You’re doing well so far! You’ve come to a point in your life when you’re asking existential questions, questions about who you are and your existence, your relationship to yourself and everything around you. Acknowledging yourself as an intellectual spirit is like going through puberty. It’s a shift in your perception of life. A new dimension has been added. You’ve realized you want and need more from and for yourself.
Having a relationship with yourself is much like having a relationship with anyone else. You’ve felt bad for yourself, angry and disappointed with yourself, proud of yourself- all of these feelings are sometimes projected outward to our friends or family members and more often than we realize they are also projected inward. Are you good friends with yourself? Do you take care of your basic needs, treat yourself well and forgive yourself when it’s needed? Or are you your worst enemy? Do you avoid being alone, dwell on your mistakes and put yourself down? Treat others as you wish to be treated is the golden rule, you remember it. Doesn’t it make sense to also treat YOURSELF the way you wish to be treated?
Growing this way, getting to know and loving yourself is super beneficial to many aspects of your life.
–Better Decision making and a growing intuition When you start paying attention to the way you live your life you could notice that you’ve been living like a machine, unaware of WHY you do what you do and what outcomes your behaviors have brought you. It’s being aware of yourself that gives you the power to choose something different and change your outcomes.
–Confidence Getting to know yourself won’t automatically make you like yourself more, but getting to know yourself will give you the power to change into the person you want to be. And between here and there, there’s a lot of learning and accepting to do. The more attention you pay yourself the more you’ll understand, forgive, encourage and respect yourself. You become a real person! You become someone who matters to you.
–Self Fulfillment Loneliness will dissipate the more you discover about yourself. You’ll find doing things alone to be easier and even rejuvenating for you.
–Better Relationships With Others As you get to know and accept yourself you’ll begin to feel proud of your independence and other accomplishments. When you’re proud of yourself, you’ll be less likely to seek out acceptance and love from other people. Other people in your life won’t feel as under pressure for fulfilling your needs because you’ll be fulfilling your own needs.
There is no right or wrong way to get to know yourself. Try brainstorming ideas of ways you can to get to know yourself. Pay yourself some attention, brainstorm things you can do by yourself, practice spending chunks of time alone, and keep a journal.
