Starting Self-Knowledge Journey, Some Questions

[Panoptic]

Hey all,

I'm ready to begin my self-knowledge journey. My anxiety has led me to interest in self-knowledge because I know it's the only cure for my problems. I just finished reading Nathanial Branden's The Psychology of Self Esteem. It is frightening yet invigorating to read because of his examples which seemingly dissect my mind onto the pages in front of me.

 

I am scared and my fear is attempting to hold me back from this. But my tendency to allow my fear to run my life when its presence is powerful is a problem that must be eliminated. I am sick of being a weak human being who backs down to all challenges for the “comfort” of safety. It is not comforting knowing that you are letting the entirety of your ambitions float away.

 

So please give me some advice. Journaling seems to be the option since therapy is out of my reach for now. I have heard that people make reasonably good progress with journaling.

 

How do you journal properly? I have read threads on here about it but it still seems a bit confusing to me. I know there's no right or wrong but the general idea seems to be to write down daily what emotions you find troubling to you during that day, or, if nothing happened that day, troubling emotions from other times that you may be thinking about. I assume you write the emotions, desires, fears, etc. that you felt along with the events that triggered them and maybe also the possible reasons behind each emotion/desire/fear.

[emilia]

Don't think too much about it, just write whatever is on your mind. Don't sensor yourself and be totally honest. This can be difficult at first, if you're not used to writing to yourself. You may feel like someone is watching you or reading what you write, but no one is. I wouldn't try to have any kind of structure, but just write for as long as you have something to say, and then stop. Continue the next day, or when you feel like it. I have noticed that this way, even though I am not consciously trying to find solutions to my problems or gain new knowledge about myself, this often happens, within some time of having written about a specific thing. And the immediate result of writing about something that bothers me, is that I always feel much better after having written about it.

 

I think journaling works because you are at the same the one telling your story and the one witnessing it, so it is a little bit like therapy. And it really helps in clarifying your thoughts to your self, which is a key in getting to know your self.

 

I find it easiest to write in the morning with my first cup(s) of coffee of the day. That is when I am the most in touch with my feelings, and the happenings of the day have not yet distracted me. I feel that my thoughts flow better then.

[Coreforcruxes]

I wish I had enough experience with journaling to give you confident advice but I don't. All I can say is that I am happy with my progress. I try to write just before bed, but i often stretch my day out too far and don't get to it. One thing emilia (and again, I am an amateur here) did not mention is that it also leaves you a record, and if you are practicing and developing your empathy then you can look back at yourself and empathize with where you were and what you were going through at the time.I have found alot of help from posting here in the forums, there are some really great people here.

[Hector_Viera]

Self knowledge is all about to reach knowledge on your own personal/unique/individual style of emotioning. So avoid to write (in a way implicit or explicit) the answer to WHY? because when we answer this we build explanations, theories about what we feel, and this is the usual way for masking our emotional experiences. Thinking only change the way of think, only emotions are able to change emotions.

 

I propose you try to answer HOW? (again, implicit or explicit, take this ''how?'' as a point of reference to facing your write task) Examples: How was last moment when I feel fear? How I feel weak? Imagine you're tasting a new type of pie, if you want to know how is your experience, question to yourself about the possible ingredients in this pie. When you answer this HOW? you're answering about the ingredients of your personal/unique/individual emotional experience.

 

Now, here my hint for you, when you write about your feelings of fear and/or weakness try to track this special ingredient, your sense of control on this episodes, even I tell you more, track when you feel you loose this sense of control.

 

Well my friend, it's pretty hard change WHY? to HOW? because we are educated to ignore and/or understimate our emotions and overrating our thoughts, and for that we spontaneusly we want desperately answer ''why this?'' or ''why that?'' Only when you become master knowing your emotions you're really ready to reason accuratelly.

 

A fraternal hug from a far far away place called Chile

 

Héctor 

[Pepin]

As a journaling resource, I'd suggest this book. The author is a FDR fan as well.

[changepace7]

I don't have much experience in journaling, so take this with a grain of salt.

 

I also have issues with journaling, I always feel like I don't know how or what to write. What got me going most recently was viewing it as a check-in. If I had current goals, what did I do to achieve them. If I was having a tough time, did I shower. If I didn't do what I planned on doing, why? Was it external input (like bad traffic so didn't have time) or internal input (I became really anxious about an interaction) that prevented me from doing something I planned on doing. If I didn't wash my face, was it because I stayed in bed all day or because I finally decided that, yes, I will get up, but just didn't have time to wash my face.  Starting from what I did/didn't do in a day was much easier for me. All of those things were easier for me to understand how my emotions affected my day, rather than just going to the emotions. I have also gotten better at recognizing warning signs and triggers, and because I check in, reacting to it and doing something about it.

 

I haven't read much about Self Knowledge as a discipline, but for me, it's all about reflecting on my decisions, thoughts, and actions, when I can remember to do so.

[Pepin]

A decent method for self-knowledge I think is to look at yourself and your beliefs from the point of view of an alien trying to understand the thoughts and behaviors that belong to you. Or if that goes a little too far, look at yourself from the view of someone like Stefan. I'd call it a healthy dissociation because it is meant to bring unconscious actions, thoughts, and beliefs into the conscious realm. As an example, I realized in the last year that I had very sophisticated and subtle ways of being passive aggressive. Unfortunately, a high intelligence in combination with psychological defenses gives the false self quite the ability to obscure its thoughts and actions. So I think the best way to combat this is to pretend like you are looking at someone else and drawing conclusions about them.

 

This is also quite good for unlocking emotions. For a while I didn't feel anything in regard to the spanking I or others experienced, like I'd remember my experience in vivid detail and feel apathetic. I realized this was a problem and set out to fix it. I began making extremely clear what it was and wasn't, the perspective of the child, the neurology involved, and so on. Upon accepting that, I visualized my little nephew  going through what I did and became quite angry. I was then able to feel anger in relation to others, but not yet myself. Through reasoning with myself, saying "why would I feel differently about myself than others", I was eventually I was able to visualize it happening to me and feel the anger. It took a few months in total, but was important. I suppose the knowledge I had was that my emotions were not in accordance with reality, and that anger was the solution.

[Panoptic]

Thank you all for your replies. Every reply seemed very helpful to me. At the end of Nathaniel Branden's The Psychology of Self Esteem, it answers the question whether or not understanding childhood experiences are important in the therapy process. It said that it is likely not necessary because what matters is the "now"; what you are doing in the present to eliminate the habits of avoiding thought is the most important thing. I was confused because I figured that emotional healing was something sort of "spiritual", where you become "one with yourself" or some weird hippie garbage like that. It states that there are many things that are in our direct control that we can work to change daily in order to improve our self esteem, such as achieving small goals and working your way up, becoming more of an outgoing person, not backing down from smaller fears, etc. That seems to coincide nicely with what you all are saying.

[Hector_Viera]

If I can be useful please contact me. Only I have to say, my english is pretty broken for complexity ideas, so if you don't have problems with use google translator... because some times I express myself better in spanish.

 

   

 

Héctor