fejonesliveAwareness, everyday language, and the difference between knowing something and allowing it to shape how we live.
We talk a lot about awareness.
Every year, we recognize Breast Cancer Awareness Month, PTSD Awareness Month, Autism Awareness Month, Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, and countless other campaigns dedicated to helping people become better informed about important issues.
We encourage people to become more self-aware, emotionally aware, socially aware, and culturally aware. We talk about developing trauma-informed environments, becoming more mindful of the needs of others, and recognizing how our actions affect the people around us.
And I think these are all important conversations worth having.
But there’s something I’ve been thinking about that I believe deserves our attention.
Have we become so accustomed to using the word awareness that we’ve stopped examining what it actually means, and more importantly, what it’s supposed to produce in our lives?
Think about that for a moment.
We use words like awareness, understanding, knowledge, and consideration so frequently that they’ve become part of our everyday vocabulary. We say we’re aware of something, that we understand someone’s circumstances, or that we already know what another person is trying to communicate.
But do we ever stop to consider what we’re actually saying?
What does it mean to be aware of something? Is it simply possessing information? Is it recognizing that something exists? Or is there a deeper level of understanding that invites us to examine our beliefs, reconsider our assumptions, and perhaps respond differently?
And if we’re going to say that we’re aware of something, shouldn’t we also be willing to examine whether that awareness is influencing the way we live?
I’m not asking these questions because I believe people are intentionally misusing words or deliberately failing to consider others.
Quite the opposite.
I believe many of us have simply become accustomed to certain expressions, habits, and social expectations without ever stopping to examine the meaning behind them.
We’ve learned what to say. We’ve learned what’s considered appropriate. We’ve learned how we’re expected to respond in different situations.
But somewhere along the way, we may have overlooked the importance of understanding why those responses matter.
And that’s what I’d like us to explore.
Not to judge ourselves or one another, but to develop a more thoughtful understanding of the words we use, the beliefs we carry, and the behaviors we practice.
Because sometimes, living a better life begins with examining the things we’ve always taken for granted.
What Is Awareness, and What Is It Supposed to Accomplish?
Let’s begin with the meaning of the word itself.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines awareness in terms of knowing that something exists or understanding a situation through information or experience.
That’s a perfectly reasonable definition.
And from a psychological standpoint, awareness doesn’t necessarily require someone to change their behavior. A person can consciously recognize something without taking action.
But I want to explore another dimension of awareness.
What is the purpose of becoming aware of something if we never examine its meaning or consider what we might need to do with that information?
Let’s return to the example of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
The goal isn’t simply to make sure people know breast cancer exists.
We want people to understand more about the disease, recognize relevant risk factors, become informed about screening, and know when to discuss concerns with a healthcare professional.
The National Cancer Institute explains that breast cancer screening can help detect cancer before symptoms appear, while also emphasizing that screening has both potential benefits and harms.
That information matters because it helps people participate in informed decisions about their health.
We’re not simply collecting facts about breast cancer. We’re learning how those facts may be relevant to our lives.
The same principle applies to trauma awareness.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, commonly known as SAMHSA, describes a trauma-informed approach through four interconnected elements.
Organizations seek to realize the impact of trauma, recognize its signs, respond by integrating that knowledge into their practices, and resist retraumatization.
Notice something important.
The framework doesn’t stop at knowing that trauma exists.
It addresses how that knowledge should influence the way organizations operate and interact with people.
Now, this doesn’t mean that learning about trauma automatically makes someone skilled at responding to it. Education, training, experience, and continued evaluation are still necessary.
But the objective extends beyond simply possessing information.
The information is intended to become useful in the way people think, make decisions, and respond.
And I believe that’s a distinction worth carrying into our everyday lives.
The Difference Between Having Information and Developing Meaningful Awareness
I want to be careful here because I’m not suggesting that we need to discard established definitions of awareness.
What I’m proposing is that we examine the difference between knowing something intellectually and allowing that knowledge to develop into meaningful understanding.
For example, someone might know that another person is experiencing a difficult season of life.
