In today’s post, I continue to look at the factors that can contribute to the gaining of self-awareness…

• Freedom

“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.”

Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

Self-awareness does, indeed, bring a kind of freedom, for it means that the ties can be broken that have previously bound us to destructive ways of being. Such ties may involve being stuck in the past, in negative thought and behaviour patterns, and finding ourselves trapped by ways of thinking that can be detrimental to us.

“What I’m saying is you can’t do anything about the past. But it doesn’t really exist. Memories are just a mind manipulation to keep you tethered to something that’s no longer there. Free yourself and let it go.”

Rebekah Crane

Sometimes, freeing oneself and becoming more self aware, as Crane recommends, may require some psychotherapy.

Change and the achievement of self knowledge in therapy involves a letting-go, for example, of old and destructive patterns of relating to others, of ways of thinking that are outdated and/or destructive, and of ways of being that bring us, and others, only pain and distress.

Gaining a sense of freedom in psychotherapy is achieved in a different way for each individual. Generally, it is related to, amongst other aspects, increased self-awareness, recognition of old, faulty, entrenched patterns of thought and behaviour, a dawning awareness of what is happening in our unconscious, facing difficult thoughts and feelings, grieving losses, and working through the sadness and grief for what we may not have had in the past .

“Meeting the “self” activates the transformation of human consciousness.” 

Caroline Myss

• Creativity and self-discovery

Vincent van Gogh – The Bedroom. 1888. Wikimedia Commons

“Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me.”

Van Gogh

An effective way of gaining awareness of self may be achieved through being creative. Van Gogh made beautiful, emotionally-charged paintings; he believed that art should reveal the inner landscape too.

In his painting above, he illustrates something of the duality of his inner world, as encapsulated in his words about himself. This wonderful work of art reveals both his own internal turbulence, a feeling of being slightly askew and a sense of instability, as well as the need for a peaceful refuge and the calmness and harmony he feels simultaneously exist inside him.

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”

Attributed to Thomas Merton.

• Gaining the ability to function independently of another person…

Frederick Leighton – Solitude. 1890. Wikimedia Commons

“To fully relate to another, one must first relate to oneself. If we cannot embrace our own aloneness, we will simply use the other as a shield against isolation.”

Yalom

Fundamentally, we are all alone on this earth. We are born alone, and we die alone. Along the way, it is important that we grow towards becoming individuated, developing ourselves and moving towards adult independence.

“What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization.”

Abraham Maslow

If we do not gain a healthy, independent sense of who we are, we will not be able to function as free and autonomous adults and have relationships that embody a healthy amount of separateness and individuality.

“The human being either asserts autonomy by heroic self-assertion or seeks safety through fusing with a superior force: that is, one either emerges or merges, separates or embeds. One becomes one’s own parent or remains the eternal child.”

Irvin D. Yalom

Couple painting by Dionisios Kalivokas. 1858. Wikimedia Commons

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you”.

Kahlil Gibran

• Gaining authenticity: self-transformation and the ‘shedding of illusions.’

Edward Steichen – The Lotus Screen [1909] Gandalf’s Gallery. Flickr

“The basic for any approach to self-transformation is an ever-increasing awareness of reality and the shedding of illusions.”

Erich Fromm, The Art of Being

Focussing on self understanding and self-actualisation is related to the concept of transformation. This can be exciting and full of promise, and also scary, because we are venturing into uncharted waters within the self.

In different ways, the varying approaches to psychotherapy mostly appear to be centred around being able to be, as far as possible, one’s authentic self. This is difficult, because it usually involves a process of identifying,  challenging, and ridding ourselves of long-held personal myths and illusions.

Such illusions about ourselves and the world can be very pervasive. If they are allowed to persist unchallenged, they can serve us throughout life as a way of avoiding painful or uncomfortable truths.

For example, a person may cherish the illusion that they know themselves, when in fact they are moving through life in a state of unawareness, of fragmentation, wondering why things are not going too well for them at work or at home.

