Discovering oneself

When I started to search for this topic, I came across one of these posts on positive psychology. The site says that either because of your curiosity, some life's situation, or some events in life, you are pushed to search for your higher self. 

 I still remember those days when I had secured a good job and was earning quite well. I was single and had much time after work. Those were the days when I started to think about what to do now. 

My city did not have big libraries or bookstores. In this new city, I found a good bookstore and bought many books and CDs of my interest. I started reading them. They refined my thinking and guided me to Waterman's (2011) process of searching for my true self. He said we need to find these three things

a) Personal potentials

b) Our purpose for living 

c) Opportunities to act upon these potentials and purposes of living. 

I found things that I was best at, then good at, and also things that I found difficult to do. The purpose of life was still not clear to me then. I had done this; so discovering these again was not a great charm for me. I still looked further, discovering what self means to me at this stage. 

I happened to visit this website, which was telling me about the importance of self-discovery. It talked about clarity of values, finding your strengths and weaknesses, making better decisions, etc. I agree to them all, but still I was not happy.

Following this, I came across an existential psychotherapist defining this as "listening practice inward-searching." This phrase had a magical spell on me. Yes, self-discovery is a listening practice that is from inside and about inside. He says that to have an effective inward search, I need to listen to what is happening on the inside with an expectancy of inward discoveries. 

Now the question comes of how to know what is happening inside me. This brought me to a book, "Labyrinth."

This book posed me with this question: "What is the difference between a labyrinth and a maze?" (I am very fond of maze game.) A labyrinth is a way to the center, and there is only one path. You can come out of it only through the way you entered. In a maze you can have more than one entry and exit. I tried it and found it correct. This ignited my curiosity about how a labyrinth can help me to discover myself. 

Then it talked about creating our own labyrinths. When we start drawing them, we will discover ourselves much better. 

It starts by drawing 9 DNA turning points like this below. 

By creating my own labyrinth, we come to know about the various turning points we come across. The first four are automatically triggered. The next four are consciously chosen ones. The ninth one is a Gnostic trigger. 

By creating labyrinths, I am able to create sacred spaces for myself. Then I sit and reflect on them and try to record what thoughts and feelings I am going through in each sacred space I have created. It still seemed meaningless because I had just begun to understand myself. There is much more in this labyrinth. 
Now, walking through the labyrinth causes the labyrinth effect. There are many, but I have covered two till now, which I will brief now. If you have ever observed, at times you feel you are running a race without knowing what you want to achieve. We feel lost and directionless. I was in this situation years back; discovering myself has helped me a lot. In those days I didn't know about this labyrinth, but I have done something like this, which brought much positive effect to my life. So when we walk through the labyrinth, we focus on the narrow path, else we will be lost. This involves the left brain. At times we make 180-degree turns, which take help from the right brain. Thus, we see that now our brain is functioning more integrated and hence, yields a more receptive state of consciousness. This is how we become more aware of ourselves. 

A labyrinth looks something like our brain, which has so many twists and turns. In our lives also, we make so many twists and turns. Many times we take 180-degree turns. These appear to be rushed or panic moves. In a labyrinth, such moves cause our energy to move in such a way that it focuses on manipulating it or concentrating it. 

There are many more things to discover about myself in my labyrinth. Try your labyrinth. My next discussion on self-love is on boundaries to set. 

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