If we are honest with ourselves, we can truly know ourselves and thereby recognize our weaknesses, our faults, so we can work with or even overcome them. Let’s find out more about this here.
Watch my video on this topic here:
The first step to a better life is self-knowledge. We need to look inward – to open ourselves up and explore ourselves. The point is simple: if you don’t know who you are, you will not know what is good for you, or what to do. You’re going to get hurt.
This inner look needs to be done with total honesty. Not cruelty. But without lies.
We create the social habit of “cultivating” our image, showing that we have best and hiding what’s bad about us. This is actually a good thing, as it helps us deal with each other and lessen attrition.
But when it comes to you looking inside, seeing yourself, then this social practice is no good. You need to see yourself as you really are. Without it, you will not be able to overcome your faults and grow.
In this process, you must accept your faults. Recognize your shortcomings. Acknowledge them. Know your limits.
This will serve you in two ways: 1) as you go about your life, you’ll be aware of your tendency to err in those situations that bring out your faults, so you can anticipate failure and correct it before it happens and 2) you can gradually overcome or minimize your faults intentionally, with focus and intelligence.
Have you seen how a car wheel is balanced? First, they put the wheel in a machine and it spins it at high speeds. The imbalance then becomes pronounced, the fault is found, and then they put a counterweight to overcome that fault. Now the wheel spins smoothly.
We should do the same with ourselves. We live our lives and detect our faults, consciously looking for them. When we identify them, we can then purposefully correct the faults, balancing it out with conscious intention. And then our lives will flow more smoothly.
We should do this not only as we act but especially in the process of making a decision. When making a decision, examine your shortcomings. Are they acting on the decision? Did you counterbalance the decision in view of your flawed trends?
For example, if you’re a bit greedy, you might more easily make a bad decision hoping to make lots of money, being tricked, or cutting corners you shouldn’t. That’s what con men do. They identify your faults, your weaknesses and explore them to cheat you. But if you already know your faults and consciously take them into consideration in your decisions, you’ll have a much better chance of not making a mistake.
For all this to work and help you, you need self-forgiveness. Without self-forgiveness, the process of identifying failures becomes painful and even counterproductive. It can become a process of self-flagellation and self-deprecation which will make you unproductive and unhappy. For more on this see this video:
With self-forgiveness, life flows. You acknowledge the error. Forgive yourself for it, with acceptance and love, while seeking to correct it. With self-forgiveness, you can face the worst in you, accept the current situation, and work to be better tomorrow, without getting lost in lamentation and self-pity.
So, with courage and honesty, and endowed with enormous doses of self-forgiveness, know your faults, counter-balance them and gradually eliminate them.
In the book “The 3T Path” (https://3tpath.com/books/) you’ll see different techniques to get to know yourself better and to improve yourself day by day.
Look what they’re saying about The 3T Path book: “The 3T Path is a book that connects yoga wisdom with your day-to-day, with practical tools and examples of how to keep your mind healthy, focused on the here and now.” – Taila Roncon