Originally Posted by
lizatola 
My sponsor and I were talking about a subject that came up in a conversation among friends. My bf has often accused me of not knowing myself. He has even said that I need to see in myself what he sees in me and then goes into a list of qualities he admires about me. As a group of girls, though, we all were talking about this very thing just a few days later.
I wanted to ask about all of you. How well do you know your dreams and goals? Are they clear or are they muddled? How sold out on you are you on your perspective on what you want for your life, for your children, and in a partner? Do you ever find yourself comfortable being in the middle of a subject and being able to see both sides and then taking either side at times, depending on the discussion at hand?
That is often my problem. I'm not a black and white person and I waffle sometimes. I've had people tell me that I don't know what I believe about things i.e. my thoughts on marriage or long term commitments and my perspective on religion that often changes from a sometimes Christian take on things to a more pantheistic point of view.
Personally, I like to be openminded and I do often see varying sides of things. Yet, I often don't really know where I fall. I can sometimes be very committed to Christianity but because I live in sin (according to the church) I don't feel I can truly commit to it or that I will be accepted at church, so I find myself adopting more open minded religious viewpoints. Can anyone else relate? Or am I totally off base and is the idea of 'knowing myself' completely isolated from the topics at hand here?
Lizatola-
I find your initial questions really interesting and have been thinking about this thread since yesterday. I am learning a lot of this about myself right now so I am not sure that this won't be messy.
I really hear you asking about knowing yourself, BUT I read in your initial post about other people, institutes etc perspectives of you, through their lenses, and through your relationship with them. I read you questioning yourself through their guidelines/rules/eyes and maybe even happiness. I am also reading that the contradictions that those perspective brings is confusing to you right now and it is hard to know where to take your cues from.
Living up to the expectations of others kept me stuck for a long time. Trying to make something that was "pretty good," be my definition of happiness also kept me stuck. In all honesty sometimes the idea of being grateful kept me stuck because there was an underlying should in some of the messaging around that for me. Just like I used to try to convince myself my exAH drinking was not that bad because he kept a job and was a binge drinker, I can never be happy when I am trying to live for someone or something else. For me that is setting myself up to take a step out of self knowledge and relationships with others.
I do think relationships and where you fit in the world is important to knowing yourself. To me knowing yourself is about being your best friend and advocate REGARDLESS of the external opinions/perspective. I keep coming back to the idea that self-care of me is never wrong. That having wants, desires and dreams is never wrong. I used to think there was a checklist that if I had enough checks it meant I was a good person.
That checklist was the antithesis of knowing myself. Now I am curious, what do I think about this or that? Knowing myself is about giving myself space (and a break) about my feelings, my desires, my dreams, and permission to be ugly and messy. I need those experiences to grown into who I am meant to be and to know myself along the way.
For me therapy helped this part the most. It was hard at the time as I really needed to do the "shadow," work that FS talks about. I also needed a therapist who was willing to challenge me, not let me off on anything, and who helped to teach me that all feelings are okay.
I think you are off to an excellent journey!