Knowing Yourself

For most of my life, introspection was something that I didn’t do very well, if at all. It seemed a little ego-centric, and not something that a strong, stable man would fritter away valuable time doing.

The consequence of that approach was two-fold – I relied on superficial thoughts and feelings to guide me, and I never really dug down far enough to actually discover what made me tick.

When you’re introspective, you open yourself up to uncomfortable feelings, and it can be both daunting and fear-inducing, especially for someone with anxiety issues. When you examine your inner-ugly, it’s easy to either attempt to justify the feelings that pop up, or smother them. Either way, those approaches can lead the same place – and denial ain’t just a river.

We spend so much time in a pitched battle with negativity. We try to eliminate it. We slap labels on it, like “bad” or “ugly” (see above). We push it down, repress it. We use it like lump coal to fuel the furnace of our self-loathing. But we never get to know it.

That means it’s possible we’re ignoring a portion of who we are. How can we claim to know ourselves at the same time we’re deliberately closing one eye to the parts we’ve tagged as negative?

In order to live life fully, we must embrace the totality of who we are – not just who we want people to think we are. This begins by giving ourselves permission to examine everything without assigning a value to it, like good or bad. It just is.

One way to accomplish this is to separate the thing from the feeling it causes in order to look at it objectively. Let me give you an example.

I sometimes look for problems where none exist. It can make me tired, frustrated, and angry.

Examination: Looking for problems isn’t inherently bad or evil. In fact, in some circumstances, it’s entirely appropriate. If I was auditing, or investigating, or troubleshooting something, looking only at what’s obvious or apparent would probably make people think I was incompetent or negligent. So the thing is neutral.

How I feel about the thing is a different matter. Why do I feel that way? What led me to go looking for a problem? Was it to keep my mind from dealing with something else? Perhaps I was reverting to past behavior of seeking out conflict as a way to demonstrate strength and control. Maybe my feelings are not about the thing at all, but rather what the thing might represent in my struggle.

When I look deeply inward, it requires a level of clarity and honesty that pushes me outside of my comfort zone. In going there, I’m forced to know the whole me, and once I understand myself holistically – all of the parts, and how they interact and conflict with each other – I come to terms with myself. I’m no longer concerned with comfortable or uncomfortable, with good or bad. By knowing myself, I’m not fixated on myself, which is an interesting dichotomy.

I’m not worried that something a co-worker says will make me feel insecure, or that a certain group or philosophy will make me uncomfortable. Because I have worked on knowing myself and my fears, there’s little chance that external factors will serve to trigger those fears, to kick off my anxiety. It’s almost like knowing myself makes me forget about myself, and instead focus outwardly.

Someday I’ll be really good at this. Until then, I’ve decided to embrace the learning. I’m a pretty interesting guy once I get to know me!