I once heard awareness described as communication without words – the listening and responding to our bodies, thoughts, and emotions. It was likened to our inner response to art, nature, or another beautiful object where we cannot help but take it all in and revel in a wordless gaze of appreciation and awe.  

Living in a world of rapid change often has us on our toes, ready for that fight or flight reaction.  We are in a repetitive state of looking back and pushing forward.  To be present and aware needs an act of intentionality to be still.  For many of us, this does not come naturally and when we do make time for that intentionality it feels so awkward and perhaps even scary.  So why is awareness so important in our walk of faith?

To be aware is to acknowledge our true selves – our identity.  For many of us, the influence of the world has left us to create masks that hide our faults, imperfections, and failures.  So how do we love ourselves despite our shortcomings and understand that those shortcomings are not WHO we are but the very human nature we strive to perfect towards our image and likeness of God?

Masks rob us of the freedom to respond to our true identity.  Refusing to acknowledge our true selves often leaves us pointing fingers at others, frustrated, and angry, behaviors rooted in fear – fear of exposure.

Facing our weakness with God gives us the strength to face those vulnerable areas we dread being exposed to because we know we are loved despite them.  Our trust deepens with that awareness and that is when transformation begins. God longs for us to thrive, not just survive!

How Do We Develop Self-Awareness? 

Understanding the truth in our identity starts with facing our doubts and the lies the enemy tries to entrap us with. Having an openness to understand our worldly attachments allows us a place to start and address those fears. Then the work begins around aligning our thinking to God’s Truth about who we are and not the world’s rhetoric. 

Feelings and emotions often give clues to when we are not aligned with our Godly design. So often we are not even aware of what we are thinking and feeling because we’ve already moved into reaction mode. These reactions become a natural part of how we’ve learned to mask our inadequacies – our coping mechanism. 

We start to develop self-awareness by asking what concerns us about our present situation, where the frustrations lie, and in what way we would like things to be different. We all need space to evaluate a situation and make decisions around where we want our lives to go and it all starts with powerful questions.

“The greatest accomplishment in life is to be what we are, which is God’s idea of what he wanted us to be when he brought us into being…Accepting that gift is accepting God’s will for us, and in its acceptance is found the path to growth and ultimate fulfillment”.

Thomas Keating

How Coaching Helps

The art of coaching assists clients in gaining a clear perspective around where they are and where they want to be. A faith-based coaching process invites God into that space to see where He is moving in one’s life.

Our faith influences how we make sense of life, decide right and wrong, choose values, view others, make deisions and evaluate circumstance. Getting clear on one’s core values help when making plans and decisions for the future.

Coaches are trained to listen deeply to their clients and pick up on the patterns in their stories – patterns that they most often never recognize because they are such a natural part of how they think, feel, and behave. Equipped with this awareness, the client more naturally leans into the process of how to get there and overcoming possible obstacles.

Coaches bring a unique style of questioning that open up the depths of clarity for their clients, getting them in touch with their identity and values. Clients begin to gain awareness when the recognize their lived-out values and their stated values are not aligned. Faith-based coaches know the value in Spirit-led transoformation and can challenge clients in those inconsistencies, encourage change, and guide the change process.

If you’d like to learn more about the coaching process, visit my coaching page and book a FREE discovery call and make some space to hear the whisper of where God might be moving in your life.