TL;DR: Know thyself – delve into your subconscious mind by creating a list of core values, practicing shadow work, and practicing dream analysis.
“I believe that if we are honest with ourselves, that the most fascinating problem in the world is: Who am I?” -Alan Watts [1]
Introduction
Many people can’t answer the simple question, “What do you want from your life?”.
We each have a different nature in the same way different seeds become different plants and we each have different optimal conditions to grow under. To know better what we are, or who we are as an individual allows us to seek the right conditions for our growth.
This article answers three questions: what is self knowledge?, why should I care about self knowledge?, and how do I gain self knowledge?
This article also argues that one of the most valuable source of self knowledge is in our own subconscious minds, which dwarves our conscious mind by comparison. Seeing our own subconscious nature is difficult because we are trying to look inward, and we are used to looking outward. It takes more practice to shed light on these darker places.
In order to make this easier, this article covers three methods to make the subconscious conscious: creating a list of core values, shadow work, and dream analysis. Using these methods will help you to better understand yourself day to day and seek conditions you thrive under.
Why Should I Try to Know Myself?
“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” – Socrates [4]
All of the power we have in our lives comes down to our decisions. If only we could make the perfect decisions all the time!
Why don’t we?
If we had a compass in our heads that would point us in the right direction constantly, that would make decisions much easier to make.
However, we each have different needs in life, and so we each need a different compass. The only way to get such a compass is to make a personalized one for ourselves by learning who we are and hence what we need from life.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” -C.G. Jung [5]
How Do I Know Myself?
The best method of knowing oneself seems to be to make the subconscious conscious.
Scientists generally agree that the vast majority of the mind is subconscious, and so most of “you” is out of your own sight. The key is to find practical methods to get this part of “you” in sight in order for you to understand it.
What Everyone Needs
Every human requires basic things like food, and shelter, but we also need human connection, a good self-esteem, and we aspire to be moral beings. Understanding these needs can help us identify what drives us to do things like seek recognition in social groups.
“A Theory of Human Motivation”, written by Abraham Maslow describes the priority in which people are motivated to do things.
It can serve as a road map to what Maslow called self-actualization, the top of the pyramid and the peak of human maturity. This can only be reached when lower needs are sufficiently fulfilled.
This is why Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is shown above as a pyramid because needs on the bottom, like food, are required to be met before needs above, like friendship.
What You Specifically Need
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is nice as a general roadmap to develop yourself, but to get into the nitty-gritty details, you might want to try out the below strategies.
Clear Your Head
When we are alone, there is much less external information for our minds to process, and so our own thoughts can be focused on more fully and this leads to greater clarity.
Many great thinkers have noted the importance of having some time alone frequently, including Leonardo Da Vinci, Bill Gates, and almost any other highly individualistic and driven person [6].
Some people like to exercise, some like woodworking, others like listening to music. Whatever helps you clear stress and chaos from your system and achieve piece in your mind is needed for self understanding.
Constantly distracting yourself with your phone, other people, drugs, food and vices only leads to muddying the waters. Being bored is not a bad thing all the time.
1. Core Values
Everyone has different things that are important to them.
For some, it’s power, for some it’s love, and for others it’s beauty.
It might seem obvious what we value, but when these values are written down and repeated when we make important decisions, they can yield extraordinary clarity. The more aware you are of your values, the more likely you will align with them.
Some common examples of important values to people would be honesty, trust, communication, family, fun, health, power etc.
The idea of this section is to create a list of values that are most important to you, and to refine this list over time to approach a stronger and stronger understanding of your character.
This method is simple:
- Write down at least 10 very important values to you. See this list for some ideas.
- Pick out the 3 to 5 most important to you and remember them or keep them as a list
- When a decision comes along and you are unsure, remember this list
- Continue to revise your list over time
See this guide for more on value formation [8].
2. Shadow Work
The shadow is the part of our personality that we are unaware of. Unlike subconscious elements that we are partially aware of, unconscious elements are completely in the dark to us until we purposefully shine light on them.
Like Jung said above, if we don’t make these unconscious aspects of ourselves known to our fully aware consciousness, it will have control over us.
Often, elements of our personality are repressed into our shadow because they do not align with our conscious beliefs about ourselves.
Usually, these are the parts of ourselves that we don’t like, or can’t accept as true. Things that are frowned upon or avoided in society are more likely to be in the shadow. If we express a part of our personality and it is rejected by parents, friends, or colleagues in a particularly uncomfortable way, it can repress these aspects into the shadow.
The goal of shadow work is to bring these subconscious aspects to the surface and become conscious of them.
Know Your Persona
No one is completely themselves in front of everyone all of the time. We would find that embarrassing at times.
We all hide aspects of our true selves for better or worse, and the ‘mask’ we show to others is called the persona. Similarly, the ‘mask’ we show to ourselves is the ego – who we think we are. The shadow is what is left behind the mask of the ego.
The persona is useful in shadow work because it tells us what we want others to think of us. The opposite of this then, is what we don’t want others to think of us.
What qualities about yourself do you show to others? Are these qualities accurate to who you are, or are you stretching your personality to be liked? Knowing why we show these qualities will help us understand the opposite – feelings or qualities we don’t want others to see in us.
For example, say you want to like something that other people like because it will make you feel included, but you don’t actually happen to like this thing. If you take note that you don’t actually feel good when participating in this activity, and think about why, you may find that the true motivation for doing so is that you have formed a persona to be included. This helps you identify the difference between who you are, and who you want to appear to be.
What Do You Reject?
