In search of your true self

Posted on February 24, 2017 by oana

Chances are that we have a deeper sense of fulfilment in life when we know who we are. Most of us, when we are new to a group, we introduce ourselves by describing the job title or describing ourselves in relation to someone important in our life, such as your wife, your child, your parent, etc.

These ways of presentation are important because they give to others an idea about what is it that we have achieved so far or what is it that we hold dear.

However, in order to develop the deeper sense of fulfilment, we need to know more about ourselves. We may not need to share it with everyone but it is crucial to have it clear for ourselves. If we gain clarity on that, we have the foundation from where we experience life.

How do you gain clarity into who you truly are?

Recent research on personality , shows that our personality can change for the better as we experience life. The degree of extroversion, the openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional instability can positively change as a result of special attention we give to the different dimensions of our personality and of the positive intention behind the exerted attention.

In different life circumstances, varied and salient sides of ourselves may come to surface. For example, when spending time with the children, the playful trait may surface. When working on a project, the supportive side of you can kick-in. When presenting your idea in front of a group, the insecurity may be dominant.

The key aspect is to be mindful to all the feelings, thoughts and attitudes we embrace and decide to what extend they represent who we truly are.

“When we recognize a subpersonality, we are able to step outside it and observe it. In psychosynthesis we call this process “dis-identification”. Because we all have the tendency to identify with – to become one with – this or that subpersonality, we come implicitly to believe that we are it.” (Piero Ferrucci, What We May Be)

Being present to what we feel enables us to create for few seconds a distance between who we may think we are and who we truly are.

Life circumstances can help us recognize our true self

To my mind, this is one of the reasons we are living this life: to experience who we truly are. An attitude of curiosity and playfulness can ease the discovery. For example, for a person who moves to another country, it may be easier to get in touch with different sides of his personality and with his core by accepting and being interested in other nationalities.

Such a person may be closer to finding his true self by allowing himself to change the perceptions on the world and at the same time, reminding himself about the set of beliefs that keep him grounded in the midst of changes.

Life circumstances make us revisit the most important beliefs. There are times when we may choose life circumstance to fit with these most important beliefs. And there are times when we choose to give up some beliefs that do not serve us very well in the new life circumstance.

Continuing the example with the person moving to a new country, the first step would be to look for like-minded individuals to spend time with. If you are a curious mind, you may want to look for other curious minds in the area of your interest. For example, Internations is a community of foreigners and expats that offers plenty of interest groups for different tastes to ease up the adaptation to the new cultural environment.

At the same time, this person who has recently relocated to a foreign land, may want to reevaluate his nationalistic views to develop a healthier attitude as a foreigner. You cannot have a smooth integration to another country by fostering negative opinions about the new culture.

We know who we truly are when we feel in harmony with ourselves and with the life circumstance we find ourselves in. Meanwhile, we keep on searching, holding onto the belief that each day provides a glimpse into our true selves. We need to be present enough to recognize it. The true self is already in us.

In the pursuit of healthy self-esteem

Posted on January 9, 2014 by oana

My intuitive belief, backed up by findings of researchers in psychology is that a healthy dose of self-esteem is necessary for individual happiness. Self-esteem, the way people perceive their own worth, lays the foundation for the thoughts, emotions, actions and behaviours that we adopt. The problem is that each individual has too high or too low of a self-esteem, which affects our inner life, relationships and professional life. It is possible though to discover a balanced perception on our worth in order to live deeply and in harmony with who we truly are.

Healthy self-esteem means the ability to perceive our own worth as realistically as possible, by reviewing our current relationships and achievements and further challenging ourselves. It is less important whether the outcomes of our challenges are successes or failures. It is more important to develop a healthy self-esteem, which enables us to feel content and learn from our personal endeavours. In other words, a healthy self-esteem means feeling good in our own skin while we are improving different aspects of our life.

