The Journey of Self Discovery: Uncovering Your True Identity
Every day you cross paths with countless strangers. People sit next to you on the bus; you're a cashier at the grocery store, sends you a smile, and someone works out beside you at the gym. Often, these faces pass us by; there's nothing particularly distinct or memorable about these people. We know nothing of their lives, wants, or desires. We might think of them so little that we fail to recognize them as people at all. Like NPCs in a game, we glance at them without much thought and move on with our lives.
But when you stop to think about it, you realize how far away you are from others, how impossible it is to understand the interior lives of those around us. In a way, we live estranged and isolated, caught up in our thoughts and dramas. It's easy to recognize this feeling when we think about ourselves in relation to other people. You will never fully know even the people you've been around your entire life. Although you may want to, you can't jump inside their head. It's impossible to experience the world from any perspective except your own.
But even with yourself, the person you're supposed to know best, don't you sometimes feel like a stranger in your own skin? You walk past a storefront window or see a picture of yourself taken by a friend, and you think, "Is that really me?" The way you looked in that moment contrasts how you see yourself in your head. Well, this isn't an uncanny experience; it's even more unsettling when it occurs on a deeper, more emotional level. Sometimes your feelings, thoughts, or actions don't align with the person you think you are.
Cue in existential crisis. You perform a professional and friendly role at work that lets you get the job done while staying on good terms with your co-workers, even when you want to be rude or lazy. Online, you show the best side of yourself, and the worst side of yourself, when incognito. Gourmet meals, vacations, and funny moments throughout your day paint a picture of a consistently happy, fulfilled life. In relationships with friends and romantic partners, you might hide your wants and desires to compromise for someone else, or without even realizing it, you might change yourself completely to be loved by another.
Too many people are going through life without any sense of who they truly are or what they want, and I don't blame them. So much of modern life is built upon hiding your true self while upholding false authenticity. This can go far enough that we even stop recognizing ourselves. We lose touch with who we really are. Moving through the world untethered from any true sense of self is bound to take its toll on your mental health. But living life according to your true self is challenging when you still need help to understand what you really want.
So how do you break this cycle? To do that, you need to go on a journey, a journey of self-discovery. Although it’d be nice, I unfortunately can't offer you a neat list of tips and tricks to guide you to your true self. Instead, the journey to self-discovery is one you'll have to take on your own. Self-analysis looks different for everyone. The importance doesn't lie in how you do it, but in taking that first step, and that's what I can help you with.
Self-discovery begins with listening, and sometimes talking to yourself. You have to find a conversation style that works for you, and yes, I know this sounds silly, but for some, having full-blown out loud conversations with themselves might be the best way to hone in on their feelings. Others might prefer journaling or writing letters to themselves. Meditation could also help. Don't feel pressured to stick to a method of self-reflection that doesn't feel right because part of the journey is listening and following your intuition about how best to connect with yourself.
Journaling could feel corny, or you might fidget through a meditation session while it's important to give all the methods of checking in with yourself a fair shot. You've got to find something that works for you, or else you'll keep drifting further and further away from yourself. So you've carved out some alone time to reconnect with yourself. Suddenly, your mind's racing with wide-ranging reflection questions that have complex answers: What do I like about myself? What are some negative and positive patterns in my behavior? What situations make me feel uncomfortable? Where and with whom do I feel safe and loved?
Staring at the blank page or overwhelmed, you may start to spiral. Your journey can and will be slow and measured. You won't discover your true self in one afternoon. Don't bite off more than you can chew when becoming acquainted with yourself. When you meet a new friend, you don't expect to get to know every nuance of their personality the first time you hang out, so you shouldn't really expect the same of yourself either. It takes time to get to know yourself, and it might not feel particularly grand or revelatory. If you have big expectations of self-actualization, you're bound to be disappointed.
Your true self is not a superhero bound to fix your problems. Being in touch with yourself helps you make better decisions and deal with stress or problems. Your true self won't make your life perfect, only more livable. Did you know that while you're on this journey trying to figure out who you are, there are people who already know pretty much everything about you? These are data brokers. They buy your information from all the companies you visit on the web and use that to create a personalized profile of you, which they can then sell to companies that want to sell you targeted ads or, even worse, scam you.
A while ago, a good friend of mine got an email from Google letting him know that his information had just been exposed in a data breach from one of these data brokers. Soon after, he started getting robocalls, spam, and emails from scam companies who knew an uncomfortable amount of information about him, including his home address. Thankfully, with the sponsor of today's video, Aura, you can now safeguard yourself from these data brokers. Aura identifies data brokers that have your info and submits opt-out requests on your behalf.
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Back to our story. Another painful part of the self-discovery journey happens when you hyper-focus on aspects of yourself you find unlikable. Feeling pain and self-loathing is normal, if not healthy. Much like a painful physical injury, it shows you the tender parts of yourself that need extra care and where you need to heal. You can see how much room you have to grow, but dwelling too much on your imperfections can cause self-pity and hatred, and these feelings can prevent an authentic journey towards self-discovery.
