on getting to know yourself
I have known myself for 22 years. Yet I feel as though there is still so much I don’t know, so much still to be discovered. When meeting someone new we make a concerted effort to understand theM, where they came from, the things that have happened to them, what inspires them, who they wish to become. We ask questions, are curious about every facet of who they are. When do we put in the same effort towards ourselves? When do we decide to be curious about who we were, who we are and who we are yet to become? For me it took being so fed up with myself that I had the strongest urge to rewrite who I was. It took being stuck in lockdown during a pandemic to look at my face in the mirror and wonder who the hell was looking back at me. It makes me sad that it took this kind of despair and frustration with myself to trigger the want to get to know the one person I’ll spend my entire life with, me. I was letting everyone else tell me who they were, as well as tell me who I was. I told people what I thought they wanted to hear, created a story about who I was that felt so real that I never thought to look beyond it and question whether it was true, whether it was truly who I was or wanted to be. I always thought of myself in relation to who I was with or what I was doing. Thinking of myself as a whole, unique identity independant of those external factors was such a foreign concept to me. And so I found myself looking into my own eyes reflected in the mirror just over a year ago, with the question rising to the surface of - who am I? Why haven’t I ever gotten to know myself? Why is that not a thing people do until they’re triggered by some kind of existential crisis? How many people are driven to take life changing trips in order to ‘find themselves’ each year? How did we all get so lost?
i think a huge part of the problem is the pace at which we have come to live our lives. If you’re always rushing from one thing to the next, your attention being pulled in a million different directions, it’s very easy to forget to tune into yourself. Especially when you’re never taught how, never told how important it is. Subtle niggles, aches, pains, gut feelings are easy to ignore, lost in the roar of noise from everything outside of yourself. Over time, the more you ignore them, the deeper and more intense these pains become, until your body has to literally scream at you to listen to it. You become burnt out, exhausted and broken before you realise you need to turn your focus towards the very thing that allows and facilitates your doing everything else. You hit a breaking point, unable to take it anymore, unable to recognise the shadow of self you see reflected back at you In the mirror, wondering how you got into this mess.
self care has become a confusing term, overused in the context of cosmetic consumerism, to sell you bath bombs and face masks as a quick fix to a much deeper problem. Its like putting a plaster over a gaping wound and hoping it’ll be enough to stop you bleeding out onto a puddle on the floor.
impossible.
the only way to survive, thrive even, is to slowly and purposefully commit to putting yourself back together. To lovingly soothe and heal the aching parts of yourself, examining them, coming to understand the root of it all and thus in turn coming to understand yourself as a complicated patchwork whole. It looks like staring all your wounds and traumas, big and small, directly in the eye and asking yourself what you need most in order to heal them. Over and over again. These wounds take time to stitch back up, they require patience and loving attention, balms and ointments, cleansing and fresh air. The more lovingly and thoroughly you care for each wound, the neater the scar it will leave behind. Because there will always be scars. No wound dissolves completely, without a trace. The marks they leave behind are reminders of where we came from, of our strength and resilience and love we hold for ourselves. We all have scars, some small and on the surface, others bigger and deeper than anyone could ever imagine. yet I have come to realise in this quest to get to know myself, I have a tendency to only focus on those big, painful wounds. I can too easily be pulled into the darkness and forget to also appreciate my light. I forget that although I have wounds to heal and stories to be rewritten, there is also so much goodness and magic within my being, just waiting to be explored. I’ve only been getting to know the smallest fraction of a bigger, more complex whole. I’ve seen glimpses of that goodness shining through in my newfound appreciation for the little moments of joy in my life. I’ve seen it manifesting In the urge to write and create that I’ve never really experienced before, a sharing of all that I’m learning about myself, life and the world around me. But I also know I’ve only just scratched the surface of all the light I have within myself. I am only at the very beginning of this journey of getting to know myself. As important as it is to turn my attention towards that which causes me pain and suffering, I must also remember to lean into what fills me with peace, joy, inspiration, passion and love. To nurture and feed that so it may grow and blossom along with the healing of my wounds. That is what it means to truly come to understand who you are. To get curious about all of it, the good and the bad.
i do this through journaling, meditation, reading, writing. By spending time with myself, asking questions and truly listening to the answers that rise to the surface. I think this is something we all need to do more of, learning to enjoy our own company. That doesn’t have to look like spending every moment alone, but I find connecting with myself so much easier when I am alone with my energy and thoughts and feelings, even if only for an hour or two. I listen to the questions and answers of people that inspire me, that open my eyes and my heart to new ways of thinking and being. I want to learn all there is to know, to seek the wisdom in all things and use it as a catalyst for growth and expansion. I want to continuously commit to this practice of questioning and coming to understand myself and the world around me. I’ll leave links to some of the things and people I’ve been listening to recently below. And so to end this rambling mess of thoughts for this week I want to invite you to ask yourself a few questions.
who are you when you let go of your past and relinquish the future? who are you in this very moment? what are you thinking, feeling, experiencing? What do you need right now?
take a moment to think about it and consider whatever answers might rise up. Give yourself what you need. Listen without judgement. Care for yourself a little more each day than you did yesterday. I promise it will transform your relationship with yourself and in turn, your life.
happy Friday my loves.
as promised, here are some things that have been inspiring me recently :
Wisdom of Sunday’s by Oprah Winfrey
if you want to hear more about my journey towards a more authentic existence, follow me on instagram @the.authenticity.project and on medium . see my photography work on instagram @s.ophiea.lice and connect with me on linkedin.
big love to you all x