How can we feel good when we are under the stress of reaching goals? A healthy self-esteem can take away the focus from the stress and increases our awareness into how we can meet are our most important needs as human beings. For example, a healthy self-esteem can make us see how to live meaningfully and take steps in that direction. A healthy self-esteem can help us have “feel good” interactions with different people.

However, reaching the balance point where we possess healthy self-esteem can take years of our life. Each one of us has to first fight with either too high or too low self-esteem, which results from the parenting style we were raised with and from the culture where we grew up.

Having a too high self-esteem means being overly confident about everything we do. We believe that we are much better than the people around us. Thus, there is the risk that our ego inflates and we may miss out opportunities when we could learn something valuable from others.

Especially in love relationships, the too high a self-esteem may turn us into egoistic individuals who become blind to the needs of the loved one. Relationship conflicts may result from excessive pride and too high expectations about “what I want and I need”.

On the other hand, others may struggle with too low self-esteem, the depressing feeling that “I am not good enough, so I deserve less”. As a result, the job, the love life and everything else are a reflection of the lack the confidence to even hope for good things to happen to us.

Having too low self-esteem brings us down and keeps us away from exploring our true potential in life. For example, thinking that “I am not smart enough to study mathematics”, may prevent us from at least give it a shot. Instead, if we think, “I will study mathematics and see how I feel about it”, we may be surprised to see that mathematics is an exciting discipline.

If indeed, you start studying mathematics and you see it’s not your cup of tea, then nothing prevents you from studying other more interesting topics.

How can we develop the sense of a healthy self-esteem? Each one of us knows it deep inside on which side of self-esteem we are. It is a matter of admitting to ourselves that we have too high or too low self-esteem and get motivated to do something about it.

Learning to be humble about everything we do can be useful for those of us with too high self-esteem. This means that we need to become aware that we are not the centre of the world. Our work, while it is fascinating for us and useful for a group of people, may not be interesting for some others.

Learning how to ask for what you want is a skill that those of us with low self-esteem may need to work on. This way the people around us may start paying attention to us and respect us for who we are.

Thinking, acting and behaving according to who we truly are, bring joy, satisfaction and healthy relationships. When we master the skills to live according to healthy self-esteem, we have the chance to discover authentic happiness.

So, let’s start 2014 with a very important resolution: to find our healthy self-esteem! Good luck to everyone who is interested in such a pursuit!

For a detailed analysis of internal and external factors that can influence self-esteem, you might like reading:

Six Pillars of Self Esteem by psychotherapist and writer Nathaniel Branden

How can travelling broaden the mind?

Posted on May 16, 2013 by oana

“Home, sweet home”. Most of us sigh with relief when we return from a trip. For a day or so, we feel refreshed to be back to our life, the way we know it – with our habits and struggles. Yet, have we ever considered a new destination as a potential home?

Travelling challenges our abilities

In the 19th century, English aristocrats would send their youngsters on journeys of initiation. The aim of the journey was to enable young men the transformation to the stage of adulthood.

Some of today’s youngsters, including women, continue this tradition. Their goal can be to take distance from their parents and see what they’d like to do in life.

Irrespective of age, venturing abroad can be an eye opener to hidden sides of ourselves.

The unknown environment is suitable for testing our abilities. For example, if we get lost in a new city, we can resort to:

Asking for help from locals. We may want to do that to test how well we manage talking to people in a foreign language.
Using our intuition. No matter if we are intuitive type of person, we may still want to test if our intuition can bring us back on the right track.
Using the GPS application on our phone, if we want to become an every day tech-savvy.

When we are back home, we may surprise ourselves with creative solutions to the problems which seemed insurmountable before the trip.

Visit new cities as if you would temporarily move there

When I discover a new city, I like imagining how my everyday life would be if that place were my home. I choose to focus on the positive sides of the respective habitat.

In Barcelona, I would live close to the Barceloneta beach, so that I can have my daily dialogues with the sea and make my way in the streets among enthusiastic tourists.

