Modern life often leads to not being yourself: it is easier to behave like this than to feel vulnerable and subject to judgment. However, spending too much time pretending or neglecting your true nature can make you feel lost and misunderstood. If you suddenly find yourself single, if it seems to you that something is missing in your life or if you often behave as others want and not according to what you want, it can happen to feel as if you have lost your authentic part. So, how do you go about rediscovering yourself, the person you know you are intimately? Fortunately, we never really lose that person: by learning to change some habits and replace them with new ones, we can reconnect with our true self.
Steps
Method 1 of 3: After the End of a Relationship
Step 1. Give yourself the right suffering
To find yourself after a relationship ends, you must first let go of both the person you were in the relationship and the relationship itself.
- Give yourself time. Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid this step. You can try as hard as you want to escape your own emotions and ignore them, but they will always come up in the end.
- Repressing what you feel and refusing to face it not only keeps you from moving on, but it risks making your feelings even more devastating as they try to surface (and always succeed).
Step 2. Do what you feel like doing
One of the ways to rediscover yourself after a relationship ends is to remember all the things you (and only you) like to do.
- Reconnect with yourself by doing what you enjoy, whether it's going for a run, taking a very long bath or watching junk shows on television.
- Don't let this lead you to bask though. Don't use it as an excuse to avoid confronting your mood or hiding it from the world: you risk getting stuck where you are, instead of engaging in the activities you love.
- Instead, give yourself the time you need to recover (it can be a few days or a few weeks), but be honest with yourself and know when it's time to move on. Don't get stuck.
Step 3. Cut off contact with your ex partner
If you have remained on good terms, there is no need to interrupt contact with that person forever, but for the moment it is necessary (at least for a few months), so that you are able to work safely on yourself.
- If the relationship has ended badly and the idea of resuming relationships brings back painful memories in you, you can only begin to heal by severely severing contact.
- Even if the relationship ended peacefully, you still need to be alone for a while and get away from your ex partner for the moment. Otherwise you will never be able to recover your true self, because it will be clouded by the memory of how you were during the relationship.
Step 4. Practice free writing
If you feel overwhelmed by thoughts and emotions, try practicing free writing as a way to get back on track.
- It's about sitting down and "jotting down" on paper whatever comes to mind, like stream of consciousness. Don't censor anything you write and don't try to embellish it, not even from a grammatical point of view.
- Decide in advance how long you will write (it can be 5, 10 or 15 minutes) and write without stopping.
- Free writing allows you to give vent to thoughts and emotions without trying to interpret them first, which can make you feel overwhelmed. It is also an activity that allows you to distance yourself from those thoughts and emotions that could otherwise overwhelm you.
Step 5. Don't get distracted
We often lose touch with ourselves when we allow others and things to distract us. Be alone for a while, without external distractions It may seem trivial, but if you want to get back in touch with your true nature you must first stop avoiding yourself!
- Begin to be alone for a while and focus on what you are doing. If you are cleaning the bathroom, just clean the bathroom. Don't keep the music in the background and don't leave the television on - don't do anything that distracts you from yourself.
- You may feel uncomfortable at first, especially if you are the type of person who has a habit of surrounding yourself with distractions, in order to let out painful thoughts and emotions that make you feel vulnerable, such as loneliness, sadness, and other states. analogous minds.
- Instead of continuing to distract yourself from what you are feeling, acknowledge it and let it manifest. The moment you stop fighting the feelings, they usually resolve on their own after some time.
Step 6. Set goals
In a moment of bewilderment like this, when you feel you have no direction, it is especially important that you set goals that give you a sense of direction and purpose in life.
- Set goals, long and short term.
- For the long-term ones, think about the situation you would like to be in in a year or five. Based on this, define the objectives and write them down: it serves to put them down in a tangible form that you can refer to every day to remember them more easily,
- For example, if in five years you dream of living in Paris or winning the marathon, write it down. Make them become part of the budget you make daily with yourself and try to create opportunities that will help you pursue them.
- For short-term ones, choose goals that are achievable, but also important. For example, you might decide to go to the gym three times a week for a month, or meditate twice a week for a month and a half. Achieving short-term goals will give you a sense of progress and accomplishment - what you need to get better and move beyond.
Step 7. Cultivate positive relationships and push away negative ones
While trying to rediscover yourself, it is useful to have positive, helpful and supportive people around you.
- Distance yourself from negative people, whether it's a friend or partner who gets prayed for to love you and to help you, or a family member who criticizes you all the time. Relationships like this will only bring you down even more.
- If there are people in your life that you just can't avoid, such as a manager, colleague, or close relative, try to distance yourself at least mentally and emotionally. You decide not to get involved with them and to recognize the negativity they turn towards you as a symptom of their own shortcomings and not yours.
- Instead, try to surround yourself with people who love you, who accept you for who you are, and who are available to help you. Stay with those who give you energy (rather than take it off) and help you get back in touch with your true nature.
Step 8. Embrace your present
As you learn to focus on the present instead of indulging in painful memories or distracting yourself from your own emotions, you realize that you don't have to let your past define you.
