Self-Awareness – Understanding Yourself and Others

Don't miss a piece of the puzzle in your own life.

What makes self-awareness important? It helps you shape your life on your own terms, based on who you really are.

In this small book you get a tool that is easy to learn: the Self-Awareness Circle. It has eight fields that help you listen inward: What happened? What triggers me? What do I believe in? What do I feel? What do I want? What do I do? How did it turn out? What will I do in the future?

What you get in the book:

• A circle with eight fields that you can use in everyday life, on your own or together with someone you care about.
• Help to put into words what you already know but rarely say out loud.
• A first self-test that maps your blind spots, and the four windows: what you and others both see, what you keep hidden, what only others see in you, and what no one sees yet.
• A look at how old patterns and feelings from the family you grew up in can live on, and how you can choose something new.
• Three ways of communicating, the Exploratory, the Straight and the Controlling Style, and how you can get better at being curious and open when you talk.
• My Relationship Secret: what happens when MUST becomes WANT.
• The Staircase of Needs, to help you find what you need when you do not know what you want.
• A short trigger pause for those moments when your reaction is bigger than the situation.
• Exercises throughout, a way to draw your own circle, a look at the roles you play, and a quick check on your relationship energy.
• Small moments of reflection, “Pause and Reflect for a Moment,” and encouragement to keep your own notebook, on paper or on your phone.

The book is for you who are young and on your way, and for you who have many years behind you. Take one step at a time. You will get further than you think.

Everyone needs knowledge, but not everyone needs therapy. You can do a lot yourself, more than you think. This book is a first step you can take on your own. If something stirs strong feelings along the way, the book encourages you to go at your own pace and to reach out for support. Together with the whole levatillsammans program (Swedish for “live together”), it gives you tools to understand yourself and your relationships at your own pace.

The book builds on my 35 to 40 years of couples counseling and on the levatillsammans program. I write in a warm and easy-to-read way, so that you can read in your own time.

First English edition

This is the English edition of my Swedish book on self-awareness, newly revised and expanded. You get depth, new exercises, and findings from my own analyses of couples.

Iréne Knopff, behavioral scientist and founder of the levatillsammans program