that I can quickly kind of maybe check in with myself and know how I'm feeling?
Well,
You used the word quickly.
I will use the word slowly.
We want to slow down.
I think the more that we can get into the habit of slowing down when we feel anxious or when we feel upset,
If we can just slow down and kind of tap into our awareness of ourselves and to start examining,
What is it that I'm really feeling right now?
I think that can help us.
Well,
There are some ways that you can do that.
And I love these because you could do this anywhere that you are.
And the first one is called starfish breathing.
So,
You can spread your fingers way out and all you do is trace it with the other hand.
So,
As you go up,
Breathe in.
And as you go down,
You breathe out.
And you trace each of your fingers and guess what?
As you do that slowly,
Your mind actually will start to connect with how you're feeling.
So,
I like that one.
I like that one.
I also like the body scan where we kind of visualize a light coming in the top of our head and then that light moving down through our body.
And we just scan ourselves through our body to see where we're going.
And we just scan ourselves through our body to see where we might be holding any tension or where we might feel tight and to just be aware of our body.
Not only what we're feeling,
But where are we feeling it in our body.
I think that's a good way to become more aware too.
I like that.
I like to think of like a laser going over my body with that one.
The other one is conscious movement.
If you have the time and ability,
Maybe you just take a walk,
Right?
Taking a walk can be the perfect thing to slow down and maybe have that feeling that you need to know about surface.
So,
Those are three easy ways,
Don't you think?
I do think so.
All right.
There is a fun fact about self-awareness and knowing your feelings.
So,
The World Health Organization,
That's a group of people who are committed to taking care of all of the people on our planet.
The World Health Organization,
They say being self-aware,
Noticing things about yourself is one of the very best ways that you can connect to other people and that we can have peace on our planet.
So,
Even though you're focusing on yourself,
You're actually doing a really good thing when you are self-aware.
I like that.
I like that.
All right.
So,
We have an affirmation for you today.
Our affirmation is,
I know myself.
I know myself.
I know myself.
I know myself.
Have a great week and know yourself.
Bye everybody.
Bye bye.