Perhaps that person is caring for an aging parent, pursuing an education, raising children, working long hours, or navigating responsibilities that require considerable time and energy.
Knowing those facts is one thing.
But have we stopped to consider what those circumstances mean for the individual experiencing them?
Have we thought about the demands those responsibilities place on their time? Have we considered how our expectations might affect them? Are we willing to recognize that their circumstances may require them to make decisions we wouldn’t necessarily make ourselves?
Those questions take us beyond merely possessing information.
They invite us to examine its significance.
One way I like to think about this distinction is:
Information tells us something exists. Meaningful awareness helps us recognize its significance. Understanding invites us to examine what it means. Consideration helps us determine how to respond.
These aren’t formal psychological stages. They’re distinctions we can use to think more carefully about how information becomes useful in our lives.
Interestingly, we can see a similar emphasis on application in public health.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains that Healthy People 2030 updated the definition of health literacy to include people’s ability to find, understand, and use health information when making decisions.
I find that important.
Because being informed isn’t always the same as being equipped to make a meaningful decision.
And reaching people with information doesn’t necessarily tell us what that information accomplished.
A 2023 systematic review by Kite and colleagues examined 93 public health communication campaigns that used social media.
The researchers found that many campaigns measured exposure and engagement, such as impressions, likes, and shares, without adequately measuring whether they accomplished broader objectives related to knowledge, behavior, or social norms.
In fact, 42 of the 93 campaigns did not report outcomes beyond engagement.
That doesn’t mean the campaigns were ineffective. It means their evaluations often couldn’t establish whether the intended changes occurred.
And there’s a lesson here.
Simply exposing someone to information doesn’t tell us whether that information has been understood, internalized, or applied.
We need to examine what happens beyond the initial exposure.
That’s true in public health education.
And I believe it’s worth considering in our personal development as well.
Have We Become Too Accustomed to Saying What’s Socially Acceptable?
Let’s talk about something we all experience.
Social conditioning.
From the time we’re children, we begin learning how to behave by observing the people and environments around us.
Our parents and caregivers introduce us to customs, traditions, expectations, and beliefs. Our schools reinforce certain social behaviors. Our communities teach us what’s appropriate, and our cultures influence how we communicate, celebrate, and relate to one another.
Much of this learning serves a valuable purpose.
We need shared expectations to function within families, workplaces, and communities.
Imagine how difficult everyday life would become if we had to consciously reconsider every routine interaction.
But here’s something I think we need to recognize.
Just because something is familiar doesn’t mean it’s true. Just because something is normal doesn’t mean it’s wise. And just because something is socially acceptable doesn’t automatically mean it’s helpful or beneficial.
That doesn’t make traditions or social expectations inherently wrong.
It simply means they’re worth examining.
Think about the holidays we celebrate.
How many people participate in Christmas or Thanksgiving traditions because that’s what their families have always done?
There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that.
Traditions can be beautiful. They can strengthen family relationships, preserve cultural history, and create meaningful memories.
But have we ever stopped to ask why we observe those traditions?
Do we understand their origins? Do we believe in what they represent? Are we practicing them because they hold personal meaning, or simply because we’ve always done things that way?
We may examine those questions and decide that we want to continue celebrating exactly as we always have.
And that’s perfectly fine.
The difference is that we’ve taken the time to understand what we’re participating in.
We’ve moved from simply repeating a practice to making a more intentional choice.
The Pot Roast Story: When a Practical Decision Becomes a Tradition
There’s a familiar anecdote that’s circulated for years about a woman who always cut the ends off a pot roast before placing it in the oven.
Her daughter learned to prepare the roast the same way.
Eventually, another generation followed the same practice.
One day, someone asked why the ends had to be cut off.
Did cutting the meat improve the flavor? Did it help the roast cook more evenly? Was there some special preparation method that made the dish better?
The answer was surprisingly simple.
The original cook’s pan had been too small to accommodate the entire roast.
That’s it.
The story exists in several versions and is best understood as a teaching anecdote rather than a verified historical account.
But it illustrates something worth considering.
