What It Means to “Get To Know Your True Self”

“Getting to know your self”, or getting to know your ‘true self’, ‘higher self’, etc. is a common spiritual marketing phrase. People are told to meditate, journal, travel, go on spiritual retreats, see a healer or spiritual ‘guru’, go to sound baths and consume all sorts of spiritual products and services. Perhaps then, you will find your ‘true self.’ But what exactly does it mean, to “find your true self”?

When a person is used to being in a specific way of operating: seeing, thinking, believing, behaving, doing, etc... their whole lives, it creates a very fixed or static way of being and perceiving. It’s what a person knows and they do not know any other way, nor able to ‘see’ what that way is. In western culture, and actually in modern society as a whole, we are programmed to think and do. White people think intuition comes from thinking in the mind. Indigenous and ancient people know that inutition comes from feeling in the soul. Modern society has been training people for millennia to be devoid of true feeling, and has been eliminating the ability to access it through wild nature, space, silence, stillness, and cleanliness. The world has become endlessly polluted, noisy, chaotic, busy, productive, and distracted. People are numb. Yet easily triggered and influenced by external manipulation. The things we took for granted: clean air, clean water, clean land, clean food…is now a rarity. And instead, the waste and pollution people actively fill themselves up with on a daily basis continues to break down their bodies, drain them of energy, and create more distance and chaos between their ego self and accessing their soul or true self. In the chaos of our modern ‘way of life’, it is hard to discern what is true.

Of course it’s commonly known that you cannot ‘find your self’ externally, but must look inwards to do so. But it is not as simple as just closing your eyes and “meditating” or journaling. The chaos in the mind, the programming of the ego, the emotions of the past, cloud people’s ability to see. We return to the concept of programming. People are programmed to be unconscious. They are not born that way, but they are trained to become that way. Around 5 years old is when children begin to detatch from soul, spirit, and life-force energy. “Ironically”, it is also when children begin institutionalized education. We are not conscious or aware of our programming, because most people do not know another way. They cannot remember what it was like before 5 years old. So, if a person is seeking to discover their ‘true self’, they cannot do so with the same operating system. Discovering your ‘true self’ is a much larger job that requires, first, completely destroying your existing self and letting go of all the attachments your dear ego holds on to oh so tightly. For those rare few who undego a true, spontanenous, energetic spiritual awakening, they are literally energetically cracked open and it is up to that person to begin dismantling everything.

With that said, we now return to the original question of, “what does it mean to get to know your self?" To answer that question, you must be willing to shift your perspective away from how you might typically think of “knowing your self.” When the average person thinks of how they know themselves, or what it means to know themselves, or who their self is, it’s always from a me-centered, identity-focused understanding. Or rather, who they ‘think’ they are. Identity is a human concept that is defined by the catgorization and labeling of something, relative to something else already defined. And in society, humans have whittled down just a few identity categories that are ‘common’, ‘acknowledged, and ‘accepted.’ It does not account for the infinite number of variances that actually exist in human beings. Additionally, when a person is raised in society, they are programmed to adopt a certain identity, modify themselves, and fit themselves in according to the needs and ‘others’ around them. On a cellular level, this is how cells self-organize. We are genetically designed to organize ourselves relative to others. This means, that our identities are actually creations that we design in our minds over a long period of time, and eventually reinforce over a lifetime. Yet the identity is not necessaily who we truly are, it is simply what we have created ourselves to ‘be’ relative to others in our environment.

So when we return to the question, “who is my true self”, how is one to know? Especially when one has literally redesigned their whole human self around this singular identity over a very long period of time? Their entire operating system, and mode of being is completely tied to this created identity. It’s like a robot that does not know any other way, other than the program they have. But the true self or soul is always buried deep down, dormant and locked away somewhere. It will still send error messages, warning signs or symptoms in the body, intuitive messages or feelings…shouting from another realm, “this is not working!” But what it gets translated to in the average person, is, why do I keep getting this random ailment or pain in my body, why do I keep feeling or thinking this thing that I should not, or a desire to do something that does not equate with I think I should do? These are your cues, your signals, and perhaps even breadcrumbs back to your true self or soul. Follow them, and it will lead you back to who you naturally are. These signals and cues come in the form of feeling, intuition, desire. They do not come from thoughts of the mind.

Getting to know your true self is not really about searching for an identity, or who you are. Getting to know your true self begins with getting to know what you are.

It goes beyond the understanding of ‘true self’, not from an ego-identity perspective, but from an intangible, ethereal perespective. It’s a complete shift that cannot always be achieved or comprehended by an un-intiated human, and that is the hard truth. People may want to understand and know things that are beyond their energetic level of comprehension and perceiving. But for starters, everyone more or less has the ability to feel. You can feel your body, your senses, your emotions, your feelings, your surroundings and environment. You can do this in spaces of silence, stillness, and cleanliness. Feeling is your tool to getting to know your self and what you are.

Getting to know your true self is about intimately familiarizing yourself with the inner workings of your whole human system: your body, your nervous system, your senses, your life-force energy, how energy moves through your body, the energy in your mind, the energy in your body, and the energy of your soul. It’s a Universe inside of you that is yours to discover. That is your true self.