The more you know, the better you are to yourself and other people.
— Ian Morgan Cron
We have all heard phrases such as self-discovery, self-development, self-awareness, self-understanding, self-exploration, self-reflection, self-knowledge. But what does it mean, exactly? In short, it means learning more about yourself – specifically, learning more about who you are on the inside (not what you present on the outside). What are your values and priorities, your main fears, your defense mechanisms, your driving emotions, etc. In a nutshell, what are the key basic ingredients that make you – YOU?
This leaves us with another question. Why is self-discovery so important? What are the benefits to investing time and energy into self-discovery? That is precisely what I’d like to address in this post today.
- Understanding leads to acceptance. I think most of us can agree that we are far better at accepting others than ourself. How many times a day do we focus on what still needs to be done, how we can do more/better, or how we’re falling short or behind? Now, how many times a day do we think about our strengths, what we’re contributing to the world around us, or how far we’ve come from where we’ve been? Here is another key question that we often neglect to ask ourself: what do I need in this moment (instead of always asking, what do I have to do)? For most of us (myself included), there needs to be a better balance of pushing ourself vs. accepting ourself. More understanding leads to greater acceptance. It’s funny how this is easy to do for others. Let’s say one of your friends was being testy, throwing some sarcastic (even hurtful) comments your way. You think to yourself, “What did I do?” Then you find out that her family just received some really difficult news. Now it all makes sense. You have greater acceptance for your friend, who was acting out of her pain. Same goes for ourself. The more understanding we gain of our inner world – emotional wounds, core beliefs we’ve adopted, hidden motives, defense mechanisms, as well as virtues and strengths – the greater acceptance and compassion we will develop for ourself.
- Acceptance leads to appreciation. Again, we are experts at being the most merciless critic of ourself (unless you’re a very self-confident Enneagram 7 like my husband, who never has trouble telling himself how great he is). Some of these common phrases from the inner critic may sound familiar to you: “You’re not good/successful enough,” “You can’t disappoint people if you want to be liked,” “You need to be in total control,” “You need to hide your true feelings.” Once we learn to accept ourself in the same way we accept a close friend, the intensity of the inner critic’s voice begins to decrease. When we experience acceptance, compassion, and kindness in our inner world, we begin to grow appreciation for ourself. We have strength. We have beauty. We have capacity to love. We have a unique essence of God within us, which is a gift that’s meant to be shared with others.
- Appreciation leads to openness. When we learn to appreciate ourself, our hearts begin to be less constricted/guarded and more expanded. Most of us spend the majority of our first half of life protecting ourself from pain, working hard to prove our worth, or building an image that we hope will be liked and admired by others. Our focus is primarily on external presentations than on our internal well-being. When we experience appreciation for ourself – not for our manufactured self but for our authentic self – our hearts can let out a high sigh of relief. We create more space to dig deeper within ourself and explore what it means to live authentically. We have more room in our hearts to release than to restrict, to respond instead of react, to be present instead of trying to prove.
- Openness leads to intentionality and growth. This is where humility comes in. As we become more open to discovering and living out of our authentic self, we can’t help but to notice some patterns and tendencies – and how they affect ourself and the people around us. As we dig deeper into our inner world, we learn about our strengths and our challenges. Our joys and our pains. What we like and don’t like about ourself. We realize that they can co-exist and that we have choices. There’s room for appreciation, and there’s room for growth. We begin to see how our life story integrates with the stories of those around us – our family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc. And who doesn’t like an inspiring, happy ending to a story? We learn to journey through life a little differently, with more intentionality. We take into account how our default reactions and defense mechanisms affect the relationships around us, and we begin to take intentional steps to change the course of our story. We learn to nurture the strengths and gifts we have at the core, which allows us to offer them to others more readily and generously.
- Growth leads to wholeness. Understanding, acceptance, appreciation, openness, intentionality, and growth. They are all key ingredients to living in wholeness, as opposed to living an adapted, masked, manufactured version of our life story. I call such version our “cover story.” It may look appealing on the outside, but it’s just a pretty container. There is no real content inside. Our cover story is often what’s presented to the world, especially through social media. Psychological health becomes jeopardized when our experience within our inner world doesn’t match what we present to the external world. This often leads to anxiety, depression, stress, addiction, relationship problems, etc. On the flip side, when what we have developed on the inside is consistent with what we present on the outside, we experience relief from those symptoms and distress. We experience authenticity and wholeness. We develop deeper connection with our true self and with others. We begin to live out our whole story instead of our cover story, which is a life that is truly worth living.
Now that we discussed the importance of self-discovery, where do we begin? I don’t want you to think it’s always about getting deep and serious. There are some simple and fun ways to discover more about your true self. Stay tuned as I share some ideas in the next post!
Our real journey in life is interior.
— Thomas Merton