The shadow is elusive. If something is in your shadow that is holding you back in life, you may not admit this to yourself – you may shift blame to others. We often call this projection.
What you dislike in others, you reject in yourself.
If you really dislike a quality in someone else, note that this also applies to this quality within yourself, and you would be more likely to reject this quality into your shadow if you noticed it.
Look at what irritates you about others as a red flag to what your shadow doesn’t want to admit to you. A person who is comfortable with the parts of themselves that they don’t like don’t resent others for having these qualities.
For example, if something pisses you off, first use your awareness to accept that you are feeling this (side note: angry people have 19% increased risk of heart disease in one study).
Then, be patient with yourself and understand that anger is ok. Let is pass through.
Note any repeating emotional reactions to others or yourself at work, home, and in social settings. Why did this make you angry? What is it about that quality that you don’t like?
Talk to Yourself
The shadow is a part of you, and it needs attention like any other part. It’s exhausting to fight it and hide it away like a pet your parents don’t know about. Rather than fight it, ask it what it needs.
Repression is our way of adapting to our environment because it protects us from unnecessary stress in pressing times. It also helps us to be social by only allowing us to express the parts of us that others encourage, and hiding what is taboo in society. If you can rejoin with the unmet needs of your shadow, you will increase the amount of energy available to you.
People’s psychologies are a complicated mix of desires; we don’t just have one thing we want.
Often, we are conflicted internally with desires that pull our efforts in different directions almost as if we are at odds with ourselves. Since we don’t want to waste our energy fighting ourselves, we must work to resolve our own internal differences.
A great way to do this is to have a dialogue either out loud or in writing with ourselves to talk out the different desires that are at odds with each other and reconcile them. Talking or writing takes the chaos of the mind and extrudes it into clear sentences that help us to understand what’s causing us to be conflicted.
Once we are on the same team with ourselves, then external challenges can be tackled more efficiently.
Whenever you lose control over your actions, or feel like you are not in control enough for your liking, it may be that certain aspects of you that you are not directly aware of are ‘acting out’ like a child that doesn’t get the toy it wants. To pacify the child or upset part of you, talk to it directly rather than allowing the problem to fester and cause future issues.
As Jordan Peterson once said, “an enemy is someone you can’t talk to”.
3. Dream Work
“The dream shows the inner truth and reality of the patient as it really is: not as I conjecture it to be, and not as he or she would like it to be, but as it is.” – C.G. Jung [10]
Our dreams tell us things we don’t always know how to say to ourselves, or aren’t willing to. We’ve all had important dreams, and we often forget them quickly.
What if, instead, we wrote down our dreams in a journal and identified themes and feelings that give us important insight into knowing ourselves?
Dream analysis is simple to do, but very difficult to master.
Essentially:
- Record dreams in detail as soon as you wake up, or you’ll often forget.
- After recording, note what feelings you had about the dream, and note the meaning it has in your life at the time. This may take practice to get good at.
- Note any special images or symbols and what they mean to you.
If recording your dreams takes too long, keep the dream actively in your attention and think about it immediately upon waking, and refresh your memory later in the day. The key here is immediately thinking of the dream before you forget.
Create a habit out of this every morning if you’d like to remain consistent. Read more on building habits in our article here.
Read further on dream analysis if you feel you want to go more deeply and analyze symbols and archetypes, which contain ancient universal meaning. Note that dream analysis is notoriously difficult, but has potential for immense insight.
Other
Here is a list of some other great methods to better understand yourself:
- Take a personality test like MBTI, or the big five personality test
- Journal regularly
- Meditate regularly
Author’s Motivation
I believe strongly that for me to be happy, I need to really understand myself and so I put energy into these topics to learn what I can.
This article was a way for me to further my understanding on these topics a bit and lay out a framework to remind me from time to time. My hope is that this article will introduce people to the power of our subconscious mind in understanding and becoming ourselves, as well as a couple simple practices to begin doing so.
Summary
We have to know ourselves to know how to fulfill ourselves and achieve success in terms of how we define it.
To do this, we should tap into the vast reservoir of wisdom and knowledge embedded in our subconscious mind, which is much larger than our conscious mind. Three great ways to do this are through developing a list of values, shadow work, and dream analysis.
References:
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hVwKb0RvYE
[2] http://mythsdreamssymbols.com/outlinejungpsyche.html
[3] https://www.abzu2.com/archetype-of-wholeness-jung-and-the-mandala/
[4] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/452128-to-know-thyself-is-the-beginning-of-wisdom
[5] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/44379-until-you-make-the-unconscious-conscious-it-will-direct-your
[6] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/131743-if-you-are-alone-you-belong-entirely-to-yourself-if
[7] https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fcultbranding.com%2Fceo%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F08%2FDollarphotoclub_87507832-core-values-copy.jpg&f=1&nofb=1
[8] https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.restoration-activationproject.com%2Fuploads%2F1%2F7%2F0%2F5%2F17050932%2Fshadowself-2_orig.jpg&f=1&nofb=1
[9] https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia2.s-nbcnews.com%2Fi%2Fnewscms%2F2016_09%2F994521%2Fself-talk-tease-today-160229_342c476f935a044b3ee3964b8e84143a.jpg&f=1&nofb=1
[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSfpSOBD30U
[11] https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.healthychildren.org%2FSiteCollectionImagesArticleImages%2Fmom_son_scared_sad_room_talk.jpg&f=1&nofb=1
[12] http://cafecomjung.blogspot.com/2013/06/persona.html
[13] https://www.jungiananalystvt.com/JungianDreamWorkCharlotteVermontTherapy.en.html
[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_interpretation
