why know yourself

As paradoxical as it sounds, knowing oneself, looking within, is complicated by all the distractions and the fast-paced life we lead, which do not invite us to reflect. But everything is proposed. Self-knowledge is important, among other reasons, because, as the two psychologists who give us advice to achieve it point out, It will determine relationships with other people.

“To the extent that we relate to ourselves, we relate to others” says the psychologist Elena Dapra, who points out that self-knowledge is necessary because it allows us to know what we want in life and to better manage our entire psychological world, especially in difficult situations. This specialist comments that when a person knows himself in a profound way from the hand of a professional “He learns to function effectively and face life optimally. And this implies understanding what we do, what we feel and think so that there is coherence”.

For Ovid Penalver health psychologist and psychotherapist, author of the book “El viaje hacia ti”, agrees that “the better you know yourself and know what to do and how to do it, the better you will get along with your siblings, parents, children, partners and friends because we are relational beings. Thus, self-knowledge leads to improving the quality of the relationships you have with others.

This psychologist points out that knowing oneself is important to be able to lead ourselves better and see where we want to go and how to do it. To do this, says this specialist, it is necessary to know why we behave in that way and for that it is necessary to know what variables have influenced us to be the people we are. “The better we know each other, the easier it will be to decide if we want to continue doing things this way or if we prefer to change. There is a phrase that I really like and it is: Knowing who you are and why you have become this way, it will be easier for you to decide who you want to become.

Daprá compares self-knowledge to looking in a mirror and seeing who we really are and also our shadow reflected: “I see what I am, what I like to be and what I don’t like to be and I am being”. According to the psychologist, knowing oneself is key to psychological well-being and to achieve inner or mental peace. And, in addition, it serves to be assertive and “set limits in a healthy way to ourselves and to ourselves with others.”

Self-knowledge has to do, emphasizes Peñalver, with the values or guiding principles of life that I want to define me. Likewise, it implies knowing how I speak to myself, what my inner language is and what my thinking is like, because many times we are not aware of it. Also with looking at what dreams say and listening to our body.

“The better it is known what you are here for, what you want to achieve and where you are going, the easier it will be to love yourself much more. This is achieved by knowing what childhood has been like, what the family was like, how you got along with your siblings, knowing the family tree to see what is being repeated generation after generation, how the culture of my school, of my neighborhood may have affected me. , from my country. Self-knowledge is multivariable and multifactorial, very rich and complex. We are the product of a lot of variables, including genetics”, asserts Peñalver.

Why is it so hard to know yourself in depth?

The psychologist Peñalver specifies three reasons why it is so difficult to know oneself despite the benefits it provides:

They have not taught us to know ourselves: As a child it is not usual for parents to teach their children self-reflection, or the repercussions of something, or to analyze why we do what we do and why we are the way we are.
We are afraid of knowing ourselves in depth: in case you find something you don’t like.
We are in action and cognition: as a consequence of the two previous ones, we are in being efficient, in doing many things, in this dynamic of “we come home, we put on the TV or the music in the background and we don’t stop to reflect”.

For Daprá it is because we are not used to putting the focus on ourselves. “We do not focus on knowing how we are, but on what we do well or badly. And this is sometimes related and sometimes not. The fact that a person behaves in a given moment in a certain way does not imply that it is so. And he gives an example: “If I behave in a certain situation in a toxic way, with some friends, it does not mean that I am a toxic person, it means that I behaved in a toxic way at that time.”

However, this specialist emphasizes that a person knows himself to a certain point and once that degree of self-knowledge is reached the accompaniment of a professional is needed to deepen. The level that each individual reaches is different, but in the end it takes someone outside to achieve it.

Benefits of self-awareness

The psychologist Peñalver lists the following:

It is easier to accept and love you if you understand yourself.
Self-suggestion, self-leaderate, make decisions with greater awareness and efficiency.
The better you know more to know, the better you will know which brakes you have to hit.
Make decisions more consistent with who you are.
Increase the quality of your relationships and your bonds.

And Daprá affects these:

Manage our emotions.
Manage our relationships.
Manage the difficulties of life.
In order not to go through life on tiptoe, but living it in a healthy, authentic way.
Develop skills that allow us to regulate our behavior.
Solve problems effectively, make decisions.

9 tips to know yourself

For people who want to acquire that self-knowledge, Daprá highlights these recommendations:

Identify and validate the emotions we are having. It means that I take responsibility for those emotions that I am having, I identify them, I validate them and I take responsibility.
Stop putting the focus out and put it in. Know my vulnerabilities, know my strengths or how we are using them on a day-to-day basis.
Go to a professional. “A psychologist helps you discover who you are. He puts the bridge for you so that you can learn it yourself with reflection, exercises and other tools”, points out Daprá. Self-knowledge can come from both psychological well-being and discomfort when you have some kind of psychological problem or pathology. When it is carried out from discomfort, it becomes a psychotherapy process and self-knowledge is always a part of that process.

For his part, Peñalver adheres to these guidelines:

Reflect: sometimes you just can’t or don’t know, so you can ask your friends for help or sincere feedback, people who know you and tell them: “Tell me, how do you see me, how do you think I am, what do you like the most? from my? What do you think I can improve on or what virtues do you see I have?”
Write down your dreams: have a notebook near the bed because they quickly forget. Dreams indicate what worries you, what you need, they give you a lot of information.
Redo your lifeline: Think about what your childhood, your youth, your adolescence has been like, what decisions you have made. It’s about investing time in reliving your story. It will give you many clues about who you are and why you have come to be and do what you do.
Being alone because it invites you to reflect: For example, walking through the countryside invites a lot to reflect and to get to know you, being alone, calm, walking.
attend personal growth workshops
See a specialist: if one cannot alone, go to a psychotherapist who helps to get to know you as a person.

“The more you understand yourself, the more you will love and respect yourself. This way you will know why, sometimes, you do what you do, even if you don’t like it, and then you will look at yourself with more compassion and you will increase what we call in psychology, your self-esteem, which is not being selfish, far from it. , but it is to love and accept you ”, sums up Peñalver.