What began as a practical solution to a particular problem eventually became an established family practice.
The behavior was preserved, but the reasoning behind it was lost.
And I wonder how often we do something similar in our own lives.
How many expressions do we repeat because we heard our parents use them?
How many opinions do we hold because those were the prevailing opinions in our families or communities?
How many behaviors do we continue practicing because they’re familiar, even when we no longer understand why we started?
And perhaps most importantly, how often do we mistake familiarity for understanding?
What Psychology Tells Us About Habits and Social Norms
Research helps us understand why this happens.
Psychologists Wendy Wood and David Neal, in their 2007 review of habits, explained how repeated behaviors become associated with familiar situations.
Over time, encountering a familiar situation can trigger an established response without requiring a person to consciously reconsider the original goal.
This ability is useful.
Habits help us function efficiently. They allow us to complete routine activities without having to devote substantial mental effort to every decision.
But habits can also persist after the circumstances that originally shaped them have changed.
Social expectations influence our behavior, too.
Psychologists Robert Cialdini, Raymond Reno, and Carl Kallgren distinguished between descriptive norms, which involve perceptions of what people commonly do, and injunctive norms, which involve perceptions of what others approve or disapprove of.
Their research demonstrated that social norms can influence behavior depending on which expectations become prominent in a given situation.
These findings don’t mean that every tradition is mindless or that every socially accepted behavior is harmful.
They help explain why human beings sometimes continue doing what they’ve learned without deliberately reconsidering the behavior each time.
And that’s precisely why self-examination matters.
We don’t need to question everything for the sake of questioning it.
But we should remain willing to examine whether our beliefs and behaviors are grounded in something meaningful.
When “I Know” Becomes an Automatic Response
Now let’s bring this conversation into our relationships.
Think about how often we say:
“I know.”
“I understand.”
“I’m aware.”
“I hear you.”
“I get it.”
Most of us have used these expressions countless times.
They’re part of our everyday language, and there is nothing inherently wrong with them.
But I want us to consider something.
Have we become so accustomed to giving the socially appropriate response that we sometimes overlook what we’re actually communicating?
For example, imagine someone you love comes to you with a concern.
Perhaps they’re overwhelmed by responsibilities, struggling with something emotionally, or trying to explain why a particular situation has become difficult for them.
You listen and respond, “Yes, I know.”
Now, what exactly does that mean?
It might mean you’ve heard the information before.
It might mean you’re familiar with their circumstances.
It might be your way of reassuring them that you understand.
But here’s something worth examining.
Are we sometimes using the language of understanding when we’ve only acknowledged the information?
And could that distinction help explain why certain conversations keep happening in our relationships?
Let’s say someone has repeatedly expressed that they’re overwhelmed by a particular responsibility.
You’ve heard them explain it several times.
You know they’re overwhelmed.
But the subject keeps coming up.
What if the person isn’t repeating themselves because they believe you’ve forgotten what they said?
What if they’re bringing it up because the underlying concern remains unresolved?
Perhaps they’re still looking for support. Perhaps they want to work through a decision. Perhaps they’re trying to communicate something they haven’t yet found the words to explain clearly.
Or perhaps they’re looking for some indication that their circumstances have genuinely been taken into consideration.
Those are possibilities worth exploring.
Of course, repeated conversations don’t automatically mean someone has failed to listen. People sometimes revisit concerns because they’re anxious, uncertain, or still processing their own experiences.
And sometimes two people understand the same situation but disagree about what should happen next.
That’s why we have to resist the temptation to make assumptions about someone’s intentions.
But we also shouldn’t overlook what repeated conversations might be communicating.
Instead of immediately responding, “You’ve already told me that,” perhaps we could become curious.
I know we’ve talked about this before, but is there something about this situation that I haven’t fully understood?
Think about the difference.
We’re no longer responding simply to the repetition.
We’re trying to understand what the person needs us to recognize.
And that brings us to another important part of this conversation.
When Someone Doesn’t Feel Heard, Seen, or Understood
There’s a difference between believing we’ve listened to someone and that person experiencing our response as evidence that we’ve understood them.
