Despite reading the definition way too many times to count, for some reason I can't grasp the concept of Self-Awareness. It says: "Conscious knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires"...but uh, isn't that like what everybody has? Like how would you be unaware of an emotion you're having? If, let's say, you're feeling angry, but for some reason aren't aware that you're feeling angry and as such, you don't know you're feeling angry, then would you really be feeling angry? Like how could you prove that someone is unconsciously feeling an emotion if they don't even feel it?
As for motives, how the hell would you not realize why you're doing something? Like if I asked someone why they go to work everyday, they'd probably say something like "To earn money" or "To make a living" over "Gee, I don't know. I never thought about it." Same thing with desires. If you don't know you desire something then is it really even a desire? Even you don't say to yourself "I desire chocolate", you're aware that you do when you crave it and decide to eat it.
Perhaps I'm misinterpreting the definition, so can someone please explain to me what I'm missing or not seeing.
What really confuses me is how they say people unconsciously suppress their emotions into the subconscious/unconscious mind and aren't aware they have them. Can someone please explain how that even works? Like, I understand when a person says "I'm fine" to another person when they don't actually feel fine, but those people actually know on the inside that they aren't feeling fine and are aware of it. They just don't want other people knowing about it. However, in the articles/books I'm reading, they're saying people actually trick themselves into believing that they don't feel their feelings. How do you even manage to that?
Here are two examples that confuse me the most:
"You’re having a fight with your partner for the fiftieth time that week. In a fit of rage, you smash your fist into the wall. “Why are you so angry!?!” your partner screams. “I’M NOT ANGRY! I INTENDED TO SMASH MY FIST THROUGH THAT WALL! I’M COMPLETELY FINE! WHY ARE YOU SO ANGRY!?!”"
So if you're too a point where you're smashing holes into walls, how do you not realize that you're angry? Wouldn't that be a pretty good indication you're mad? And what does whether it was intentional or not have to do with it? Once again, I understand knowing that you're angry but just not wanting to admit you have an anger problem to others, but this article isn't talking about that.
Then the next one, but this time about fear and not anger:
"Unintegrated, we fear fear itself. We don’t allow for fear as part of our groundedness; we reject and resist fear. We perceive fear as undesirable, something that should be eliminated instead of occupying a balanced place in our lives. In being motivated to eliminate fear, we suppress it. Fear builds in the subconscious until we become obsessed. We start projecting onto inappropriate situations and actually attract situations to us that correspond to the fear."
Once again, I am very perplexed as to how you can't realize you're scared/afraid of something or have a fear/phobia of something? If you look at a snake and your heart starts racing and your adrenaline starts pumping and you scream and run, do you just think you freaked out for no reason and coincidentally there was a snake near you when you did it? They talk about suppressing fear as something that shouldn't be done because the fear going into the unconscious (whatever that means), but how else do people overcome fears if not by removing them from awareness so we don't feel that feeling of fear anymore? How do you distinguish being unconsciously fearful from not being afraid?
Going by the definitions of "Self-Awareness" I'm being given, I'm lost as to how anyone couldn't be Self-Aware, unless they were in a catatonic state and couldn't think, feel, etc., so someone please explain this to me so hopefully, maybe one day, I'll be on the same level as the people that get it. Thank you in advance.