Tag: get to know yourself

Brigid’s Path: Know yourself!

The first step on Brigid’s Path is “Know Yourself”. People often as why? Well, we’re going to explore this in this post. And for those of you wondering if you’ve seen me writing on this before? Well yes, yes you have!

But first, I want to take you to last Friday night. I had a work night out and I really just wasn’t feeling it. I have been having fun in recent years with my make up. I’ve been experimenting with different eye shadows, different lip colours, just generally having fun. And it’s become part of my enjoyment of a night out.

But last Friday? Nope. Just… wasn’t….

And it took me a while to figure out why.

Picture of me, not being 100% happy with how I looked, but struggling with knowing myself enough to figure out why!
Yes this is me with the finished look from Friday night

What was going on?

Well, I didn’t like my foundation. You know when I figured this out? On the car drive home the following morning. Knowing yourself doesn’t always come with instant recognition.

But, I did figure it out and I knew something was wrong.

What didn’t I like? It was too watery. It felt like it was sitting on top of my skin rather than blending in. And – wonder of wonders for a 90’s woman – it was too pale…

(My former Goth-adjacent self is shuddering at that last sentence!)

But it’s all true. It just took me a while to figure out what was going on. I thought I was getting tired of my Il Makiage Woke Up Like This foundation – I hadn’t. I just needed to get a new bottle of it cos I’ve had that one for… (checks emails for last order)… more than 2 years. And even by my standards, that’s a while for a foundation to last. But a) I don’t wear make up that much and b) I kinda forget when I buy things, so I forget they need replacing before I use them all up!

If I didn’t know this about myself, I’d still be worrying about what was bothering me about that look. (And payday’s Thursday, my Il Makiage basket is ready for checkout!!)

Knowing myself in a broader sense

Now ok, ye don’t usually come to this blog for make-up tips. Or if you do, you’re going to be severely disappointed!!

When Brigid came to me first with the idea I had to get to know myself, I honestly didn’t know what she meant. Seriously. It didn’t make sense to be at all. Sure I had been living with myself for decades, my whole life even. How could I not know myself?

Well, I have an amazing skill in not knowing myself. For all sorts of reasons, I had turned not knowing myself into an art form. And a lot of us who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s are the same. Those “journeys of self-discovery” we saw coming from the States weren’t just pompous, entitled bullshit. They were damned necessary in many cases. (Albeit privileged in many ways!) Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love is the one that comes to mind. I’d love to be able to take that year long break that she did and head off to Italy, India and Bali (or, more likely in my case, places with lower temperatures and less spicy food…) For most of us, that option just isn’t available.

But you know what is available?

Tools and techniques

Yes. Now, in the Brigid’s Path Collective. we go through 4-6 weeks of this. So, there is a lot we cover and discuss and engage with. There are journaling questions, meditations, discussions… Lots goes on. But here’s a few things you can do yourself.

Google various quizzes. Here are a few of my favourite free or low(ish) cost quizzes:

https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

https://psychcentral.com/quizzes/personality-quiz#1

https://www.truity.com/test/big-five-personality-test

https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/testcenter

https://www.discprofile.com/what-is-disc#:~:text=DiSC%20is%20an%20acronym%20that,on%20accomplishing%20bottom%2Dline%20results.

https://5voices.com

I’m not getting any income from these, they’re just personality quizzes I have found useful in my quest to understand myself better.

There are also a mountain of books I have found useful – this surprises no one, right? Ye know by now that my preferred means of absorbing information is a lovely comfy reading session.

The important thing is, you’re collecting information about yourself.

What to do with that information though?

Well, there are another 5 steps in the path, so don’t panic too much yet. But essentially, to understand what you need to progress down any path, you need to know where you are and what you need to survive.

For me, this involves my basic pillars of survival and thrival: food, water, movement, fresh air, sleep. If I get all of these in adequate quantities daily, life is good. And yes, this is all part of the information I had to figure out for myself. Seriously – the food part was so hard. If I can prevent even one more person in this world going down the eating disorder route… it’s not worth it, folks, and we all know better now, so let’s help the younger generations, yeah?

But why the first step?

For any journey to begin, you need to know where you are. That means acknowledging who you are, what you know and don’t know, what you want to learn, what you don’t want to know buy probably need to know anyway…

It means uncovering those shadowed areas of yourself and your soul. Looking in the mirror and determining if you like what you see, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

It means engaging with the times in your life you feel embarrassed and ashamed about. Examining your conscious about certain ongoing activities and see how you feel about it.

You don’t have to change anything just yet. But you do have to know how you feel about yourself. Your actions. Your behaviour.

