We spend much of our lives without really getting to know us, without even touching the surface.
It takes many years for us to get to know anything real about ourselves. We may think we find out a great deal about ourselves through our environment and our belief system, but they don’t deal with the core issues of who we really are and how we feel about ourselves away from our environment and religious beliefs.
Our beliefs often passed down through the generations begin to shape our outward thinking, which then become our daily focus, a way of life. As we continue to follow the traditions of those beliefs without question, of what those beliefs means and how they tie in with our inner thoughts, we fail to think about ourselves.
Real self-awareness comes through many years of our own observations of who we are. What we like, what we dislike, what makes us sad, what makes us happy, how we see ourselves fitting in to our lives, anything that allows us to become more aware of us.
I believe that not only does getting to know us transform our life on the inside, this is also reflected in the way life treats you on the outside. Everything just becomes so much easier. External factors don’t shape our world, neither do they make our world, or us right.
When we work on ourselves, we fundamentally change the way we think and feel so those external factors don’t seem so important any more. When we also stop listening to everyone else and start listening to our own inner thoughts on what makes us who we are that’s when we’ll begin to get to know the real us.
It will also be the start of the process, whereby we begin to make the decisions that are right for us. We cannot do that when we’re constantly following another person's lead. It has to come from us.
I used to know me then I got re-married! I used to be kind of a free spirit, getting out and enjoying life, in a partying kind of way. Then my husband came along and I settled down.
We still got out a lot with friends and went out a lot, but that changed once we built a house. We were in our mid 30's by then and things just started changing. We both settled down and the person I used to be just sort of went away. My beliefs changed to more of a motherly-family oriented person. Don't get me wrong, I like this new person and I know myself better now than I did then.
I believe that as we grow older we do get to know ourselves better. We can see the mistakes we make and sometimes we see the danger that we put ourselves in by the way we once were living. This isn't true of everyone of course, but it is of me.
Things like family and children seem to be more important and to me the true meaning of a marriage is sacred, it means more now than it did once in my life.
We shouldn't let others try to change us or our beliefs. The world is full of people that go with the crowd and ignore their beliefs, which in turn makes people unhappy even if they don't see it.
Thanks Lisa. We probably have all done what you describe so eloquently in your response. We live our lives along side our spouse; our children and our extended families and in doing so the life we afford ourselves doesn't include getting to know us as individuals and what makes us who we are.
When we share our life, we tend to ignore ourselves and what makes us who we are. I see self-awareness as recognising ourselves as individuals separate from other individuals, so that we get to know know about ourselves as well as having other people in our lives. That is so important.
Getting to know us will not only have a positive effect on us emotionally and spiritually, but will enhance better communication with others because we'll be happier with ourselves.