FOOD for THOUGHT
To paraphrase Freud, we mainly look for ourselves in love and work. Building on this notion, what if we also looked for ourselves within ourselves? What if a part of who we are is more than just a summary of experiences and memories from the past: thoughts, sensations, and feelings in the moment, or dreams and hopes for the future? What if there is a part of ourselves that is connected to something more and whose characteristics we can access each time we engage in acts of extension through caring?
To know oneself is a fundamental life task offered to each of us. Many of us privileged enough to have our basic needs met wonder at some point during our life why was I born? Why am I here? What is my purpose in life? Questions like these commonly arise during the latter formative years of our teens and into our early twenties. Sadly, if these kinds of questions are not resolved through fulfilling acts of doing and fully feeling life through acts of caring, they can continue indefinitely and or resurface during times of crises, such as those related to health, or then again, in our twilight years near the end of life.
Our relationships, both past and present, help shape our self-perceptions. We view ourselves based on these connections with others and with our surrounding environment, both social and natural. Moreover, our rich interiority of relations associated with remembering, sensing, and feeling that fuel our beliefs, desires, and fantasies stem mainly from material acquired while we are externally relating. We come to be and eventually come to know ourselves through relationships. We relate to know we are not alone and to feel connected.
To know ourselves, our strengths and limitations, can be very beneficial in times of passage, major change, or upheaval. We often find lost pieces of ourselves, or discover we are different from how we imagined ourselves to be during such periods in our lives. Health crises, whether through acute incident, chronic ongoing illness, dying, or death loss, are among the most powerful events leading up to our having an “aha moment.” Intense, sudden loss can tug at our self-identity and possibly shatter our assumptions. If change motivates us to question our beliefs about ourselves, it can lead to another kind of dilemma referred to as an existential crisis. In these cases involving duress, we often experience suffering.
Suffering is not an essential part of loss-producing change, but it often accompanies it. Suffering intensifies and amplifies pain, increasing its frequency and duration. We experience suffering when we struggle to adapt to a new normal. Part of our suffering results from having to let go of pieces of our identity tied to crystalized beliefs. It can be helpful to have a means of processing change to facilitate our adapting to a new normal. Self-awareness and self-understanding can help us more effectively utilize our coping skills and/or develop new ones. Knowing oneself is especially helpful during major transition.
KNOW THYSELF – Inscription Above the Oracle at Delphi
Part of our ability to tolerate change and lessen our suffering is influenced by our ability to access another part of ourselves in addition to self-awareness and self-understanding. Acceptance, or at least tolerance, of unmanageable circumstances can be found through appreciating that we are complex individuals with many dimensions to our self-identity. Acknowledging this fundamental aspect of our nature can help us to better deal with major disruption and be more prepared to manage circumstances.
A few different modalities have been developed over the years to help us to “know thyself.” One is the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) self-assessment test, based predominantly on Carl Jung’s ideas about perception and judgment and the attitudes in which they are used in different types of people. Another is the Enneagram, which is based on Sufi mysticism, translated through the writings of G. I. Gurdjieff and expanded upon through the writings and teachings of Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo.
The Enneagram addresses other dimensions of our nature more explicitly than does Myers-Briggs. The Enneagram system was developed keeping in mind our multidimensional nature or composite self. It helps us understand that our personality, sometimes referred to as our adaptive style, is separate from our essential nature; the system helps us to discern the difference between the two.
When engaging any personality self-assessment test, please remember the following: 1. We are not defined by our personality type, which only represents an aspect of our complete self. Our personality develops over time. We mature into it. Personality characteristics are our way of coping with life and our less than perfect relationships. 2. Our responses in any self-assessment test are only accurate to the degree that we are self-aware and have relatively deep self-understanding of our preferences and biases. Hence, it is important we approach personality assessment tests with a bit of healthy skepticism and view them as tools for helping us gaining some insight into our coping mechanisms. 3. As alluded above, it is important to be aware of how our beliefs about ourselves have been influenced by others. Any beliefs we may have accepted and internalized from others do influence our self-identity and ability to assess clearly our situation in life as well as our personality and essential nature.
RESOURCES
- Who Are You Really: The Puzzle of Personality -TED talk
- Existential Psychotherapy – Death, Freedom, Isolation, Meaninglessness
- Self Concept – Multimedia – Aspects of self-concept
- The Invitation – Prose Poem – A cry for Authenticity
- Bullitt – Multimedia – Desensitization
- Self Concept – Short Article
- The Many Relations / Selves Statement – Walt Whitman
- Q_Sort Self – A self assessment test for congruence
- Sorensen_Self-Esteem_Test Self Assessment Test
- Twenty Statement Test (TST) – Self-concept test version 1
- Twenty Statements Test with_explanation – Self-concept test version 2
- Personality Type Test
- Personality Pathways Journal – Myers Briggs Type Indicator
- Myers-Briggs Personality Type Test 2
- Enneagram Personality self-assessment test
- Enneagram Personality self-assessment test 2
- The Enneagram – Under Workshops/events (scroll down to Enneagram section)
Adage of the moment – Click On Image