Learning to honour yourself is a much deeper process than it seems like at first blush. Sure, I know what I want and what I need, one might think. “I know myself” seems like a basic understanding for daily life. But do you really? Outside of the pressures on you by work, family, friends, the machine, do you know who you are and what you want/need to make it through the day/week/year?

One of the best ways to get at your root desires is through self-reflection journaling. Taking time to sit with yourself and your own thoughts in this busy world can sometimes feel impossible. When and where you will find that time is up to you — maybe it’s on a commute to work, where you’ll be sitting on a train for half an hour. Pull out a journal and see where it goes. Maybe it’s early in the morning before anyone else is awake, and you can savour the relative quiet of your home. Wherever it is, making that time, and taking that time, to get to know yourself can be more rewarding than you ever realize.

Check out this article for some ideas or example questions you can ask yourself while you journal. Things like “Describe yourself in three words”. For me it would be creative, compassionate, and capable. What about you? Other examples “What qualities do you most admire in yourself?” or “What is your biggest weakness?”. Feel free to come up with and answer your own questions, as well. The goal here is to get down into the nitty gritty of what you want and desire.

Once you’ve answered these questions for yourself to the best of your ability, now it is time to piece out the themes. Are your wants in the physical realm, or in connecting with others, or maybe some of your basic human needs aren’t being met. Whatever the outcome of this journaling, stick with it — this isn’t an activity designed to make you see the lack in your life, because the next step is to actually meet those needs! I’d start with 5, pull out 5 of your core desires and write them out separately, leaving space to answer those needs. Then brainstorm specific ways you can meet those needs — can you do it on your own, or do you need help? Can you do it today, or will it take time? If it is a goal in your life, then pull out your hand-dandy SMART goals and write out the steps from here to your desired goal. If it involves other people, make some notes about how you’ll ask them to be involved. If it is more solitary, jot down some times and places where you can achieve this desire.

Maybe you’ve noted some ways in which you are NOT honouring yourself, activities or mindsets that take you away from who you really are. If this is the case, you can use some more journaling to write about how you went astray, how your path is calling you back, and how you might get from here to there. Don’t judge yourself, just acknowledge where you are and where you would like to be, and how you can build a bridge of steps between the two.

One of the things I’ve started doing is asking myself “Does this serve me?” and if it does, at what level? Does this enhance the bigger story of who I am and what I want to do with my life, or does it simply fix an immediate craving that I haven’t spent any time to understand where it stems from and I just want make it go away? When something happens and I have to choose how to respond — does anger serve me in this moment, or would a more level headed response actually achieve my goals better? And really, that’s all there is in this life. Something happens, and I have to respond. The water bill was higher than expected — do I yell at my roommate for having too many showers? Or do we sit down and look at the peak-usage charts and figure out how we can use more water in off-hours instead. Does it serve the outcome I want in the end, to have various reactions. Yes, we all get caught up in our emotions, they get away from us and we say things we wish we hadn’t, but by training myself to ask “Does this serve me?” at each point along the journey, I have learned to take a breath and give myself a moment before I react and would you believe it, I’ve had far fewer unwanted altercations since implementing this practice!

I truly believe, if you spend your time learning about who you are and what you need, and then honour yourself whenever you can, you will live a more peaceful and fulfilling life. If you’d like some help digging through the weeds to find your true desires, reach out and we can pull at those threads together!