How To Look Inside Yourself

[Clinio Lofton]

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When immersed in personal and professional development, we are often coached to "look inside" for answers as well as questions. As a coach and facilitator for personal and professional development, I find the phrase esoteric. So, let's look at what it means to look inside.

To look inside means to discover your beliefs, your thoughts, and your feelings about something. To look inside means you will discover and acknowledge how you want to be treated, how you want people to see you, and how you want to treat others. To look inside means you will go on a journey to discover the gap between what you say you want and what you actually get. To look inside means you will also journey to learn more about the gap between who you say you want to be and who you actually express yourself to be. To look inside means to acknowledge to yourself that we all have the capacity to change, and the only effective way to change is to look inside.

This way of approaching your development is sustainable and responsible. It does require and allow for communication that is free of blame and projection because it is coming from within yourself. For example, I love to be treated respectfully and I practice treating others respectfully. So, if I don't believe someone is being respectful in how they are treating me, I will respectfully and specifically request how I prefer to be treated.

I also realize that at times this seems easier said than done! The more we look inside, the more we practice what is important and valuable to us, the more we get what we want and express it in a way that honors who we are. So start practicing!

Knowing who you are and being true to yourself has never been more important than in the twenty-first century West. They are seen as signs of good mental health and well-being and the keys to authentic living and true happiness.

Is looking inside yourself to find yourself a good idea? Is the responsibility of figuring out who to be both a good and terrifying prospect? Before examining the fruit of this near universal, recent cultural phenomenon, it is worth exploring its roots.

According to Trueman, the 19th Century German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche struck at the heart of the notion of absolute moral standards and insisted that human beings must rise to the challenge of self-creation.

In principle, there is nothing wrong with looking inwards. Personal exploration is commendable, and self-reflection acknowledges the gains of living an examined life, the alternative to which is far from attractive.

Authenticity as a moral ideal is also commendable, especially if the alternative is a blind conformity to external demands that can lead to hypocrisy when people fail to own key aspects of their life. It is much better for a person to inhabit an identity that they own and can fully appropriate for themselves. There is something to be said for feeling comfortable in your own skin.

Thirdly, and most importantly, expressive individualism rests on faulty foundations. Humans are not self-defining, isolated units. The biggest problem with only looking inside to find yourself is that it is hopelessly reductionistic, ignoring crucial dimensions of what it means to be a human being. Human identity does not exist in isolation, it cannot be defined without reference to the narrative in which it finds itself. We know ourselves by looking around to our closest relationships, back and forward to our shared life stories, and upward to something bigger than ourselves. We are profoundly social, deeply story-driven, and we have eternity in our hearts.

Brian Rosner (PhD, Cambridge) is principal of Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia. He previously taught at the University of Aberdeen and Moore Theological College. Rosner is the author or editor of over a dozen books, including Known by God: A Biblical Theology of Personal Identity. He is married to Natalie and has four children.

This song is awesome in so many ways. The lyrics encourage you to love yourself the way you are and let your unique light shine bright. The message conveys that strength and courage come from the inside and the only person who can create your own happiness is you. When you ground yourself in your beliefs and charge forward with confidence you become unstoppable, no matter what the hardship.

In her free time she loves playing soccer, golfing, running, cooking, volunteering, reading, traveling, having dinner with friends, being creative, writing, engaging in stimulating conversation, going to the beach, sunshine and of course, blogging. She resides in Chicago with her loving husband, James.

a. Where do you smile the most often? What causes you to smile?
b. What do you often talk about?
c. What excites you the most?
d. What do you enjoy doing for long periods of time without feeling tired or bored?
e. What do you often fantasize about?

The definition of happiness varies a lot, but there is one simple secret to finding it. To find your bliss, all you need to do is look inside of you. You have the answers. You just need to pay close attention.

CORNEL WEST: And for me anytime I get a chance to reflect on hope it always begins with what the great Antonio Gramsci would call a "critical self-inventory" because hope is in fact the kind of notion you could never really wrap your heart and mind and soul around, you have to give an account for the hope inside of you so it's existential, it's very personal. It may be groundless but it can be soulful, which is to say, "what keeps you going?"
How do you account for the brief trek between mama's womb and tomb? What has gone into the shaping and molding, the situating and locating of yourself and soul in relation to others knowing that the self is always connected, intimately shaped by others. So I begin any talk about hope, let alone justice, with acknowledging that I am who I am because somebody loved me, somebody cared for me.

It goes back to the spirituals and the ring shout, it goes back to the blues, it goes back to Robert Johnson, it goes back to Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, it goes back to Charlie Parker. You could feel that tradition through him and we're living in a Trump moment, which is a moment of spiritual black out, which is the relative eclipse of integrity, honesty, decency. Across the board, it's not just him. You don't isolate him. You don't fetishize him as some individual, he represents the worst of the American empire, the worst of American culture, the atavism, the narcissism, the xenophobia, the white male mendacity and mediocrity that has a long history in the country and now the chickens have come home to roost.

What does that mean? It means that when we look at him we also ought to look inside of ourselves and our neighborhoods and our hoods and our communities and our mosques and synagogues and churches and in our civic institutions. There's a long history of white supremacy, long history of the rule of capital over labor, long history of vicious forms of patriarchy and homophobia at work in the history, he doesn't just fall from the sky. Now why is that important? Well, it's because indeed if you're going to count for the hope inside of you then you have to acknowledge that you've been on intimate terms with catastrophe. That's echoes of Sophocles and Antigone. All the forces, social, psychic, cosmic are against you.

It is been almost a month since I left my project and my second home- Germany- to embrace a new experience in Sweden. It seems like yesterday when I strated my EVS with all my fears and my big hopes. Living a challenging experience like this already completed is something which changes you in depth, you notice how much you have changed through the eyes of others and yours as well- if you are ready enough to look inside yourself.

That's what I want to accomplish through this post: look inside myself and write down who I am after this year abroad. So far, I am proud of the person I became: a young woman who is not afraid of takings risks, who is not afraid of fully living.

I am not afraid of travelling alone: this year I managaed to visit wonderful places on my own, enjoying local food and traditions, getting lost into charming streets and art galleries, stopping by little caf where reading a book or listening some chilling music. I used to be afraid of doing such things alone, but not anymore now, because travelling made me discover the pleasure of the self-discovery and I feel blessed for that.

I am not afraid of telling people what I feel or what I think. I learnt from kids I worked with the art of sincerity: they always told me what they thought, they had no masks, they always wanted to show their emotions, to be authentic. I started to follow their example, to be as pure as snow, because I want everyone to know me for my ideas, for what I believe and for what I feel.

I am not afraid of takings new risks and embracing new paths. My kids at work told me that there is nothing that I can not do If I believe in my skills. So here I am in Sweden, in another country with new traditions and habits. Another big change. Changes are terrifying, they push you out of your comfort zone. The secret is to face them with optimism and positivity. Of course, I was afraid of facing all these changes alone, but then I looks at what I have achieved so far thanks to this EVS: a full independence, new friends, a new language in my cultural luggage, new skills. So, keep calm and enjoy this new adventure!

The wizard [of Oz] says look inside yourself and find self. God says look inside yourself and find [the Holy Spirit]. The first will get you to Kansas. The latter will get you to heaven. Take your pick.

Do you know what you are? You are a manuscript oƒ a divine letter. You are a mirror reflecting a noble face. This universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you are already that.

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