Have you met yourself? Take time and introduce yourself to yourself.

Have you met yourself yet

Have you ever been in a discussion with anybody and just out of nowhere the person turns around and says “No, but I know you” and then they continue to state what they know about you? And for a moment you stand there, thinking “wait, am I really like that?”. While you are still pondering on the question you have just posed to yourself in silence, then they conclude and say, “See, you cannot even dispute what I am saying because it is true” and just like that somebody else has given your character an added value, and this is whether you agree with it or not. Have you met yourself yet? Maybe you need to take time and introduce yourself to yourself.

Are you aware of your behaviour?

I do not know about other people, but I have faced those moments when other people have confidently said things, they believe to be true about me, and to a much great extent, I was clueless about what was said. Could that have been a denial mechanism from my side? I do not know. To be honest, has this ever happened to you? And instead of telling the person making the claims how untrue what they are saying is, you probably told somebody else, leaving those who made unsound or even funny claims about you believing that they truly know you. Well, my friend, have you met yourself yet? Maybe you need to take time and introduce yourself to yourself.

Lived experience

Sometimes we think we have moved on from things that happened in the past when the reality is that you have parked the experience in our minds. We live with the experience and it is there when we plan, it is there when we plan for that holiday, it is essentially everywhere we go. It never leaves. This is an experience that sometimes shapes the reality of the very life we live in every day. Yet, we are not aware of this fact. After all, it happened 10 years ago, surely it cannot still be lingering around. Have you met yourself? Take time and introduce yourself to yourself.

What influences your daily decisions?

Have you wondered what the reasons are for making the daily decisions that you make? I remember when I started working and earning an income, I had a subtle obsession with shoes. I bought shoes every month, and my reason was simple, I liked them, and then came the justification, they were also on sale. But in reality, I was over-compensating for the many time when my parents could not afford to buy me the things (shoes and clothes in this case) I wanted as a child, and now that I was working, I wanted to make up all the years, I did not have what I wanted. Fair and well, I wanted to do that, I had to sit myself down and ask this question, “until when will I be making up for a lost time?”

At some point, we must get over our need to over-compensate over the things we did not have in the past.

Maybe sometimes people can boldly tell us things about ourselves that we believe not to be true because we subconsciously are exactly what they say about us. I am not talking exaggeration here. I am referring to those subtle mannerisms and behaviours we, ourselves, are not aware of. Could it be that our past experiences have influenced the way we are so much that we are not aware of parts of ourselves that other people notice daily? Think about it, or maybe ask your friends and family to identify things about you that they think you do not know about yourself or you constantly deny every time they mention it to you.

Reflections

Are you aware of past experiences that have shaped how your life is today? Do you know of any experiences that you wrote off and thought it was not important to deal with it then? Can you honestly say that no past experience is lingering in your mind or even life today? How can you make decisions independent of your past experiences today?

Connect with me itumeleng@imzimba.co.za

If you like our content and if it is helpful to you, please donate to help us keep this blog running. Thank you. Click on this link to donate https://shrtlink.co.za/pgs