Research on interpersonal relationships helps us explore this distinction.
In a 2023 review, Beyzanur Arican-Dinc and Shelly Gable examined responsiveness in romantic relationships.
They discussed the concept of perceived responsiveness, which involves whether the person sharing information experiences the other person’s response as communicating understanding, validation, and care.
That distinction matters.
It’s not simply whether one person believes they’ve listened.
It’s also whether the person speaking experiences the response as attentive to what they’ve communicated.
In another 2023 review, Amie Gordon and Emily Diamond examined feeling understood and appreciated in romantic relationships and how those perceptions relate to relationship quality.
Their work highlights the importance of understanding and appreciation in creating meaningful connection.
These reviews specifically examine romantic relationships, so we should be careful not to assume that every finding applies identically to friendships, families, workplaces, or other social environments.
However, similar questions have been examined in organizational psychology.
A 2021 qualitative study by Tiffany Kriz, Avraham Kluger, and Christopher Lyddy explored employees’ experiences of feeling heard or unheard at work.
The researchers found that people’s subjective experiences of listening involve more than simply whether another person receives their words.
These studies help us recognize something important.
The fact that we believe we’ve communicated understanding doesn’t necessarily mean the other person has experienced our response that way.
And this is where I believe we need both compassion and personal responsibility.
Imagine telling someone that a particular behavior has been hurtful.
They respond, “I understand.”
But the same behavior continues.
Eventually, the subject comes up again.
The person responding may feel frustrated because they believe they’ve already acknowledged the issue.
The person raising the concern may feel frustrated because the behavior hasn’t changed.
Now, neither person’s frustration automatically tells us everything about the situation.
Perhaps the behavior is an established habit that’s difficult to change.
Perhaps the expectations haven’t been communicated clearly.
Perhaps one person is making efforts that the other hasn’t recognized.
Or perhaps someone genuinely hasn’t given the concern the attention it deserves.
We cannot determine which explanation is accurate without examining the circumstances.
But we can ask a question that may help move the conversation forward.
What evidence does my behavior provide that I’ve taken what this person shared with me seriously?
Not because we need to prove ourselves to everyone.
Not because we’re responsible for ensuring that every person is satisfied with our choices.
But because healthy relationships benefit when we’re willing to examine the difference between what we intended to communicate and what our behavior may actually be communicating.
And that brings me to a word I think deserves a place in this conversation.
Fruit.
What Fruit Is Our Awareness Producing?
When I use the word fruit, I’m referring to the results or consequences of what we’re practicing in our lives.
What are our beliefs producing?
What are our habits producing?
What are our decisions producing?
And what are our words and behaviors communicating to the people around us?
If I say I value honesty, is honesty reflected in the way I conduct myself?
If I say I value healthy relationships, do my decisions demonstrate consideration for the people involved?
If I say I understand someone’s circumstances, am I taking those circumstances into account when deciding how to interact with them?
These aren’t questions intended to make us feel guilty.
They’re questions that invite us to examine whether what we say we understand has become meaningful enough to influence the way we live.
For those of us who approach life through a biblical worldview, there’s a familiar principle in James 1:22–25.
James challenges his readers not merely to hear God’s word but to put it into practice. He uses the illustration of someone looking into a mirror and then walking away, forgetting what was seen.
The immediate context concerns responding faithfully to God’s word, but the distinction between hearing and doing also offers a useful illustration for personal reflection.
We can encounter something important without allowing it to influence our conduct.
And I believe that gives us something worth considering, whether we’re examining our spiritual lives, our relationships, our habits, or our personal development.
However, I want to make an important distinction.
Our behavior can provide meaningful evidence of what we’re practicing, but it doesn’t always tell the complete story of what we know, understand, or intend.
Someone can genuinely recognize a problem and want to change while still struggling to make that change.
Psychological research supports this distinction.
In a 2006 meta-analysis involving 47 experimental tests, Thomas Webb and Paschal Sheeran examined whether changes in people’s behavioral intentions produced corresponding changes in behavior.
