by Lauren Fallat, LPC LPAT ATR-BC
Self-awareness and self-discovery are essential for leading a healthy, balanced life. As renowned psychologist Carl Jung famously said “who looks outside, dreams, who looks inside, awakens.” By exploring and understanding ourselves more deeply we can create more meaningful relationships and make better decisions with regards to our wellbeing. In this article we will explore the importance of self-awareness and self-discovery as part of our wellness journey, including how they can help foster greater health and healing.
Self-awareness is the ability to recognize and understand your own thoughts, feelings, and actions. It's important because it allows you to accurately assess your situation and make decisions about your life. Self-awareness comes from looking at your life as a journey, rather than a series of disconnected events.
Self-awareness and self-discovery can be powerful tools in the quest for happiness, wellness, and healing. It’s something that many people overlook or don’t prioritize when it comes to health and wellness, but it is one of the most important aspects of achieving overall wellbeing.
Whether it’s identifying a toxic relationship pattern or finding clarity on what truly brings you joy and fulfillment, self-awareness and self-discovery are key components of living a life that is not only healthy, but full of purpose.
In order to develop self-awareness, it's helpful to consider significant events from your past; these can include things like major life changes or events that have shaped your worldview. You can also look at the way you react to situations and interactions in your daily life, as well as any patterns you notice about yourself over time.
When reviewing and reflecting back on your lived experiences and determining significant events in your life, consider events that impacted how you felt about yourself, about others, and about your relationship to the world around you. Consider events that taught you a specific lesson or something meaningful. Consider events that transformed your belief system or way of interacting. Consider events that gave you inspiration or hope for the future or contributed to a greater sense of purpose and life fulfillment. Consider events in which perhaps you struggled and overcame a challenging situation or obstacle.
These questions may be helpful as you begin to brainstorm and develop your own life map:
Where does your journey begin?
Where have you been and what have you experienced along the way?
What aspects of your journey or experience seem most influential and/or impactful? (remember that a life event only needs to be considered significant to you and it is you who gets to decide how important an event is in your lived experience)
Where are you right now on your journey?
Where would you like to be headed or what direction are you moving towards in your life journey?
What obstacles or resources are needed to get you there?
You can use oracle cards as a tool for developing self-awareness by getting in touch with your inner voice. Oracle cards are small cards with messages written on them that are often used as a tool for meditation and reflection. You can use them to ask questions about yourself or others, or even just get a sense of where you are in life right now. In our next blog post in the part 2 of this series, we will explore ways of incorporating art and the use of oracle cards into our life mapping.
To Schedule an appointment, click on the Book an Appointment button.
To learn more about Holistic Health Counseling Center, please visit out website at www.hhccnj.com To read our latest blog, see this page: https://holistichealthcounselingcenter.com/blog/
Comments