Getting to know yourself is vital to your personal growth. By taking some time out to understand yourself, you open doors that will ultimately help you be a better and more respected person. It may sound strange to some people how could you not know yourself. After all, you have been around for many years, apparently being yourself?
The problem is in today's society, we are often so busy being someone's mother, father, son, daughter or even employee and living up to those expectations that we lose track of who we really are inside and what makes us happy as an individual.
Why It Is Important To Know Yourself
It is said in the bible, the oldest book known to man, that we must first learn how to love ourselves before we can love others. To love ourselves, we must know what makes us happy, what our faults are and what our strengths are. All of these things must be accepted as being a part of who we are. If we can't accept all of the things that make us an individual, we are unable to love and accept our fellow man and live a happy and peaceful life.
As a child, you loved unconditionally, but you also accepted others as well as yourself without question. It is this child-like approach to yourself and others that is the key to getting to know yourself. Understand that you are the way that you are because of your life's experiences. Accept that your life has made you the way that you are. But that doesn't mean that you are powerless to change your life for the better.
Look for your good points, consider the bad points, but accept that you cannot change who you are. But you can change the things in your life that make you unhappy. If you can do this, you will be better equipped to love, learn and care for others whether they are your spouse, children, family, friends or even your fellow man.
Steps To Take To Get To Know Yourself Better
The first step that you will need to take in the journey of getting to know yourself better is to have some time on your own. Choose a place that is peaceful, whether it is late at night when everyone has gone to bed or whether it is outside on the beach. It really doesn't matter where you go as long as you find a quiet place where you can reflect on your life without being interrupted.
Sit quietly for a while and try to hush the chatter in your mind, you know that little voice telling you to remember the trash needs to be taken out tonight and the kids need to be picked up from practice. Push everything, out of your mind and sit there quietly for a while.
Tell yourself that your current reality is no longer what you want and you are no longer happy with the way your reality is manifesting in your life. You need a change and visualize those changes occurring in your life. Ask yourself what is making you unhappy? What no longer works in your life? See what needs to be changed and then visualize these changes exactly as you would like to see them happen in your life.
Visualization is a very powerful tool that will allow you to make the changes you so desperately need in your life, as well as understand more about the things that you have forgotten were important to you. By visualizing things in your mind, you are planting seeds of change. These seeds then sprout into your logical way of thinking and you begin to make moves toward change without really noticing it.
Opportunities are around us everywhere, although many of us don't see them, simply because we do not see them for what they are. By using visualization in your life to point you towards new opportunities, you are opening up your mind. Making opportunities seemingly fall into your lap.
Conclusion
Getting to know yourself better and learning to open new doors to bring you closer to your goals is easily achievable. But to reach this stage, you must first be able to accept yourself, warts and all. Have the courage to change the things that you are able to change to make you a better person. But the things that you are unable to change must be recognized, then accepted before you can make changes to your life for the better.
Use visualization as your main tool. See the things in your life that you want to change and visualize how they will affect your life for the better. Then visualize your life once these changes have occurred. By doing this, you have planted the seeds of change that will blossom into an array of new opportunities. Be your own best friend and you will never have a shortage of admirers.
These wounds developed in our psyches as children when our parents or caretakers were unable to be as supportive, nurturing and attentive as we needed. Because we saw our caretakers as omnipotent, we decided whatever was problematic for us in our relationship with them must be our fault or due to our inadequacy.
In addition to the healthy reflection we received from our caretakers, we also got messages about ourselves which were not beneficial to our growth. To our detriment, we believed the negative messages and turned them into limiting beliefs about ourselves and the world. It is fascinating that we continue even now to carry these childhood wounds which drain our energies daily and diminish our contentment with life.
Soul wounds are made of entrenched limiting beliefs about ourselves which adversely affect our relationships, health, work, finances, happiness, productivity, confidence, ability to take care of ourselves . . . just about every area of our lives!
Do you know what your limiting beliefs are? They are not always easy to recognize. Soul wounds may be repressed into the unconscious mind. Examples of soul wounds are: "Nothing works out for me; people are against me." "Men always abandon me." "I am too much, people can't handle me." "I am intrinsically bad and need to be punished." "I'm not enough; nothing I do is ever good enough."
In childhood, painful experiences typically happened in relationship to parents and guardians. We got hurt because our parents were too focused on their own needs and couldn't be there for us. They might have abandoned us emotionally or even physically. Parents have their own problems, and if they did not heal their own wounds from growing up with their parents, they are bound to pass them on to their children.
Because the childhood wounds happened in relationship, our current intimate relationship can be a catalyst for uncovering and processing soul wounds. Our partner can act as a mirror for us to see our wounds more clearly, as he or she triggers the old hurts and painful feelings that need healing. Sometimes the catalyst for discovering a soul wound is a tragedy, an illness, or some sort of breakdown that we cannot control. Whether we are forced into it or whether we explore willingly, it takes tremendous courage to admit a wound, face it, own it, and go to work healing it.
A wound starts to heal when you take responsibility for it and stop blaming others. It heals as you stay with the painful feelings, listen to them, and accept them. Often our parents could not listen to our pain, anger, fear or sadness when we were young. This is what you need to do for yourself now.
In order to heal, you need to care for yourself like a loving mother: be with the feelings, create a safe place for your feelings, and feel the feelings all the way. You need to become the nurturing parent you always needed, accepting yourself as you are, painful feelings and all.
If you find yourself ready to undertake soul growth, it is helpful to find a friend, counselor, or coach who understands the process, has done their own work, and can support you on the path to healing. I hope you are intrigued to learn about your soul wounds.
As you heal, energy is freed which can be channeled into new talents, creativity, and strengths. The healing will affect every area of your life, attracting new opportunities, more satisfying relationships, abundance, and joy.
Both Kevin Sinclair & Nina Cherry are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Kevin Sinclair has sinced written about articles on various topics from self improvement and motivation, Personal Development Plan and Ezines And Newsletters. Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of , a site that provides information and articles for self improvement and personal growth and de. Kevin Sinclair's top article generates over 450000 views. to your Favourites.
Nina Cherry has sinced written about articles on various topics from Energy Healing, Alcohol Treatment and Burnout. Recreate your life with Nina Cherry's Nina lives on Maui and coaches people across the U.S. by telephone. ContactNina for coaching to transform. Nina Cherry's top article generates over 880 views. to your Favourites.