They found that increases in intention produced smaller increases in actual behavior.
The findings illustrate something many of us have experienced.
Wanting to change doesn’t guarantee that change will happen.
Understanding something doesn’t automatically mean we’ve developed the habits, skills, or circumstances necessary to respond differently.
And I think recognizing that should make us more compassionate, not less accountable.
We can acknowledge that change takes work while still recognizing that our choices affect other people.
Both things can be true.
And when we recognize that gap between what we intend and what we practice, we have an opportunity to begin addressing it.
From Hearing to Living It: Making Awareness More Intentional
So what might meaningful awareness look like in everyday life?
I believe we can begin by becoming more intentional about how we receive, evaluate, and apply information.
Consider the following progression.
It’s not a formal psychological model or a set of stages that everyone must follow in a particular order. It’s a practical framework for examining our own thinking and behavior.
1. Exposure: What Am I Hearing?
Every day, we’re exposed to information.
Someone tells us something. We read an article. We hear a perspective that differs from our own. We experience something that challenges what we’ve previously believed.
Exposure gives us something to consider.
But hearing something doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve examined it.
2. Recognition: Am I Genuinely Paying Attention?
Recognition asks us to notice that the information may be relevant.
Perhaps we’re beginning to recognize a familiar behavior, an assumption we’ve never questioned, or a perspective we hadn’t previously considered.
This is where we begin paying attention to something that may have been overlooked.
3. Understanding: What Does This Actually Mean?
This is where I believe we need to spend more time.
What is the person really communicating?
What circumstances might be influencing the situation?
Have I understood the context, or am I relying on what I already assumed?
Understanding sometimes requires us to ask questions, listen more carefully, and recognize that our initial interpretation may be incomplete.
4. Evaluation: Is This True, Helpful, or Relevant?
Not everything we hear is accurate.
And not every practice we’ve inherited remains appropriate for our present circumstances.
Evaluation invites us to examine the information.
Is it supported by evidence? Does it align with what I know to be true? Am I confusing a personal preference with a universal principle? Am I holding on to a belief simply because it’s familiar?
We don’t have to reject everything we’ve learned.
But we should be willing to examine it.
5. Intention: What Might I Need to Do Differently?
Once we’ve considered the information, we can determine whether a response is necessary.
Perhaps nothing needs to change.
Maybe our existing practice is appropriate, and examining it has helped us understand why.
Or perhaps we’ve recognized something that deserves our attention.
What would a thoughtful response look like?
What is within our responsibility to change?
6. Action: Am I Putting What I’ve Learned Into Practice?
This is where intention begins to become visible.
It’s one thing to recognize that we need to communicate more thoughtfully.
It’s another to practice doing so.
It’s one thing to recognize that a behavior may be creating unnecessary conflict.
It’s another to begin developing a different response.
Psychologists Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran examined the value of implementation intentions in a 2006 meta-analysis.
Implementation intentions involve developing specific plans for when, where, and how we’ll act.
Their analysis of 94 independent tests found that these plans improved goal attainment.
In everyday language, this means that instead of simply saying, “I need to listen better,” we might decide:
The next time someone brings me a concern, I’m going to make sure I understand what they’re saying before I begin defending my position or offering an explanation.
That’s a practical step.
It’s something we can intentionally practice.
7. Fruit: What Is My Response Producing?
Finally, we examine the results.
Has anything improved?
Are our relationships becoming healthier?
Are we communicating more clearly?
Are our decisions becoming more thoughtful?
Have we learned something that helps us navigate life with greater understanding and consideration?
And when the results aren’t what we hoped for, we can examine why.
Perhaps we need more information. Perhaps we misunderstood something. Perhaps we need additional skills, support, or practice.
The purpose isn’t to reach a point where we can declare ourselves perfectly aware. It’s to remain willing to learn, evaluate, and grow.
That’s what makes the process ongoing.
Learning to Respond With Curiosity Instead of Defensiveness
There’s another part of this conversation I don’t want us to overlook.
