It's awareness in the little things that seem to have the most impact on outcome in day to day life.
Awareness of the chatter and movement inside of yourself while relating with another. Awareness of the fact that you're actually not listening to what they're saying, but are instead off down the road thinking of what you are going to say next. Awareness of the fact that you don't actually agree with what they are saying, but out of politeness are not really going to let on to that.
It's awareness that counts, not what you do with that discovery per se. What actually are you going to do with it anyway? Awareness is a light that can illuminate what has been in hiding. If you fight or struggle with what you find by turning on the light, where are you? In a state of conflict over What you find. How is that any good? So there must be freedom to look. Freedom to see what's there without internal judgment. Otherwise there's really no point to being aware in the first place.
In Buddhism it is sometimes said that a good way to measure your 'progress' in your 'practice' of (internal) awareness is by how unattached you are to the prescence of thoughts of stress or bliss, or thought itself. Sometimes truth is often closer to the person who is not looking for it, than it can be to one who is seeking. It depends upon the state of the 'I' with it's wants and demands--it's greed for spiritual property, spiritual aquisition, spiritual 'enlightenment'. The motto for developing an awareness that is possible and usefull without turning negatively inward on oneself might be: 'not too lose, not too tight'.
The is no owning of awareness. It is a free state. It is love-- non personal, total attention. It cannot be cultivated in the strict sense of the word, for that would require a 'cultivator'. Awareness is not an entity, but a state of consciousness either present or not depending upon the state of the mind. The mind talks to itself about cultivating awareness, but that is something entirely different. That is thought chattering to itself; the movement of the 'me'.
The beauty of awareness is that you can at anytime watch yourself like a movie and discover For Yourself principles of Truth. These things bear themselves out as you have the patience, fortitude, and dedication to Look. There has to be love and acceptance of who you are on a deep level or the activity locks up and shuts down. You cannot Look And be Judgmental. What has brought you to the process of looking into yourself--a non accumulating self knowledge--must be stronger,more vital than any kind of resistance to what you find. The beauty of self awareness is that it can also help you to be Self(Higher self) reliant. There is great beauty to seeing yourself as you are.
S.T.C.