The old adage KNOW THYSELF was indeed valuable advice. If we are not aware of the undercurrents that affect our life-voyage, then we cannot steer accordingly. Not knowing how our unconscious currents are affecting our decisions and our behavior, we may believe we are heading in one direction when in fact those conscious decisions are being subtly sabotaged at every turn by what we do not know about ourselves. While some people may need the help of a therapist if life has seriously harmed them, there are many steps that most of us can take ourselves.
1. Seek feedback. This can be difficult, for friends may not have the strength to risk hurting us by telling us the truth. Yet we can never know ourselves as others see us if they will not tell us what they see. To obtain honest feedback, the trick is to ask people in two categories; those who care for us so much that they are willing to risk our anger in order to help us, and those who know us well, but who do not care if we are angry with them or not.
2. Journal, and re-read. Keeping a journal is a vital aspect of personal growth and self-understanding. The greatest benefit comes from writing, then seeing what we have written, and then reading it again months or years later so that we can see patterns and repetitions.
3. Meditate. How can you get to know anyone if you do not listen to them? Yet we rarely listen to our own inner selves. There is usually too much going on in the day-to-day rush of thoughts, plans, anxieties, and general inner conversation that, even though it is within us, is still superficial. Before we can listen to the inner core of our authentic selves we need to learn how to quiet down the hustle and bustle of daily surface thoughts by meditating regularly.
4. Allow yourself to be vulnerable, drop the defenses. When we believe we need to defend ourselves, the walls of the fortress go up. There are few things more liberating than learning that we can say, “I made a mistake, I’m sorry,” and that the world does not fall around our ears. If we live so that we can be honest about our lives, we do not need to hide behind a wall of pretense that we often end up believing ourselves. When we bring down that wall, we get to see the world outside, and to better understand our place in it.
5. Get out of the rut. *That’s just the way I am* is a cop-out. Be willing to do something different, try a different way of dealing with things. Expose yourself to different ways of thinking, mingle with people who have different opinions and ideas from you, LISTEN to them, and think about what they say.
6. Listen to yourself. How often as adults have we realized that we sound just like one or other of our parents. It is sometimes an unwelcome shock. Now consider how many other characters speak through your mouth. Have you given permission? Do they truly speak for you? Or are you parroting someone else’s thoughts without benefit of your own? How would you feel if someone spoke to you as you speak to them?
7. Write your story subjectively, then read it objectively. What would you think if you were about to meet this person? They say that each of us has at least one book in us. One book is the story of our own life. How would yours read? Would you consider yourself a hero or a villain, a do-er or a passive pawn?
8. Observe yourself. Now pretend that you are a newscaster giving a running commentary on your behavior. Or that you are an author writing a book about you. Step back and notice what is going on. What do you look like from the outside? (This differs from the previous point because of the viewpoint. Then you wrote subjectively, from your own point of view. Now your viewpoint is as an observer.)
9. Stop justifying what you do. You do not need to explain every action. The goal is to know yourself well enough that you know your actions are justified. If someone wants to know why you did something, they can ask. And even then, if it is none of their business, you do not have to answer.
10. Do something that will push you to your limits, safely. Think of something that you always wanted to do, but did not dare. Find a way to do it now (assuming that it is legal, will not hurt anyone, and is not truly dangerous). If sky-diving was something that always made your heart leap, then find a way to learn to sky-dive. Walk in the wilderness, in silence. Listen to your heart.
