COLUMN: Wit & Wisdom

He had cooked a nice dinner for them both, the wine was good and the movie entertaining.

How was he to know that under the thin veil of smiles there lurked a gurgling volcano?

‘Where’s my phone?’ he asked, and it couldn’t be found. So she called his number and they quickly located it where it had fallen, down between the cushions, but, in the process of recovering it, a glass of wine was knocked over.

It was a wooden floor, so there were no stains and the glass didn’t break. No major trauma, he thought, but the lady went ballistic.

Intrigued, but cool as a cucumber, he wiped up the wine, replaced the cushions, and equilibrium was restored. The wine glasses were topped up and as they sat close to each other, enjoying the remaining hours of the evening, he asked her: ‘What was that all about?’ and she explained. She was tired; she was awaiting the results of a recent biopsy; her life-long friend was not recovering well from serious invasive surgery; there was a divorce pending in the close family. It all became clear; the eruption had little to do with the misplaced phone or the wine spillage.

So, what is self awareness? The clue is in the title; it’s being aware of your behaviour.

A couple of months ago I quoted Dr Viktor Frankl, a holocaust survivor who became a prominent psychiatrist following his release from Auschwitz.

He taught me a valuable lesson on life; ‘Between the stimulus and the response there is a space’. The lesson is, when something happens to anger you, that’s the stimulus. Rather than react the way you normally do - that’s your autopilot - you take a step back, and, perhaps for just a second, you observe, and then you decide how you will respond.

If the lady in the story had been self aware she would have known she was suppressing her fears and anxieties, she would have acknowledged them or dealt with them and they wouldn’t have built up in her head, causing stress.

Thus, her reaction to the misplaced phone and spilled wine would have been proportionate – she might even have seen the funny side.

Take time to be aware of yourself. In life we cannot avoid stress, but self awareness can teach us how to deal with it.

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