Yury Annenko – Portrait of M.A. Sherling [1918] Gandalf’s Gallery. Flickr

“Everyone of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self…We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves”

Thomas Merton 

• The ‘fluid,’ ongoing process of becoming

Carl Rogers, in his book ‘On Becoming A Person,’ extended the meaning of the word ‘becoming’ to include the therapeutic experience of self-development, of discovering the self, of ‘congruence,’ of being true to one’s authentic self. He sees this as a flowing, developing and unfolding journey…

“…a person is a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity; a flowing river of change, not a block of solid material; a continually changing constellation of potentialities, not a fixed quantity of traits.”

 Carl R. Rogers, ‘On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy.’

In order to truly make satisfying choices in life, we do need to know who we are as individuals, free of parental or societal demands. ‘Being’ requires awareness of and listening to our inner world, finding out who we are and what we want. The process continues throughout our lives, as we change and grow.

True ‘being’ is not about existing in a stuck state, trapped by fear or depression. Whilst we may gain some learning from the experience of feeling unable to move on, generally this is a painful and heavy state, and we may need psychological help to understand what is holding us back.

This can be, for example, related to traumatic past experiences that have not been worked through, and it may mean that we are living a somewhat static half-life.

Many people repeat past patterns of behaviour that are destructive to themselves and others. Old habits die hard and we often struggle to shed them. Change – becoming oneself- is never easy for any of us.

If we are to change and develop, to become better as our lives move forward, then we need to be aware that the fluidity of our ways of thinking must be maintained, so that we are open to the constant process of becoming.

Wassily Kandinsky, A Centre, 1924. Wikimedia Commons

“At the centre of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.”

Lao Tzu

• Confronting the need for approval

Anselmo Guinea – Group of People. 1904. Wikimedia Commons

Discovering, and accepting who we are can be a long, and sometimes tortuous, journey. In her novel Change of Heart, Jodi Picoult reminds us that, we may not “see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn’t.” This is an important point, for our own ways of seeing, and selecting what we choose to see, can influence our self-concept.

“Literature is strewn with the wreckage of those who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others.”

Virginia Woolf

Frequently, we might underestimate our own work and our value to others, focussing only on the negative and the demeaning, as if that were the only kind of view of ourselves in existence. This is often our own self-judgement, projected onto others.

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality”

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

It is a fact that we give our power away to others when we feel dependent on their constant affirmation and assent.

Often, the roots of this lie in our past, with unmet needs for love and approval, which can continue into adulthood.

When others disapprove of us, unless a part of us agrees with them, their views will not be able to affect us.

“No name-calling truly bites deep unless, in some dark part of us, we believe it. If we are confident enough then it is just noise.”

Laurell K. Hamilton

We also need to consider whether we value the other’s views anyway…

“We should forever forswear the masochistic process wherein we seek another’s approval before we have even asked ourselves whether that person’s views deserve to be listened to.”

Alain de Botton

• Wherever you go, there you are…

Auguste Renoir. Young Woman in a Boat. 1870. Wikimedia Commons

“You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”

 Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

Wherever we go, we take ourselves with… that is an unchallengeable truth… and yet, many people  appear to ‘forget’ this. Somehow, they imagine that, if they travel, move house, go abroad, or whatever, this will miraculously change something in their internal world.

Of course, it can be refreshing and renewing to alter the external situation in our life, to experience new surroundings, meet new people. This may lend us time to think, ponder and reassess our situation; however, simply making a move on a physical level will obviously not alter the internal situation. To do this, we need to make the opposite kind of move, to travel inside…

Abraham Neumann – The Night Train. Before 1930. Wikimedia Commons

“The only journey is the one within.”

Rainer Maria Rilke

Yalom saw therapy very much as a journey of discovery:

“Therapy is a journey into the unknown, but one that can lead to self-discovery and personal growth.”

Yalom

Whilst the journey into our self, into our unconscious mind, may not be straight or linear, it is one of the most important journeys we may ever make…

It is, inevitably, a painful process, travelling over the often tortuous paths of our unconscious in psychotherapy, although it can produce great rewards.

Frank Markham Skipworth, The Mirror, 1911. Wikimedia Commons.

“To know yourself, you must sacrifice the illusion that you already do.”

Vironika Tugaleva

© Linda Berman