Sometimes examining our behaviors can feel uncomfortable.
Nobody particularly enjoys recognizing that something they’ve been doing may not be as helpful as they believed.
And when another person brings an issue to our attention, it can be tempting to respond defensively.
“I already know that.”
“You’ve told me before.”
“That’s just how I am.”
“We’ve always done it that way.”
Sometimes those responses reflect frustration. Sometimes they’re attempts to end a conversation we’ve grown tired of having.
And sometimes we genuinely don’t understand why the issue keeps coming up.
But what if we approached those moments with curiosity?
Not every criticism we receive is accurate.
Not every expectation someone places on us is reasonable.
And not every disagreement requires us to change our behavior.
Discernment matters.
However, we can evaluate what someone is communicating without immediately dismissing it.
We can ask ourselves whether there’s something worth considering, even when we don’t agree with every part of what’s being said.
Perhaps the person has noticed a pattern we haven’t recognized.
Perhaps our intentions are good, but our method of communicating isn’t producing the understanding we hoped for.
Or perhaps we simply need to explain our perspective more clearly.
The point isn’t to make ourselves responsible for managing everyone else’s feelings.
The point is to remain teachable without abandoning sound judgment.
And I think that’s an important part of emotional and intellectual maturity.
We can be confident in our convictions while remaining willing to examine our assumptions.
We can recognize our own limitations without becoming ashamed of them.
And we can acknowledge that something needs improvement without reducing ourselves, or anyone else, to the behavior that needs to change.
Awareness Is Not an Invitation to Judge Other People
I want to emphasize this because I believe it’s essential to the conversation.
The purpose of becoming more aware isn’t to become an expert at identifying everyone else’s shortcomings.
It’s easy to read an article about communication and immediately think of the people in our lives who need to read it.
We remember the person who never seems to listen.
The relative who repeats the same behavior.
The coworker who constantly says they understand but continues making the same mistakes.
And perhaps there are legitimate concerns within those relationships.
But before we begin evaluating everyone else, I think we should be willing to examine ourselves.
Where have I become accustomed to saying the appropriate thing without considering its meaning?
Where have I relied on familiarity rather than understanding?
What beliefs have I inherited that I’ve never taken the time to examine?
Are there conversations I’ve been avoiding because I assume I already know what the other person is going to say?
And have I been willing to consider how my behavior may be experienced by someone whose perspective differs from mine?
These questions don’t require us to condemn ourselves.
They simply require honesty.
We all have habits, assumptions, and familiar responses that have developed over years of living.
Some have served us beautifully.
Others may need to be reconsidered.
And some may have been appropriate in an earlier season of life but no longer fit our present circumstances.
Recognizing that doesn’t make us foolish.
It makes us human.
We can acknowledge that we didn’t fully understand something yesterday without allowing that realization to become a judgment against who we are today.
What’s important is what we choose to do once we begin recognizing something differently.
Giving Our Words Their Weight Back
I wonder what would happen if we began paying closer attention to the words we use every day.
Not in a rigid or exhausting way.
I’m not suggesting that every conversation needs to become an exercise in examining definitions.
But what if we became more thoughtful about what we’re communicating?
When we say, “I understand,” perhaps we could pause long enough to consider whether we’ve truly understood what was shared.
When we say, “I’m aware,” perhaps we could ask whether we’ve considered the significance of that information.
When we say, “I know,” perhaps we could remain open to the possibility that there may still be something we haven’t fully understood.
And when someone brings a concern to us more than once, perhaps we could become curious about why the conversation remains unresolved.
Sometimes the answer will be that we need to listen more carefully.
Sometimes we may need to make a practical adjustment.
Sometimes we’ll discover that we’ve understood the information but haven’t communicated that understanding effectively.
And sometimes we’ll recognize that the other person’s expectations require further discussion.
Every situation is different.
But approaching these conversations with thoughtfulness gives us an opportunity to move beyond automatic responses.
It allows us to communicate with greater clarity.
And it reminds us that words carry meaning, even when we’ve become so accustomed to using them that we no longer consciously consider what we’re saying.
