MIND MATTERS Why being yourself is important

Who Am I?


Mind matters
Regina Cunnan

An old lady said to me lately, “I am only getting to know myself now.” This woman is in her mid-80s and has a grown-up family.
This conversation got me wondering, why did it take so long for her to get to know herself? Then it struck me. Really getting to know oneself is a very big task.
What do we know about ourselves? What is real and what is it that others believe to be the real us?
Are we the people others want us to be, or are we really who we want to be. Are we the son, daughter, brother or sister, or even friend, we feel we should be, and are we the same to everybody?

Me for me
I think we spend a lot of time trying to be what we imagine others want us to be, and trying to be nice or good. This takes up a lot of energy, and is for the most part a complete waste of time, because if you are being good or nice for someone else then it’s not real anyway.
In a recent article published in The Guardian, a palliative-care nurse discussed the most-common regrets of the dying people she cared for. Number one on the list was the wish that they had had the courage to “live a life true to myself, and not the life others expected of me.”
From my experience as a counsellor, I think the only way to get to know your real self is by being real to yourself first. This may sound simple, but it’s a difficult task.
Getting to know who you really are requires you to look at yourself with kindness and rigour that you may not have applied to yourself before this.
I use the words kindness and rigour with care. I think that self-questioning can easily become self-criticism, and that’s not what this process is about. Being kind to yourself allows you to be more searching. You will not see what is real without the capacity to be gentle.
You will need rigour in the pursuit of truth. There is no point in trying to be what you think other people want you to be.
It might help to ask yourself some questions:

• Am I a worrier?
• Am I fastidious?
• Am I cautious?
• Am I laid back?

These are just a sample of the kind of questions you might want to explore. For instance, do you like fun and excitement, or do you like quietness and being alone? Do you make judgements on one or the other based on what you think others expect? Are you outgoing  because that’s what you think others want you to be? Would it be okay for you to admit that, actually, you like being alone and quiet?
This is where the tools of kindness and rigour come into play. You need to be kind enough to yourself to allow you to be who you really are without judgement, and you need rigour to examine who you really are. In other words ‘face yourself’.
I think this work can only happen if you make time for yourself. It will require you to spend time with only you.
Knowing yourself is a life-long process.

Regina Cunnane is a qualified counsellor/psychotherapist. You can email her with your questions in complete confidence at reginacunnane@mayonews.ie.