My mother had a firm opinion about\u00a0therapy. It was for the weak-minded. She was a member of \u201cthe bootstrap\u00a0generation.\u201d Instead of talking things through, you pulled yourself up by the\u00a0bootstraps and moved on. You swallowed your feelings and kept busy. Suffering
in silence was the civilized way to go.<\/p>\n
\u201cTherapy is a crutch,\u201d my mother said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with needing a\u00a0crutch?\u201d I asked her. \u201cIt\u2019s okay to use a crutch when you have a broken leg. Why isn\u2019t it okay when you have a broken heart? Or when your mind is racing out\u00a0of control. Or when you feel confused. Therapy can help you understand yourself
better.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt isn\u2019t for me,\u201d she told me. \u201cI just\u00a0don\u2019t find myself all that interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Greek philosopher Socrates, said,\u00a0\u201cThe unexamined life is not worth living.\u201d He created a method of\u00a0self-examination where instead of providing answers for someone, he asked\u00a0questions that guided them toward self-discovery and a deeper understanding of\u00a0their own knowledge. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Answering questions and getting to\u00a0know yourself can be an uncomfortable process. Along my own path of self-discovery,
I recognize my tendency to compare myself to other people. Do I think like they\u00a0do? Do I look as good as they do? Am I as smart or as wise? She looks happier\u00a0than I am. Did I make the wrong life choices? What do I do about it?<\/p>\n
There is an Aesop\u2019s fable called\u00a0\u201cThe Raven and the Swan.\u201d The raven envied the swan\u2019s beautiful white feathers\u00a0and graceful shape so he flew down to the lakes and marshes where the swan lived.
The raven dove into the lakes all day long and ate weeds and plants that grew\u00a0in the water like the swan did. He wanted to look like her. When the swan found\u00a0out that the raven was trying to copy her, she told him to return to his home in\u00a0the woods and fields and be the blackbird that he was meant to be. He did as\u00a0the swam suggested but it was too late. The weeds had taken a toll on the raven\u00a0and he didn\u2019t survive.<\/p>\n
The message here is clear. Envying\u00a0and trying to be like someone else is unhealthy and toxic. This is what makes\u00a0cults so dangerous. The more the leader tells followers what to do, the more\u00a0they stop trusting themselves and become reliant on someone who doesn\u2019t have\u00a0their best interests at heart. I\u2019ve heard of followers allowing themselves to\u00a0be branded, starved, isolated, sexually molested and in the most extremeexample, to take their own lives. When someone says, \u201cI know you better than\u00a0you know yourself,\u201d walk away.<\/p>\n
As a child, I was at the movies\u00a0watching \u201cThe King and I,\u201d when Anna sang, \u201cGetting to Know You.\u201d I got up and I\u00a0danced ecstatically up and down the aisles. As an adult, I still love that song\u00a0but I\u2019ve changed the lyrics to \u201cGetting to know me.\u201d It might sound Narcissistic\u00a0but it isn\u2019t. We need to know who we are and what works for us so we can be\u00a0comfortable in this life and be present with our friends.<\/p>\n
Greek philosopher Aristotle said,\u00a0\u201cUnderstanding your own strengths, weaknesses, motivations and limitations is\u00a0the foundation for developing wisdom and making good decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
In my experience, there is no\u00a0magical method to get to know yourself. It\u2019s all about slowing down and\u00a0watching your mind without judgment. When I left the ballet at nineteen years\u00a0old, I had lived in a bubble. I went to a play one night with a friend and when\u00a0it was over, she asked me if I\u2019d like it. \u201cYes,\u201d I told her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cActually, neither did I,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell did you or didn\u2019t you?\u201d she
\u00a0asked me.<\/p>\n
I was embarrassed. Besides\u00a0Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev and Chopin, I didn\u2019t know what kind of music I liked. I didn\u2019t\u00a0know how to dress outside of a dance studio. I didn\u2019t know how to cook or drive\u00a0a car. I knew very little about men and dating. I realized that I had some work\u00a0to do. I got my first pair of jeans at twenty years old and it felt like they\u00a0belonged to someone else. I overcooked the salmon and I found out that I loved\u00a0the Beatles and I didn\u2019t like heavy metal. I liked jeans and tee shirts and I didn\u2019t\u00a0like dresses and high heels. I stopped to think before I gave my opinion about\u00a0anything. Life became easier because I stopped judging my feelingsand I began learning\u00a0about them and accepting them.<\/p>\n
Knowing who you are from the inside\u00a0out allows you to build a life that suits you. When you take the time to be\u00a0introspective and find your truth, when you discover what you can and can\u2019t do,\u00a0what you like and don\u2019t like, you\u2019ll be surprised to see that you are larger
and better than you ever imagined. You\u2019ll see that knowing your weaknesses and\u00a0frailties is a sign of strength.<\/p>\n
Chinese master Lao Tzu said,\u00a0\u201cKnowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My mother had a firm opinion about\u00a0therapy. It was for the weak-minded. She was a member of \u201cthe bootstrap\u00a0generation.\u201d Instead of talking things through, you pulled yourself up by the\u00a0bootstraps and moved on. You swallowed your feelings and kept busy. Sufferingin silence was the civilized way to go. \u201cTherapy is a crutch,\u201d my mother said. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2687,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2686\/revisions\/2687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}