The psychologist Carl Jung once said that “until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate”. In this episode we are taking a deeper dive and explore why knowing ourselves can be so powerful and how we may achieve a greater degree of self-awareness, so that we can be more in charge of our lives.

Our guest Clive Elwood is a specialist in small animal internal medicine as well as an executive coach and author of the book Leadership in Veterinary Medicine, and he has lots of insights, knowledge and experience to offer on the topic. In this conversation with host Petra Agthe we discuss many interesting aspects of self-awareness and related concepts, including:

0:57 Introduction to the episode and introducing Clive
2:59 Importance of self-leadership and self-awareness in leadership
7:50 Self-awareness, self-communication and self-compassion
12:31 The inner critic and self-compassion
15:20 Selves-awareness: looking beyond the one authentic self and allowing different identities and parts ourselves
19:17 Behavioural scripts: how to break out of habitual reactions
27:10 Loosening the grip on identity
30:16 How to increase self-awareness
35:43 Pitfalls and difficulties relating to self-awareness
37:20 A lesson from history
38:57 Where to find Clive and Conclusion

Clive's favourite books on the topic:

• Victor E. Frankl (2004) Man's Search for Meaning. Random House Group.
• Williams M , Penman D . (2011) Mindfulness: a practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world . London : Piatkus.
• Brené Brown (2015) Daring greatly : how the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead. Penguin Life, London
• Siegel, D. (2011) Mindsight : transform your brain with the science of kindness. New York: Oneworld Publications.
• Van der Kolk, B. A. (2015) The body keeps the score : brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. New York, New York: Penguin Books.

Other resources you may be interested in:

• Genpo Roshi A guided meditation through your interiors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n22a1Hf4rjk

Where to find Clive:
Website: https://trelliscoaching.co.uk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clive-elwood-frcvs-b7aba216/
Twitter: @cliveelwood
Clive's book Leadership in Veterinary Medicine:

The Veterinary Information Network (VIN) is lending us a hand by helping us with editing our podcast episodes. More about VIN here.
We continue to happily fund all costs for this podcast ourselves but you show your support by donating towards a fundraising campaign in aid of a mental health project for Ukrainian veterinary colleagues hosted by the Galaxy Vets Foundation

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Want to find out more about host Petra? Follow on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/petra-agthe-562bb65b

Credits:
Music- Deep Ambience by Coma-Media, Pixabay; Images for Artwork- OpenClipart-Vectors, Pixabay