We often find ourselves thinking “Why did I react like that?” or “I knew better, but still did the same thing.”

These moments of regret usually come after the fact, after a conversation went sideways, after we fell into the same old habit. The real frustration isn’t just the outcome. It’s knowing that we weren’t fully present, that a more thoughtful version of us was somehow missing.

Self-awareness tends to hide when we need it most.

In everyday life, we step into roles. At work, at home, with friends or family, we respond to each situation by becoming the version of ourselves that fits the moment. These roles help us function. They allow us to focus, perform, and succeed. It’s how we get things done.

This ability to shift into roles is powerful. It helps us navigate complex lives without overthinking every step. It is a feature, not a bug.

Once the role is activated, the mind runs familiar patterns automatically. Some useful, others outdated or even harmful. The issue isn’t playing a role. It is losing the ability to step outside it, even for a short period of time, and give yourself a chance to react differently.

Because self-awareness is not required to play a role you are very familiar with, we usually repeat behavior we know isn’t good for us. In the moment, the role takes over. Only later do we reflect and realize we acted in ways we promised ourselves we wouldn’t.

Take a simple example: you’re in a meeting, someone criticizes your idea, and you instantly snap back defensively. You’ve told yourself before to stay calm, to listen, but in the heat of it, that version of you doesn’t show up. Not because it’s gone, but because it didn’t have space to enter.

When we’re in the middle of a moment, stressed, distracted, or emotionally charged, our attention narrows. Reflection fades as if it is hidden from us. The pull of the role is strong, especially when emotions run high. It’s hard to catch yourself midstream.

Self-awareness is the mental mode where we can step back, observe our patterns, question our mindset, and consider others’ perspectives. It is always available but easily overshadowed by the momentum of the role we’re playing.

To keep self-awareness present while a situation is unfolding, not just after, we need to:

1. Recognize that roles are built-in and useful.
2. Notice when we’re caught inside one.
3. Gently bring our attention back to a self-aware mode.

It takes practice. But the more often we catch ourselves mid-scene, the more choice we have in how we show up.

The Mental VR Gear We Forget We’re Wearing

How do you recognize when your mind has wandered?

And more importantly, how can you stay aware that you’re in that state, so you can still engage with the situation at hand, stay connected to the context, and not let automatic patterns fully take over your feelings, behavior, or actions?

Let’s use a metaphor to bring clarity into to this very human experience.

Imagine you’re wearing a high-end VR headset and a full-body suit that simulates a vivid, immersive reality. Your senses are fully engaged and everything feels real. Your thoughts, memories, fears, and imagined futures all show up as if it is a real situation and not an illusion. You react and respond as if it’s actually happening.

And that, right there, is the moment when self-awareness tends to disappear.

Now remove the VR gear and replace it with your natural senses. What’s the difference from everyday life?

When your mind wanders, it generates a subjective version of reality – filtered, emotional, reactive – and you respond to that version, not the actual situation unfolding around you.

You’re not responding to what is.
You’re reacting to what your mind made of it.

By being aware to your unique subjective experience while it unfolds, gives you a chance to reflect on the situation in real-time before your behavioral habits kicks in. You raise the chances to act differently.

Ancient Wisdom: Hinduism and the Garden of Eden

The idea that we mistake our filtered thoughts for reality isn’t new. Long before neuroscience or psychology, ancient cultures observed this same mental habit: the drift of consciousness, the illusion of clarity, the loss of presence. Their stories and symbols describe it in different ways, but the core insight is remarkably similar.

In Hindu philosophy, human experience is said to be filtered through a veil called Maya, an illusion.

It’s not that reality doesn’t exist, but that we perceive it through consciousness, which bends and shapes what we see and feel into a uniquely subjective experience.

According to this tradition, the Creator (Brahman) plays a divine game of hide and seek. He conceals reality behind illusion, only to reveal it again in moments of self-awareness. This is not so different from how we lose ourselves in a role, forgetting that it’s just one way of being. We go from acting to identifying, and in that identification, self-awareness vanishes, until something shakes us awake.

Surprisingly, a similar theme appears in Judaism’s second creation story.
After Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge, their eyes are “opened” and they immediately hide.

“They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”
(Genesis 3:8)

Then God calls out, “Where are you?”
Why would an all-knowing God ask such a question?

Because something fundamental has changed in the reality as they perceive it, and it appears as though God is playing hide and seek with them.

Once they’ve eaten from the fruit of the tree, the new mode of consciousness is no longer in direct connection with God. It is layered, self-aware and hiding.

From that point on, the human experience includes the habit of adopting roles and masks. We act out identities shaped by context, emotion, and memory, often without realizing we’re doing it.

We aren’t just hiding from God, we’re hiding inside a version of ourselves. Our identity is a mask we don’t realize we’re wearing.

The game of hide and seek in Eden isn’t only between God and man. It is also a reflection of the inner struggle between each person and their own awareness.

God’s call isn’t about physical location. It’s a call to presence.
To ask: Where is your consciousness? Where are you, really?

If eating from the Tree symbolizes the birth of subjective awareness, then hiding represents the beginning of illusion.

Returning to Yourself

Like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, we hide. This ancient story reveals something essential about human consciousness. Not a flaw, but a tendency.

The mind wanders, gets absorbed in the roles we play, and loses touch with the moment. This is how consciousness works: it simplifies reality so we can focus our attention on the unfolding events of life.

But the price we pay is presence. While playing familiar roles, we disconnect from the now and respond from habit instead of awareness. Reality becomes harder to access, buried beneath layers of story, emotion, and self-image.

The work isn’t to resist this pattern, it’s to recognize it. To sense when the mind is wandering, when the role is speaking for us.
That moment of recognition is the return to awareness.

And it’s in that return that change begins.