You might start to avoid yourself by constantly filling the gaps and silences in your life. Whether intentionally or not, many people keep a packed calendar to avoid any downtime for self-reflection. Or you might keep a constant stream of music, audiobooks, or TV on in the background, so even while you do the dishes or fall asleep, you never have to be alone with your thoughts. On the other end of the spectrum, some people integrate self-discovery practices so seamlessly into their routines that they lose meaning. This could be a series of bland affirmations or standard guided meditations.
Self-improvement is trendy right now, but keeping your journey uninfluenced is essential. Swiping your credit card isn't really a part of the wholesome journey within. Besides, it's important to remember that the self-improvement trend is mainly used as a means toward hyper productivity. While checking in with yourself daily isn't unimportant, I wonder how genuine this practice is when it's linked so closely to making money or getting things done. I don't know if it allows for true honesty, and you could be leading yourself towards a goal you might not truly even want.
You might think you're on a path towards your true self when all you're doing is leading yourself further away from it. Part of self-discovery is trying to understand the stories you tell yourself about yourself and why those stories are so important. Are these stories even true? Are they useful? Navigating self-deception and delusion is part of the process, and when you begin to notice and understand how you trick yourself, your mind only develops more ways to deceive you. You are constantly trying to find yourself and hide from yourself, so it's more helpful to consider your process as self-exploration rather than discovery. You can then always have the possibility of finding something new.
The journey is never complete. The self is never fully uncovered. Each exploration only reveals a new layer or facet that makes up who you are because the search for one true self or true identity might be in vain. The idea that one cohesive self is at the core of who you are is complicated. For one, it begs the question of whether or not you think people can change. Have you been the same person from childhood to now? If you think so, you may believe that your inner child is the core of who you are.
But maybe you don't identify with who you used to be, and if that's the case, how are you supposed to find a self that has been true and constant throughout time? And how are you supposed to reconcile with parts of yourself that conflict with each other? And what about the role other people play? Our close family and friends see sides of us we tend to obscure from ourselves. They can offer us a unique perspective on ourselves that we can't get from a solo journey of self-discovery. Of course, we want to believe we're at our best around others.
We may perform slightly differently based on who we're hanging out with. Through conversations and sharing observations, the people we trust most have the power to change how we understand our true selves, whether for better or worse. The person you think you are could be very different than the person the people around you report to know. Or ideally, the person you think you are could map onto how others see you, but either way, there is still a complicated question about which self is true: is it the one I believe myself to be, or the person others know?
Through talking with others and observing contradictions in your character, it's more satisfying to say the self contains many truths and identities. You aren't just one thing. You're gentle and kind one minute, but you can also be indignant and cruel. We are different people in different moments, and I fear any notion of one true authentic self denies this complexity. Your true self contains a range of emotions and behaviors. It is your best, your worst, and everything in between.
The problem is we crave consistency and cohesion in ourselves and others. You want to be able to summarize yourself in a nice neat concise story, but to do so denies so much more of who you are. To hold all the truths about yourself in your head at once might make you feel confused or afraid. You might feel the urge to suppress parts of yourself that don't align with what you wish to be true, but uncovering the true self means accepting what we don't like, which seems undesirable or conflicting.
A yes-and approach could help you reconcile with parts of yourself that seem in conflict: yes, I'm generous, and I can also sometimes withhold love; yes, I'm charismatic, and I can also come off as a know-it-all; yes, I'm creative, and I'm disorganized. Practicing the inverse of this technique, leading with your negative traits, is also helpful, especially if you're often mean to yourself. You have to respect and acknowledge the good inside you, and you can't give yourself the satisfaction of becoming self-aware without confronting your faults.
Part of the journey towards self-discovery involves being confused by yourself. It's not about working through that confusion but understanding that your true self is difficult to see clearly. You'll only ever witness truths about yourself in glimpses or fragments. You're a puzzle to yourself, and even in your old age, you'll never really be able to solve it. The journey involves snapping the pieces together anyway, so segments of the puzzle slowly start to reveal themselves.
As a child, self-discovery happens rapidly. As a parent or guardian, it's rewarding to watch every day children uncover new parts of who they are and become more assured of themselves. But that process never stops. You can also constantly surprise yourself. The difference in adulthood is that you become less aware of how yourself is changing under the surface. Your journey involves noticing how and when changes occur within you and not relying too much on false ideas that you know yourself completely because we're always changing, and because our identity constantly morphs and reshapes itself, self-discovery never ends.
It's a process. Besides, how boring would life be if you walked around knowing everything about yourself? You're the person you know best, yet you will always be getting to know yourself. A part of you will always be like a stranger you see at the mall or subway, but the stranger within is one to approach, get to know, and incorporate into the intricate network of your identity. Self-discovery, learning about who you are, is one of the many joys of being alive.
To dedicate yourself to self-exploration is to know yourself the best you can. It's to empathize with, motivate, console, and cherish who you really are. It's to build trust, inner strength, and resilience in yourself. As cheesy as it sounds, to know and explore yourself is to love yourself, and at the end of the day, who can love you better than you? To start your journey of self-discovery, you first need to understand consciousness, and you can watch this video to find all about that.