According to Mr Tan, the two are synonymous. I think there is a slight difference, however. Self-awareness has connotations of understanding of what impression your behaviour is making on other people, whereas mindfulness is more about understanding how your emotions impact your behaviour.

I tried journalling, although I have done body scans before (I was actually introduced to it via the book form of the MBSR course referred to in the chapter). I thought it was a useful exercise, as it helped me to articulate things I more or less knew about myself already but couldn't quite make explicit. I think keeping those thoughts in mind will help me to behave in a way that builds on my strenghts and minimizes my weaknesses.

It's consistent with an idea I've had for a while. I imagine my mind as being like a darkened stage with a spotlight on it. The dark part of the stage is my unconscious mind, where dreams, emotions, ideas and thoughts are generated. The lit part is my conscious mind and attention, and only the lit part is really 'me'.

From time to time, things generated in the dark part wander into the lit part, and that's the conscious experience of thoughts emotions and ideas that you didn't realise you had. This is often were irrational or unexpected things come from.

But the important part is, the dark part isn't me, only the lit part is, and an idea from the dark part only becomes part of me if I grab onto it and run with it - to continue the metaphor, if I make sure it stays in the spotlight. If I don't consciously choose to do this, the idea will eventually wander back out of the light.

I find this a helpful metaphor if, for example, I've had a dream about doing something I would never do in real life - instead of blaming myself for the actions of my sleeping mind, or wondering if I'm subconsciously a bad person, I just remind myself that that's not me - it's noise my brain is making, no signal.