Living a Life That’s Truly Examined
Ultimately, I don’t believe the goal is to become people who question everything, criticize every tradition, or constantly evaluate every word that comes out of our mouths.
That would be exhausting, and it isn’t necessary.
The goal is to become more intentional.
To understand why we believe what we believe.
To recognize how our experiences and environments have shaped our thinking.
To examine whether our habits and responses continue to serve a meaningful purpose.
And to remain willing to make adjustments when we discover something that deserves our attention.
Because living thoughtfully doesn’t require us to have every answer.
It requires us to remain willing to learn.
Sometimes we’ll examine a familiar belief and discover that it’s well-founded.
Sometimes we’ll revisit a tradition and develop an even greater appreciation for its meaning.
Sometimes we’ll reconsider a behavior and recognize that it no longer serves us or the people around us well.
And sometimes we’ll realize that we’ve been using a familiar expression without fully considering what we intended to communicate.
None of those discoveries needs to become an occasion for shame.
They can become opportunities for growth.
And perhaps that’s the most important thing I want us to take away from this conversation.
Awareness doesn’t have to become another label we attach to ourselves. It can become an ongoing practice of paying attention, asking thoughtful questions, examining what we believe, and considering how we live.
We don’t have to know everything.
We don’t have to understand everything perfectly.
And we certainly don’t have to get everything right the first time.
But we can become more thoughtful about the information we receive, the language we use, and the way our behavior affects our lives and relationships.
We can learn to distinguish between what we’ve been taught and what we’ve personally examined.
Between what we know and what we understand.
Between what we intend and what we’re actually practicing.
And when we recognize a gap between those things, we can approach it with honesty, compassion, and a willingness to grow.
Because at the end of the day, I don’t believe meaningful personal growth is simply about accumulating more information.
It’s about learning to live more wisely with the information and understanding we’ve been given.
And that begins with something remarkably simple.
Being willing to ask ourselves whether what we’ve always known is something we’ve ever truly stopped to understand.
References
The following references support the definitions, public-health examples, psychological research, and behavioral principles discussed in this article. All links lead to the corresponding source, publication record, or official resource.
Arican-Dinc, B., & Gable, S. L. (2023). Responsiveness in romantic partners’ interactions. Current Opinion in Psychology, 53, 101652.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2023.101652
Cambridge Dictionary. (n.d.). Awareness. Cambridge University Press.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/awareness
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024, October 16). What is health literacy?
https://www.cdc.gov/health-literacy/php/about/
Cialdini, R. B., Reno, R. R., & Kallgren, C. A. (1990). A focus theory of normative conduct: Recycling the concept of norms to reduce littering in public places. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(6), 1015–1026.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.58.6.1015
Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38002-1
Gordon, A. M., & Diamond, E. (2023). Feeling understood and appreciated in relationships: Where do these perceptions come from and why do they matter? Current Opinion in Psychology, 53, 101687.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2023.101687
Kite, J., Chan, L., MacKay, K., Corbett, L., Reyes-Marcelino, G., Nguyen, B., Bellew, W., & Freeman, B. (2023). A model of social media effects in public health communication campaigns: Systematic review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 25, e46345.
https://doi.org/10.2196/46345
Kriz, T. D., Kluger, A. N., & Lyddy, C. J. (2021). Feeling heard: Experiences of listening (or not) at work. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 659087.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.659087
National Cancer Institute. (2025, December 2). Breast cancer screening. National Institutes of Health.
https://www.cancer.gov/types/breast/screening
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (n.d.). Trauma-informed approaches and programs. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
https://www.samhsa.gov/mental-health/trauma-violence/trauma-informed-approaches-programs
Webb, T. L., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Does changing behavioral intentions engender behavior change? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 132(2), 249–268.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.2.249
Wood, W., & Neal, D. T. (2007). A new look at habits and the habit–goal interface. Psychological Review, 114(4), 843–863.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.114.4.843
Scripture reference
James 1:22–25, New American Standard Bible.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James%201%3A22-25&version=NASB
