Get To Know Yourself, Even If It’s Hard

How are we really supposed to know who we are if we only surround ourselves with distractions from our own mind? Understanding what is happening in your life is crucial to your success as a content human being. If you are looking for happiness, it’s time to get some perspective. Toss your phone to the side, light a candle, turn on some music, take a really deep breath, and explore your consciousness. Think about things and write them down. Get a journal and start getting to know yourself better.

The only way for us to feel worthwhile in this extremely fast-paced world is to let ourselves slow down and understand our thoughts. We gravitate toward the easiest solution in our everyday lives—trust me, EVERYONE is guilty of this. Have the courage to take the difficult path. When terrible things happen in our lives, it’s natural for us to want to shut down and take the easy path out. If there has to be someone to tell you that it’s not going to cut it, it will be me! Let situations get difficult and unbearable because when it’s the hardest, you will then understand why you appreciate the good times and the moments when you have a smile from ear to ear because you understand the depths of difficulty and struggle it took to get out.

Understanding where you come from and how you were raised is a huge leap towards becoming exactly who you hopefully want to be: someone who loves who they are because of what they’ve been through.

Where are you from?

What being from a small town has taught me: it’s amazing because you have close-knit relationships with basically everyone you see on a daily basis. When you go to the store, you see your friends and the checkout lady that you’ve known since you were 5 years old. You go on crazy adventures with your friends and have stories to tell about it for the rest of your life. You grow up going to school with the same people and graduate knowing that you will always love those people because they’ve been there longer than you can even remember. The bus lady is basically family, and even after you graduate you still hug each other and want to know everything, because that’s the small town vibe. It’s a nice, slow pace where you are able to grow, learn and realize that there is much more out there, but you are lucky to come from where you were raised.

Now just because I’m talking about a small town doesn’t mean that your location can’t have the same exact effect on you. It absolutely can and it should! Being proactive with your past is the only way to understand your thoughts. Dig deep, what do you appreciate about where you were raised? What made you better? Who have you learned from? What did they teach you? These are important questions if you’re trying to get to know yourself.

How were you raised?

There comes a point in life where you start forming your own thoughts and understanding why you feel the way you feel about the world around you. We all know how this goes. When I look back at who I thought I was right when I turned 18 years old, I develop a giant smile on my face and can’t help but laugh. I love the person I was every step of the way, thinking I knew it all and preparing to take on the world. I look back at that girl and remember to never lose that ambition and drive, to never let the world get me down.

You have to realize that your very specific views on the world come from where you grew up, who you were around and the content that you digested from the moment you could form your own logical thoughts. Just like your location, whether it was good or bad depends on perspective. If you have been around parents or family that have consistently given you everything you could dream of and more, picked you up when you felt down, shared wisdom, and most of all, gave you unconditional love… you are so lucky! Not everyone has that fortune in their tale. If your upbringing was tough, if you had to deal with trials and tribulations and you didn’t feel as loved as your friend’s parents made them feel, you’re not alone! You have to face those demons to realize they have made you better.

If you ever felt like you wanted more love, affection or empowerment at any time, make sure you give that to everyone around you, because you know how the other end feels. You endured that so that you can spread the love that everyone else is craving. We realize as we get older that the things around you humble your position and, for some people, knock us down to unimaginable depths. If you are one of those people, props to you. You absolutely have the power to do anything you want and more because of what you’ve endured. Be the change!

Who do you surround yourself with?

A lot of us have issues with this one. No matter how much you don’t want to admit it, you ARE who you surround yourself with. Family, significant others, friends, coworkers, and anyone you see on a regular basis WILL have an effect on how your brain functions on a day-to-day basis. It’s important to understand those relationships and figure out which ones you really want to spend time on nurturing and which ones to put on the back burner (if you’re unable to remove them from your path).

Who makes you feel good about yourself? Who makes you feel like you could potentially take on the world? Who is there when things get rough? Keep those people and don’t forget to let them know you appreciate them. You have to show those people the exact love that you feel. On the other hand, we have the negative beings, the ones who bring you down and have an overall contagiously bad energy. Get rid of those suckers. This is definitely easier said than done, because they could in fact be family or someone you’ve known your entire life; however, your best shot at happiness is taking the initiative to invest in people who deserve your energy and exhume those who drain it. You have one life to live and if you aren’t giving/getting unconditional love and strength from your surroundings, then they need to go. If you are brave enough to confront this factor and come to terms with your own truths, you are starting to become a more conscious person, which in turn will lead to happiness.

What do you do when you’re alone?

One of the scariest thing to some people is spending time alone. Depending on your personality, you might be someone who gets their energy from being around people or from being alone. The real question is, what are you doing for yourself during your alone time? When you spend a day with yourself, do you feel rejuvenated? Your physical actions when you have time to yourself has a lot to do with how you’re going to feel at the end of the day. The biggest question that I ask myself when I have some time is, “What do I WANT to do?” Most of the time it has something to do with being creative and getting out of my comfort zone.

If you are comfortable with being yourself and doing things for you, then hopefully you’re familiar with being uncomfortable as well. When you’re able to set yourself outside of that zone and do something that you might not always do (especially alone), you are living. So whatever it is that you’ve been thinking about doing, DO IT. You will never know if something is meant for you personally if you don’t take leaps and bounds to get there. Sometimes in the midst of doing the simplest things for yourself, you really figure out who you are.

What do you think of yourself?

Is this making you uncomfortable? If so, good. If you are reading this, I want you ask yourself this question and write down the answer. Be honest. What do you really think about yourself? Do you love who you are? If you don’t, then let me tell you something: you are the only you that is walking this earth and that is really special, so if you haven’t taken the proper amount of time in your life to figure out what it is that you love about yourself, do so right now. We are lucky to be alive at this moment because there are so many new ideas, studies and conclusions brought to the subject of loving yourself and spending time nurturing your mind. Why? It is so good for you! The best thing about breaking that barrier of feeling uncomfortable about talking to yourself about who you are is that you are then able to be authentic.

Don’t forget that you are human and everyone does things that they aren’t proud of, have insecurities and have doubts. Your consciousness regarding these subjects and the way that you are able to respond to your own mind is going to determine the happiness you feel. Be real with yourself. If you plan on living a loving life, you better get to loving yourself.