Know who you are. Believe in yourself. Actualise your reality!

Know who you are

Everything to do with personal change and evolution is about self discovery and understanding. It’s about the human journey, in the truest sense of the word. Any time we try to tussle with the self, to question the status quo, become aware of our habitual unconscious lives, we come into contact with who we are, we see ourselves perhaps for the first time. This is a fundamentally positive activity and can’t help but affect us in profoundly positive ways.

 

Coming to know oneself and getting in touch with the ‘real you’ can call to mind those stereotyped self absorbed people that have an unhealthy preoccupation with pop psychology and ‘finding themselves’. I’ve even encountered the attitude that Buddhist practitioners and meditators are selfish because they spend a lot of time working on themselves instead of helping others.

 

There may be an element of truth to this, but the reality is that investing time into self evolution pays huge dividends in terms of being of service to others. We can’t help others until we have reached a general level of physical, mental and emotional well being.

 

The greater self knowledge we have, the more we understand the human condition which helps us be more empathetic and compassionate. This can help to understand the suffering and needs of others and be better able to support and encourage, not only those in our circle of interest, but complete strangers.

 

Our journey of growth and change will not reach its profound potential if it is a purely self focused one. The context of our evolution is a human one, inclusive of all humanity. Until we get this lesson, the truth of the interconnectedness of all life, we’re still going to be operating on a lower level, and miss the unfathomable wonder of being part of something much bigger than our own insignificant concerns.

 

It’s important to restate this far greater context and perspective at the beginning of this practice point. Keeping a sense of this inclusive intention behind our practice keeps us grounded and connected to the shared plight of our collective struggles.

 

Being part of the warrior focus element, this practice point requires courage to fully embrace the process, to address every insecurity, every fear, weakness, all the misdeeds of our past. Knowing who we are is about bringing all of ourselves into the light, especially those parts that we repress or deny because they don’t fit into the self view we’re invested in.

 

Depending on our disposition, we may over identify with our negative aspects, we may be unhealthily invested in a low sense of self, zeroing in on all the areas where we have failed to measure up instead of a healthy, broader awareness of the good and bad together. 

 

This common tendency towards poor self view makes it ever more important to cultivate a well rounded view of ourselves and those positive qualities we all possess. We acknowledge in a grounded, affirmational and undeniable way the parts of ourselves that sing, that affirm life, our strengths and positive past actions, our core values that are a part of our make up.

 

This practice can have profoundly positive effects on our sense of self and overall confidence. And if we honestly think our life has been mostly devoid of admirable actions, we start doing more esteemable things, become positively action oriented and practice positive thinking in all areas of our life.

 

The profundity of knowing who we are is that we cease to need external validation. We become free of the opinions of others, they have less sway in our minds even when someone may be pointing out a nasty truth. With the confidence that comes from knowing oneself, we can take that criticism on, because we’ve chosen the warrior’s path, we want to know where our weaknesses are because we want to change them, overcome them, learn from them.

 

This greater perspective stands us in good stead to navigate life, to be grounded, to stand tall, to be able to be truthful at all times. We are freer because we don’t need to hide behind a confected life, a contorted self living in the dark while compulsively keeping up the false bravado. Who wants to live that fake, empty existence? Being true to oneself, living from integrity instead of lies affords us freedom to relax, to let go of trying to control the narrative of our lives, this fabricated reality.

 

 

Believe in yourself

Once we have started to get acquainted with ourselves, and by the way, think of this as a lifetime project, we start to feel greater confidence in ourselves. Those undermining internal and external voices that we never even questioned, cease to hold sway in our mind. There’s a sense of empowerment and agency, we can undertake any endeavour because we trust in our strengths and our willingness to challenge weaknesses, to learn from them.

 

When we’ve taken on a path of self discovery and growth, there’s a willingness to engage no matter what the circumstances, we’re willing to find out the truth about ourselves, even relish it, because with knowledge comes strength and further growth and therefore increased potential.

 

In this, we change our relationship to failure, we don’t take it personally, as if it’s some sort of undeniable, crushing statement about who we are. Instead, we dust off, assess what’s happening with as much clarity as possible, and crack on.

 

Self belief comes from actual experience, from throwing oneself into the mix, from overcoming adversity no matter how small. We throw in and find that inner strength we all have. Once we experience this, we have confidence in ourselves because we know who and what we are, false confidence and inflated ego have left the building.

 

Coming into one’s own isn’t easy, it requires perseverance and it’s not for the faint-hearted, but what a journey! It’s true that the most worthwhile things in life aren’t easy and are earned through hard work, and that there are absolutely no shortcuts. The modern world is obsessed with this.

 

Getting rich quick, becoming successful, fad diets that guarantee weight loss without effort and so on. People are always looking for the quick way, and there’s no shortage of the unscrupulous who can sell you their version of it. For the great majority, life just doesn’t work this way.

 

What is of true value in this world is what is inside of us, our character, our ethical strength and integrity, our core values. This is what sustains us through all manner of hardship and suffering.

 

We may experience security and a pleasant life through material and financial prosperity, a successful career but that can disappear in the blink of an eye, or we can face great adversity when we lose loved ones, or when a relationship ends. If we have invested in the evolution of our character, our inner life, we can traverse anything and live a genuinely far happier and freer life.

 

Actualise your reality

The world we live in does objectively exist, for the most part, we can agree on that, but our relationship to it is entirely mental. We literally create our own reality, in the sense that we cognise then make sense of everything that unfolds in our perceptual field of experience.

How we respond to that input is highly conditioned through nature, our predispositions, and nurture, all the effects of our interactions with the outside world, everything we perceive through the senses, from the moment they start receiving input.

 

Unfortunately, we’re mostly unaware of this fact and that we are almost completely habitualised by those conditions, with very little perspective about how we live our lives. Our personal reality is almost entirely defined by the way we use our mind, and how it’s been conditioned up to this point in time.

 

This fundamental truth, once accepted, implores us to make a decision to direct that reality through healthy and positive choices, to transform our mind through practices and ways of thinking that direct our mind towards positive and affirmational mental states. This doesn’t mean we are thinking and believing anything as long as it makes us feel good, we aren’t trying to be willfully delusional.

 

Positive states of mind are typified by being as aware of the true nature of things as possible. If we live in delusion, the bubble will eventually burst and our false reality will come tumbling down. This is the reason why honesty and truth are conditions for happiness and freedom. When our life accords with reality, there will be no surprises, at least not ones rooted in fantasy. 

 

This three step practice point is a restatement of a fundamental progressive aspect of personal growth and development. We coming to know who we are as best we can with as much honesty as possible. In that, we can then take confidence in ourselves through deeper understanding and awareness as we begin to develop more positive qualities and fully connect with our current ones.

 

Following that, we make effort to become fully conscious beings and choose to direct our mind and actions instead of passively flowing with the habit energy of our lives. With caring intentions and a discerning mind, we actualise the reality that serves the best version of ourselves possible.