No one said this would be easy

And it doesn’t always have to be difficult, either. There is plenty of both kinds of work involved in this journey.

But this is where you start.

Who are you?

What are you?

Where are you?

How did you get here?

What are the defining moments of your life to date?

What are the forces that shaped you?

What are you proud of? Not proud of?

Start asking yourself these questions. Spend some time with you and get to know yourself like you would a new friend. It’s worth it.

Know yourself

It’s been a while since I posted, and I’m sorry about that. But today, the message that’s coming to me is to help you get to know yourself. And looking at some questions to get to know yourself.

Seems a bit strange, right? After all, how could you not know yourself? You’ve been living with yourself for decades at this point! And it is a bit of a natural lead on from the last set of posts on getting to know Brigid. (Check out here, here and here for starters!)

But really, getting to know yourself, really know yourself, is a good first step on any spiritual path. Otherwise, you run the risk of straying from the path that suits you best, or possibly getting bound into something that’s wrong for you.

Where do I start?

Well, for me, I like to encourage people to start with a list of journaling prompts or questions to get to know yourself. If you google “questions to get to know yourself”, you will come up with millions of pages (ok, maybe a slight exaggeration) with lists of questions to get started. Here are ten of my favourites:

  • Who am I?
  • What am I?
  • What am I proud of?
  • What do I regret?
  • What am I really glad I finished, completed or achieved?
  • What am I worried about?
  • Who or what gives me comfort?
  • How can I show myself compassion?
  • What is my biggest short term goal?
  • What is my biggest long term goal?

I know. You’re looking at this right now and thinking “how in hell do I even start?”

A cartoon image of a figure with blonde hair, a hijabi with black hijab and green dress, dark hair with blue top, dark hair with yellow top and slightly less dark hair with blue top, all showing quizzical expressions and with question marks floating around their heads. How do you get to know yourself better?
How do you start getting to know yourself?
Seriously though, I don’t even know where to start with these questions.

Fair. It’s not easy at all. So here’s some help.

Make a ritual of it. Light a candle, do some meditation to start with, really ground and centre yourself. It’s easier not to go into this cold. Honestly, I’ve done this cold and it’s not worth my time.

But it can be really helpful to push yourself to make a real event for yourself here. Plan the occasion. Maybe have a sacred bath or shower beforehand. Dress comfortably. Engage with your favourite colour pen or fancy paper. Use a divination method to decide what questions to get to know yourself with!

Now, none of this is necessary. Of course, you can plop yourself down at your desk last minute and use whatever is to hand. That is always an option.

But if you are struggling to start with the questions, making a bit of ritual about it can help.

Ask Brigid

In life, we can forget about asking for help. I mean, I can’t guarantee she will appear in a flash of light, akin to what we think of when we think of the Madonna appearances. But she usually does respond to requests for help!

In a pinch, this can be a really simple, “I don’t know where to start, please help me!”

It can be a more complicated ritual all of its own. Depending on your relationship with Brigid, you will have different preferences and practices here and there’s nothing wrong with either approach. We tend to think that the Irish deities want us to be self-reliant, and they do! But they also will help us when needed.

Please, don’t worry about asking for help!

I feel like I know myself quite well

Brilliant. Then this exercise will be really easy for you! But I would argue that it’s still worthwhile.

Learning about ourselves is always valuable, in my opinion. And it’s possible, hell no, it’s probable that things will come up that are different. As people, we learn and grow throughout our lives. Your biggest regret may change over time – I know mine has! As I grow older, I find new regrets popping up all the time. And, old regrets just don’t seem that big a deal any more. Sometimes this is maturity. Sometimes it’s just the healing power of time.

We all know that life isn’t fair sometimes. And, we know that as we grow older, our outlooks change. If we are honest with ourselves, we can learn a lot about ourselves. I believe that this is a live long experience. Feel free to disagree! But it won’t change my mind about the exercise being valuable.

Are some questions better than others?

Well, here’s the thing. The best questions are those that you engage with. What suits your worldview? If you look at a list of questions, are there ones that you react strongly to? Being honest, if you are looking at a list of questions and you react either really positively or really negatively in your heart… probably a good idea to engage with that question.

But sometimes this is hard work. It sounds easy. Basically, you are sitting down and writing. Sure, what could be so difficult about that? Ye already know the answer here. In my practice, this is serious, worthwhile work. It’s not easy. Even just asking yourself to sit down with yourself and get to know yourself better… it’s hard.

So, go with your gut. Spend the time. Get to know yourself.

Then you can start tackling the really tough stuff!!