How well do you know yourself?

[Ringo]

This is hard to explain but please bear with me. It seems now that I'm over 30 I'm finally starting to get to know myself better. What I mean is that only in the past year have I started to recognise my usual thought processes and anticipate my emotional responses and moods.

It's hard to get my message across but for example, I just read a comment by another board member who said that they recognise that their paranoia levels increase when they suffer lack of sleep. This shows an awareness of their own emotional responses to their environment and circumstances. Up until last year, I wasn't self-aware at all. Emotions came and went and I never associated them with the occurrences in my life - it was just how I felt. Now I can recognise and justify my feelings, emotions and moods based on my surroundings.

Is this a personal journey that we all go through or have I had a sudden breakthrough in self-realisation? Was I living in a bubble or do we all reach an age when we are comfortable with what we feel?

 

[Ffalstaf]

Self-knowledge is a good thing. Sounds to me like you're beginning to mature. My thirties were when I really began to know myself too - to understand why I did things as distinct from just knowing what I did. Not everyone reaches that level of development; and those who don't, tend to be the more difficult people in life. The more aware you are of yourself, the better you can live with yourself - and with others. Congratulations. Have you tried reading some introductory psychology?

 

[McAvennie]

Late 20s I certainly began to recognise where I'd made mistakes in my life and would like to think now I wouldn't make the same ones. Think it is all part of the 'growing up' process.

 

[rynner2]

Think it is all part of the 'growing up' process.

Which is just a part of the Growing Old process. Every generation goes through this, each individual learning more about themselves and their place in society as the years go by.

The sad thing is that (mostly) youngsters don't listen to and learn from their elders, and by the time they are old enough to have learnt the lessons from their own experience, it's too late to make a significant difference to their own lives.

I don't expect this situation to change much in the next few centuries! 8)


For those willing to look at a wider perspective, I suggest the Growing Old thread:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25458

I'll finish with a rynnerism:

You're still growing old if you're still learning

- when you stop learning, you're just dying.

 

[McAvennie]

I remember when I was a teenager my Mum warning me that Id look back on the stupid haircuts and fashion and think what an idiot I looked. I knew better of course, but dammit wasn't she just right in the end! :S

 

[river_styx]

I remember my mum telling me that school days would be the best days of my life and I'd miss them when I started working for a living. I knew better of course. And you know what? I still do!

 

[Blinko_Glick]

I firmly believe that 'mid life crises' are a result of getting to know yourself and becoming a wee bit unbalanced by it.

The sudden realisation that life is what it is and what your place is in it can turn you a bit topsy turvy.

It did with me anyway. :?

 

[Ffalstaf]

I hope you're feeling better.

 

[Semyaz]

I'm in my early twenties and i've been experiencing the whole self-realisation thing for a couple of years now... what does that say about me??

I think I know myself pretty well (but then who doesn't), but I hope more than anything that the journey's just beginning cos its so much fun...

 

[James_H]

I'm also in my early twenties, and have been feeling like I've been having a mid-life crisis for some years now, which probably doesn't say much for my future prospects

At this age and having taken a philosophy a-level it's easy to misinterpret as existential ennui, but I think that's all a load of nonsense

 

[Anconite]

About 9 years back, I was diagnosed with an Anxiety Disorder.

As part of my therapy (and because I didn't like the side effects of the drugs they wanted me to take) I decided to learn about how my brain works. It was amazing. I learned that I was anxious because of certain thought patterns. This had never occurred to me before, I had simply had emotions and that was it. Now I thought about why, and how, and the rationale behind them.

Suddenly everything made sense, and I was able to recognize when my mind was trying to throw itself into an anxiety inducing pattern, among other triggers. I learned that my mind had become so accustomed to the anxious emotion, that when I wasn't feeling anxious, it sent alarms that something was amiss and that I must find something to worry about STAT!

Becoming conscious of this was a life changing event.
I still have had off days, but i push through them, arguing with my own emotions. Knowing my triggers, and learning to think before feeling made all the difference.

 

[BuckeyeJones]

Greetings,

Try this....................
Look at yourself in the mirror.
I mean really look at you!
Right into your own eyes.
Relax and see what others see.
Talk to your reflection.
It is very hard to lie to yourself.
It is a very personal event, and not a easy one.

Try it.

PEACE!

Buck