Kusum Rakwal
There’s a strange calm that arrives when you begin to truly observe yourself, not through the chart of performance, but with stillness.
Self-awareness doesn’t come wrapped in sudden clarity. It creeps in shamelessly, implicitly explicit, in the pause between two thoughts, the exhaustion after a long day, or the way your body tenses at the thought of being seen but not accepted. It’s uncomfortable at first. But gradually, you stop running from it. You let it sit beside you.
Self-awareness is not a revelation. It’s a relationship.
In this process, you unlearn. You release the voice that says, “Be perfect before you begin.”
That resistance to beginning makes sense, as perfectionism triggers the amygdala, releasing cortisol and keeping the body in a chronic stress state.
Also, in the process, you start noticing how much of your ambition was born out of wanting to be enough, for a person, or society.
Then comes the hard part: reclaiming that ambition without guilt.
There’s a misattributed quote that likely arose as a simplified modern paraphrase of similar ideas: “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
This is the closest train to the trance we missed.
We are not here to prove our worth. We are here to live in alignment with it.
Somewhere between seeking acceptance and fearing rejection, we forget that our sensitivity isn’t a flaw. This sensitivity isn’t instability, but similar to the needle of a compass, trembling toward truth. It doesn’t spin wildly. It aligns, pointing to what others ignore.
No matter how many call it a weakness, a compass doesn’t argue with the lost. It just shows the way.
Our concern for others, our emotional weight, our deep care, these are not burdening emotions. They’re information.
Not the neat kind you’d find in a spreadsheet, but the messy, living data of being human. Its purpose is wise utilization, not paralysis.
The world will always measure value in loud terms: success, accolades, output. But self-awareness teaches you to notice the quiet indicators: how you respond when no one’s watching, how you self-soothe, how you return to yourself after spiraling.
You don’t need to be perfect to be aware. You just need to be honest.
I no longer wait for big milestones to declare growth. It happens everyday: in getting back up after a week of procrastination, in pausing instead of punishing myself, in caring deeply yet still setting a boundary.
The key to this becoming is in the parasympathetic system, consciously switching between fight-and-flight and rest-and-digest mode.
Sometimes, even a warm bath or a nourishing meal can feel like a return home.
So if you’re in the middle of chaos and don’t have it all figured out, let me help and say: awareness isn’t a trophy.
It’s a torch. The one you carry quietly, sometimes trembling, but always forward.
And maybe, that’s enough for today.
(The author is PGT English Air Force School Jammu)
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