How do you suggest someone "find themselves" and how would you know when you meet the true version of yourself?
Discussion
Thank you for asking!
I've thought about this question a lot.
I think awareness is the first thing and a major key piece to everything in our lives. Many people aren't even aware they aren't aware of themselves. I was certainly there myself at one point.
I also believe this is a lifelong process we do, rather than an event that happens.
I also don't think it's a requirement for everyone.
I do believe it's a requirement if we want more out of our lives and relationships though.
It starts with getting very clear on what you like and don't like for yourself and about yourself and facing those things. Much of this is also emotional and not something many people have talked about or worked on or even understand completely.
The things you like and don't like in your life, job, home, relationships, etc.
Deciding on the things you may like to change and the things you don't.
Then going to work on maybe 1 thing at a time to try to understand and/or change things.
There's also a big, but subtle difference between intellectually understand and doing these things, and emotionally embracing it.
All of this is a continuous process and much of it is emotional work because we often don't want to feel the emotions associated with things we don't like about ourselves or our lives.
I think we know when we've found a true version of ourselves when we're aware of where we are emotionally most of the time. We love and take care of ourselves emotionally and physically. We don't need anything else in our lives to make us happy. Meaning our main focus is internal and how we feel about ourselves, not on outside circumstances.
This doesn't mean we don't work hard, strive for more, give to things and simply want more out of our lives. But we don't need it or use it to justify our emotions or coping mechanisms.
I also must mention being kind to other people, which is very different than being nice. Being kind holds healthy boundaries with yourself and with others, while people pleasing is being nice.
This is by no means a complete list or strategy, but it's a start. Hope this helps and is what you were asking for.
Happy to clarify on this as well.
Your response seemed pretty clear and concise for how large of a topic it covers. I've been working on somatic breathing and mindfulness meditation. Do you think that identifying past trauma that has caused emotional or psychological damage and potentially labeling or "diagnosing" the mental things can help find recovery methods? Or is "diagnosing" a waste of time. Example: I've always joked that I had some sort of ADHD, Asperger's, or OCD and others agreed. But when I did research the examples of internal dialogue of those people have never matched up with what was in my head. Then I recently stumbled upon Adaptive Perfectionism. And the internal dialogue and reasoning for things by those people was almost exact to my internal thoughts. I was then able to research causes, and a critical childhood was one reason that matched my past really well. I'm now able to look up tools and practices that can help such as CBT and EMDR therapy. Any thoughts on this process or am I just inadvertantly trying to avoid something else? Finding the critical childhood piece has also alerted my relationship with my children as I didn't want to pass down the same "trauma".
Thank you! I really appreciate that and the feedback. I definitely try to be clear with what I say. I've worked on it and at it for a long time.
Once again I'll come back to awareness. If looking into other things such as diagnosis helps with the awareness, it can help with the clarity. Then you can work to process and heal those things.
The hard part is there is so much overlap of the symptoms that show up, which makes it hard to see what the underlying cause is.
For example: ADHD, codependency, CPTSD and other things all have symptoms that show up looking like red flags for narcissism from the outside. They come from other things though and are not actually narcissism, but they look like it sort of.
We can definitely get caught up in the research of all the different things, traumas, symptoms and healing modalities instead of doing the work to process and heal them.
There is no right path though. There is a path which may be more right for you though. No one can tell you what that path is though and it's another part of getting to know and trust yourself.
I had a lot of help through therapy and coaching, although coaching was what really moved the needle for me. I cannot imaging how long it would have taken me to do it on my own.
That said, it's completely possible to do it on your own and it sounds like you are building a good foundation for it.
Huge kudos to you and immense gratitude for seeing there are things you need to work through and doing the work. Breaking the chains of generational trauma is the hardest work we'll ever do, but it's the absolute most rewarding too.