Let's talk about knowing yourself? How well you think you know yourself? Come on shoot a percentage…30…60 90%?
In a moment I'll show you that "the percentage" is usually very low and how this percentage is critical to your personal growth.
If you follow Marco's work you surely know who I am 😉 but don't worry if you don't know, it's not as important as knowing who are you really you .
"Knowing yourself is a lifelong process", but although it is a natural process, not everyone has the opportunities to do this. You only have to look around to see that this is the case.
Do you happen to know someone who is "notoriously boring" but doesn't know they are? Or someone who thinks he is funny, cool…or even ugly?
Getting to know yourself is a recursive process, that is, one that must be carried out following the course of our lives, that is in continuous becoming. Now I am going to show you 3 ways to know yourself, three exercises that will help you to increase your knowledge of yourself by giving you Imperturbability, qualities described well by Marco in his manuals, and much more.
This is just one of the benefits, because getting to know each other is really the first and at the same time "the last step" towards personal growth and development.
2 practical exercises to know yourself
1. Extracting values (the cognitive mind)
What is really important to you in doing what you do? Think about the different areas of your life (relationships, health, and work) and write down what is important to you in each area.
Ok, now tell me how easy it is to answer these questions? Maybe the percentage you estimated has gone down? The exercise demonstrates how little we know ourselves, maybe now your percentage has decreased? 😉
So you may have found yourself answering something like, "what's important in my job is bringing home the paycheck.".
In addition to not sounding like an appealing motivation, this sentence does not highlight any value, but only the search for a means (money) to achieve something else. And it's this "other" that you need to look for.
In the example "earning money" there could be a search for the "freedom", protection, generosity, etc etc.
Make a list of your values creating hierarchies, try to be as honest as possible, what do you care, if you want you can then burn that paper But now write your values, Write down what is really important to you. Take as much time as you can to get it right.
2. Get to know the somatic mind
For over 2000 years Buddhists have been practicing some forms of meditation useful for our very purpose, to know ourselves.
A mystical and religious false belief? Absolutely not! There are dozens of scientific studies that prove the effectiveness of meditation to get to know yourself.
"Ok, the effectiveness of the tool is indisputable, but how long does it take to really get to know each other?? I do not have to meditate all my life".
If you intend to grow, why not but rest assured studies, which you can find in the video on my blog, show that after only two months of practice (eight weeks) take place real changes in brain frequencies.
To get it you have to train yourself to do this:
- Sit comfortably, but not too comfortably, making sure your back is straight without leaning (I do lean and it still works ;-))
- Bring your attention to your feet and to all the sensations you can feel. Be careful, you simply have to notice the warmth, the feel of the shoes etc, only things that are really there avoiding judgment. Just explore.
- When you think you have completed the exploration in the feet, move on to the ankles and do the same thing, then move on to the calves, the thighs, the sexual organs, the stomach, the hands and arms, the shoulders, the neck, the brim, the eyes, etc., everything that you can explore all the way to the top.
Easy no? Not too much 😉 and in fact that happens after a while? The mind starts to think about its own business: "I have to take the car to wash" or "I have to do the shopping", etc. It's natural that it happens, your attitude must be that of an observer, when the thought is finished go back to your feelings.
Your goal is to feel the sensations and your body, letting go of thoughts. If you notice that you can do this with ease, then repeat it, keeping your eyes closed, go back to your feet and repeat the sequence.
To make it very simple, if we connect the brain to a machine that can read the frequencies, we will notice that the waves draw a picture, sometimes more synchronized (where the waves tend to be similar) sometimes less. States of psycho-physiological wellbeing are characterized by a sync, The same that you get with the exercise you just did.
But there's more: this exercise works as a kind of bio-feedback from your brain to your body, drawing your own boundaries and making yourself self-aware.
Put these two exercises into practice for at least a couple of months, and you will notice amazing changes.
Here we are at the end of this article, if you have any questions about this write them below in the comments.