Resolution

Self awareness is not a matter of on or off, it's a matter of resolution, or granularity. Subtleties in your own processes nest like a fractal, the peturbations of which can move your mood/behavior in significant ways. As you cultivate your ability to see yourself, your ability to react to your own signals before they become crisis is cultivated. In this way you increase sensitivity to self, and in a way, reduce sensitivity to circumstance, so that the things that affect you generate from within, not without. As you refine your vision, you can see your own depth more accurately, and then correspondingly resonate to a greater depth with the rest of the world.

I used to get angry when someone cut me off on the highway. As I got older, I began to look at all the times I cut other people off, even with scornful contempt, and realized that I couldn't judge myself for such behavior, and certainly I shouldn't judge someone else for doing it. I don't get mad anymore, and often I use the times I do get cut off to cultivate my compassion, often justifying the other driver's behavior as an exercise in imagination.