The past only defines what you allow it to define, so allow yourself the freedom to leave it where it is; rather, appreciate yourself as you are now and consider your potential
Method 2 of 3: Rediscover yourself if you feel that you are missing a part of yourself
Step 1. Take stock of what you seem to be missing
Spend some time reflecting on what part of yourself you feel like you've lost and what you think may have caused you to lose it. Some useful questions you could ask yourself, preferably in writing, are the following:
- Who am I currently? Do I like myself the way I am?
- What part of myself is missing from the appeal? When was it lost? Why did it happen?
- What do I really want?
- What dreams did I have when I was younger? What passions?
- How would I like my life to be right now? In one year? In five years?
- What are my values?
- What do I love most of all?
- What makes me happy and fulfilled?
- Use the answers to these questions to try to understand what the problem is in your life. For example, if your core values are courage, honesty and kindness, but you have a job where you are surrounded by people chasing money and success at all costs, the conflict between your values and the context where you are may be why you feel alienated from your true self.
Step 2. Look closely at the people and events that may have contributed to this loss of a part of yourself
Sit back and carefully review your memories, trying to identify the element that caused you to abandon it.
- For example, you may have been forced to give up your creative side when, as a child, your parents insisted on the futility of fantasies and daydreams.
- Think about all the experiences that have had a strong physical, mental, or emotional impact on you. Start with the main and more obvious ones, then move on to the secondary, less obvious ones. The factors to consider are the following:
- Particular events, positive and negative
- Personal relationships (friends, family, partners)
- Jobs you have done
- Moments of passage in your life
- Accidents
- Health problems
- Childhood memories, positive and negative
- Mourning
- Having felt compelled to take on a role that made you uncomfortable
- Having felt compelled to lie to yourself or about yourself
- Remember that the purpose of this reflection is not to blame people or events from the past; rather it serves to help you understand how and why that part of you has been lost, so that you can begin to work to recover it.
Step 3. Start practicing mindfulness
If you feel that you are missing a part of yourself, practicing this type of meditation helps you reconnect with your center.
Practices such as meditation, yoga and tai chi are all useful activities to approach this awareness and begin to reconnect with your self on a deep level
Step 4. Nurture positive relationships and push away negative ones
While trying to rediscover yourself, it is useful to have positive, helpful and supportive people around you.
- Distance yourself from negative people, whether it's a friend or partner who gets prayed to love you and to help you, or a family member who constantly criticizes you. Relationships like this will only bring you down even more.
- If there are people in your life that you just can't avoid, such as a manager, colleague, or close relative, try to distance yourself at least mentally and emotionally. You decide not to get involved with them and to recognize the negativity they direct towards you as a symptom of their own shortcomings and not yours.
- Instead, try to surround yourself with people who love you, who accept you for who you are, and who are available to help you. Be with those who energize you (rather than take it off) and help you get back in touch with your true nature.
Step 5. Be alone for a while
It's easy to lose sight of yourself when you avoid being alone with your thoughts. To try to dampen the thoughts and emotions that risk making you suffer, you may be tempted to make sure that you never simply feel quiet, without background music, without people around, without books, without the internet.
- But if you really want to reconnect with yourself, you need to stop escaping your thoughts and emotions. Surely at first you will feel uncomfortable sitting quietly and spending even some time with yourself. It may bring to mind thoughts and emotions that you are trying to avoid, but, when you acknowledge them and stop escaping them, they suddenly become more manageable and less traumatic.
- Give yourself 5-10 minutes a day to just sit quietly. You can do it on the sofa in the living room, in a rocking chair on the porch or in the shade of your favorite tree. It can be anywhere, the important thing is that you begin to reconnect with yourself and feel good even alone.
Step 6. Set goals
When you set personal goals that you truly care about, instead of having others set them, you feel more connected with your innermost self and are more fulfilled with life.
- Set yourself both long and short-term goals. For the long-term ones, think about how you would like to be in a year or five. Would you like to be more tolerant of yourself and others? Make it a long-term goal. Do you want to feel fulfilled in life and work? Make it a long-term goal.
- Use short-term goals to help you reach longer-term goals and to feel like you are making progress towards achieving them. Set yourself attainable goals that will help you move closer to realizing longer-term ones. For example, if one of the long-term ones is to feel calm and at peace, use other short-term ones to help you achieve it, such as meditating four times a week for a month, or writing a journal three times a week for two months.
- Write down your goals and put the list somewhere you spend every day so that you can easily remember what you are striving for.
Step 7. Be patient
Reflecting on the parts of yourself that you have lost along the way and trying to rediscover them is challenging and time-consuming.
- Don't be discouraged if you don't get enlightened about it right away.
- Be patient with yourself and allow yourself to be curious, without the anxiety of having to find a certain answer.
- Keep in mind that rediscovering and recovering a part of yourself that you lost along the way is a gradual process that you work on daily - it takes time.
Method 3 of 3: Rediscover Yourself if You Don't Feel Authentic
Step 1. Think back to the times when you were happy and felt "yourself"
Remember those moments when you felt particularly fit and happy; ask yourself on what occasions you have experienced them and what they had in common with each other.