In Paris, I’d live in the Latin Quarter to be surrounded by student life and book stores evoking the literary past.

In Amsterdam, I’d choose to live for one month on a boat on the Canal to wake up with a different view at the window, each morning.

After imagining how it would be to live in different places, we can become aware how the surrounding environment can influence our state of mind and our thoughts.

Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home)

This is the title of a song which was first recorded in 1962. Some of us identify themselves so much with the house where they live and the objects in it, that it must be very hard imagining another place called home.

Without doubt, it is good for our emotional balance to feel rooted in a place. Yet, it is even better for our psychological and spiritual growth to develop the ability to feel like home wherever we go.

Every city has one characteristic that resonates in us and reveals who we truly are.

How about you, what do you like about travelling? And how does travelling affect you?

How can we fight the expectations of the dear ones on us?

Posted on May 9, 2013 by oana

“If we could see ourselves as others see us, we would vanish on the spot.” – Emil Cioran

Others’ expectations on us have a direct effect on how we behave, as shown by a social psychology study done by Dr. Snyder from University of Minnesota and his colleagues. Understanding that our behaviour is affected by others expectations can help us see how we turn into different persons in various social situations. When it comes to persons we feel affection for, their expectations can affect our lives at even a deeper level. Why are we influenced by expectations from dear ones and how can we realistically manage any of their negative effects on our lives?

When we feel how others see us

Early morning, the rain was pattering against the windows.

The rest of the family was sleeping, while I was awake, feeling disappointed with myself for not being able to put into practice my birthday resolution.

I had promised to myself an act of liberty – to start learning how to break free from the silent expectations that others may have on me.

I was staring at the fog outside the window. It was so dense that I got the feeling that it would be just a matter of minutes before it broke into our house.

The sudden shriek of a seagull disturbed the rhythmic noise of the rain drops. Even the fog flickered.

My inner peace is startled in the same way when someone I care about behaves as if, “You’ve disappointed me!”

Momentarily, the energy level goes down with frustration. Why do others have opinions about how I should live my life?

Not only that, but they adopt a silent disapproval, which is even more compelling. Eventually, we may give in and start considering how we can behave as others expect us to. We start considering how we can please.

Love and expectations

Are we afraid that failing to live up to the unspoken expectations would make others love us less?

The truth is that love and expectations have nothing to do with each other. Love comes from the heart, expectations come from the mind.

So, any expectation someone else might have on us is reflecting their own mindset and perspective on life.

As much as we care about someone else – be that our partner, parents, siblings, friends or colleagues -, it would not be fair for us to adjust our behaviour so that it can fit their view on life.

In a party, it is fun to be flirtatious with the man in whose eyes you read, “You’re sexy!”. The way others view can temporary change our behaviour.

But, the expectations of the loved ones on us can bring tremendous turmoil in our life.

In times of emotional unbalance, it may be hard to remember that we have our own life to live and we owe it to our true self to live unhindered by others’ opinions or emotional reactions.

Forgive others for expecting

It’s important to be observe how much our wellbeing is dependent on others expectations and decide to do something about it.

It may help to be more mindful next time when the turmoil is about to start. Instead of making yet another compromise, we can go on taking action based on our principles and beliefs.

Otherwise, we’ll get old and feeling like failures if we keep on asking ourselves, “What will mother think if I venture into a trip around the world?”. And later on, “If mother were alive, what would she think if …?”

We should not expect that others’ expectations on us will ever stop. On the contrary, one expectation leads to another. And maybe that’s their way to show that they love and care about us.

What we can do is not to react to the demands on what we should do or shouldn’t do. And we need to practice patience until the frustration, anger and sadness caused by their interference go away.

Our reward is the inner peace, which shall be restored again!

Maybe we should avoid wondering how others see us in order to blossom.

Discoveries Into Yourself

Tag Archives: true self