Know your desires. Know your light

Alastair Humphreys' photo in a Tweety: Apricity: “the warmth of the sun in winter.”

Leo Babauta on Developing a Sense of Self.  The blog post addresses the symptoms and talks about how to grow it in yourself and with a partner.

Developing a strong sense of self is one of the most under-appreciated ways to be happy. To have healthy relationships, with others and with yourself.

It’s not often understood, and as a result, problems in this area cause problems in all areas of our lives.

Let me point out just some of the common symptoms of an under-developed sense of self:

• People pleasing
• Conflict avoidance
• Not being honest about how you feel
• Losing yourself in a relationship
• Distancing yourself from your partner when you’re afraid
• Hiding things, cheating on your partner
• Not being able to take care of your needs or emotions
• Being afraid of intimacy or relationships
• Not setting boundaries, feeling overrun or overburdened by others, resenting it

As you can see, the issues come up especially in relationship with others (with your partner, family, friends, coworkers, etc.) … but because of that, it affects almost everything in your life, even when you’re alone.

How to Start Developing a Stronger Sense of Self

The way to develop a strong sense of self is to start by knowing yourself better — not necessarily changing anything about yourself.

This means a willingness to have intimacy with yourself:

• Know your feelings: Start to bring awareness and presence to your fears, anxieties, sadness, loneliness, boredom, anger, resentment, guilt, shame, love, compassion, joy, and more. When they are happening, can you notice them and let yourself feel them? This creates a sense of trust in yourself that you can be with your feelings.
• Know your self-talk: Notice what you’re telling yourself when you avoid, criticize, complain, break promises to yourself, make mistakes. What kind of language do you use? What kind of tone? Understanding this is a way of understanding how you’ve learned to protect yourself.
• Take care of your feelings: When you’re feeling afraid, sad, lonely, emotionally exhausted … can you find a way to take care of these feelings? Soothe them, bring love to them, reassure them? If you could have a loved one give you exactly what you need, what would that be? Could you do that for yourself?
• Know your desires: We are often trained to not want anything. It might not feel OK to want things. But what if we could just own our desires, and start to notice what they are? And feel that it’s OK to have these desires? That doesn’t mean we always get to have whatever we want — that’s attachment. But just acknowledging your desires can be powerful.
• Know your light: We sometimes only relate to the parts of ourselves we don’t really like. But a good practice is to start to see the parts of yourself that are beautiful — your compassion, generosity, curiosity, playfulness, commitment, power, courage, love, joy, and more. These aren’t always obvious, but they’re always there. Start to notice them and acknowledge them more often. This is the essence of developing your sense of self.

If you practice these on a regular basis, your sense of self will get stronger with each practice.

Practicing in Relationship with Others

It’s best to develop your sense of self when you’re alone — even if you’re in a relationship, or have lots of family or friends around you, spend some time alone each day to practice knowing yourself.

That said, we deepen this work whenever we’re in relationship with anyone else. This can be a romantic partnership, a friendship, a relationship with your kids or siblings or parents, relationships with team members, business partners, etc.

Some ways to practice:

• Notice when you’re seeking validation from the other person. Practice validating yourself instead — acknowledge your light, celebrate your victories.
• Notice when you’re holding yourself back. You might not want to share your feelings with the other person, or perhaps you’re afraid of being honest. This is a withholding of yourself out of fear. When you notice this, attend to your fear. Then see if you can share yourself, at least in little bits. Through this practice, you’ll develop trust to share all of yourself.
• Set boundaries. Notice when you need alone time, and let them know. Notice when you’re saying Yes to things out of guilt, and practice saying No. Notice when you’re resentful about things, and look for a boundary that you can express that won’t make you resentful. Look for where your needs aren’t being honored, and speak up for them.
• Continue to practice your individuality. Just because you’re in relationship with someone else doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice who you are. Can you speak up for your opinions and desires? Can you have your own activities that are yours alone?
• Use conflicts to grow your sense of self. Every conflict with the other person can be a practice in opening your heart to them, without giving up who you are. And even if the conflict goes badly — let’s say they are shut down and mean to you — you can take some time alone and practice being with your feelings and taking care of your emotions. In this way, even difficult conflicts can be an opportunity to grow closer to yourself.

Be patient with yourself, because this isn’t easy stuff to practice, and you won’t “get it right” all the time. In fact, there isn’t a right way to do this, it’s an exploration, a journey of self-discovery.