Pursue goals and practice activities that put you back in touch with those times when you felt so alive and fulfilled
Step 2. Pay attention to what arouses your interest
As your day progresses, pay special attention to things that put you in a good mood or pique your interest. When you do things that you really enjoy, instead of things you have to do, you are more in touch with yourself and more fulfilled in everything you do.
- You may find that you feel more drawn to and inspired by occasions when you can use creativity, such as writing emails or keeping a journal. Or you may find that your interest awakens when you hear about quantum physics on television or radio.
- Whatever it is, make a note of it and promise yourself to go deeper into it when you can. Search for books on the subject, do online research, watch a documentary, etc.
Step 3. Pay attention to the things that are bothering you
Try to look beyond the daily occasions of nervousness and minor setbacks such as traffic or people chatting in the cinema; think instead of episodes of greater gravity that are constantly repeated. Chances are you will notice a common feature between episodes that tend to arouse such negative emotions in you: You can capitalize on this awareness to narrow the range of possible reasons for your discontent.
- For example, if you find that you feel anger when someone is being offensive to others, you may conclude that you need to have kind and caring people around you to feel good, or even that helping others could be the activity. that's right for you.
- Or, if you find that you become irritable when you let too much time go by without a creative outlet of some kind (such as singing, dancing, writing, drawing, and so on), you may conclude that you need the constant presence of creative outlet in your life to feel realized.
- Also keep in mind that the things we are often most strict about others are the very things we feel most insecure about. If you tend to criticize those who own luxury cars for being superficial and wasteful, take a look at your conscience and reflect on your insecurities and vulnerabilities - the problem could be your own tendency to be proud, exhibitionist and eccentric. What problems do these questions raise? Because?
Step 4. Notice times when you have the unpleasant feeling of not being yourself, whether it's what you say, what you do, or what you think
- Make a mental note (or rather, in writing) what sounds so false about the things you are doing.
- Then think carefully about the fears and anxieties that underlie this behavior of yours. What determines your inauthentic behavior? Is it fear of rejection? Of impatience with the people around you? Do you feel misunderstood?
- Think about possible ways around the beliefs and anxieties that make you not be yourself. If it's a fear of rejection, for example, work on accepting yourself as you truly are. If you have deep self-acceptance, you don't fear rejection from others, and you can begin to be authentic on more social occasions.
Step 5. Keep a journal
Keeping a journal is an opportunity for introspection, which you can keep track of to more easily notice the recurring situations that involve you most.
- Write in your diary whatever you want. Just make sure you take some time each time to reflect on what you would like to see more in your life, whether it's more time to spend with your family or more frequent occasions to draw.
- Try to write regularly. The more you do it regularly, the easier it will be for you to identify common ideas and themes.
- Once you have identified a list of items, analyze them and try to find out if there are elements in common among the things you would like to do more often or those that bother you particularly.
- Work on finding solutions to the things that bother you and to introduce those that make you feel good into your daily life.
Step 6. Start practicing mindfulness
If you begin to feel untrue to yourself, this technique helps you reconnect with your center.
Practices such as meditation, yoga and tai chi are all useful activities to approach this awareness and begin to reconnect with your "I" on a deep level
Step 7. Cultivate positive relationships and push away negative ones
While trying to rediscover yourself, it is useful to have positive, helpful and supportive people around you.
- Distance yourself from negative people, whether it's a friend or partner who gets prayed to love you and to help you, or a family member who criticizes you all the time. Relationships like this will only bring you down even more.
- If there are people in your life that you just can't avoid, such as a manager, colleague, or close relative, try to distance yourself at least mentally and emotionally. You decide not to get involved with them and to recognize the negativity they direct towards you as a symptom of their own shortcomings and not yours.
- Instead, try to surround yourself with people who love you, who accept you for who you are, and who are available to help you. Be with those who energize you (rather than take it off) and help you get back in touch with your true nature.
Step 8. Make a contingency plan
On days when you feel particularly exhausted and just can't reconnect with your true self, have some emergency strategies ready. Here are some of the emergency measures you can take when you feel completely lost:
- Listen to a playlist of songs that make you feel intimate with yourself again. It does not have to be long and complex, indeed it is better if you choose a few songs, but particularly meaningful for you. When you feel that the situation has gotten out of hand, listen to these songs to regain ground.
- Think of a person you can turn to in an emergency. When you feel lost, knowing that you can count on a close and trusted friend or family member can help you find your center. Let the person know about the goals you are trying to accomplish and ask to be available when needed, naturally promising to return the favor.
- Be honest. If you feel that you are being false, know that there is a surefire way to defeat falsehood: honesty. When you realize that you are not yourself, take a deep breath, take a step back and ask yourself, "What do I really want right now?" or even "What am I really feeling right now?". Answer the question, listen to your feelings and let them guide you.
Warnings
- If you feel that you have lost touch with yourself as a result of a major trauma, talk to a therapist and support group in your area.
- If, in addition to feeling as if you have lost a part of yourself, you also think you are experiencing symptoms of depression, again, definitely contact a therapist.
