This site is about self-discovery, exploring your inner world, and working with different sides of yourself. But it can be hard to understand what I’m talking about until you first experience meeting a side of yourself for the first time. So here is a guide on how to meet a side of yourself. I hope it works for you. (If it doesn’t, let me know!)

Meet a side of yourself… how?

An example of inner conflict. You can really feel it in half-full/empty situations.

The easiest way to meet a different side of yourself is to conflict with it. If they aren’t in conflict, it’s hard to see that there’s something there at all. Just think about your “optimistic side” and your “pessimistic side”. You might not be aware of the difference between these sides when the glass is empty or full. But just watch one or both of them come out when the glass hits the half-way point!

Just think: if you wanted to, you could have a talk with a side of yourself. You could debate with it. Have tea. Find out what makes it tick.

Working with sides of yourself enables you to change yourself. For instance, if you want to become a “better person”, whatever that means to you, one thing you could do is go directly to all the “bad” parts of you and debate with them, and find out why they act so darn badly! With that understanding, you can find a new direction and perhaps stop your previously bad behavior. Or maybe you discover it’s not so bad after all.

It’s called self-discovery for a reason: there will be surprises. But that’s ok – in fact, it’s pretty darn wonderful.

So, ready to meet ONE side of yourself, just to get started? Let’s do it!

Self-Discovery Activity: Meeting a Side of Yourself

What you’re going to do is lure out a side of yourself by coming up with something out of the ordinary – a difficult task, or some outrageous idea. You can bet SOMETHING inside yourself is going to get in your way. Ready?

1. Find something to write on – either a sheet of paper or a new document. (you can draw faces on paper!)
2. On the first line, write: “I want to _____”. Fill in the blank with something you either want to do and find difficult, or something you could NEVER imagine doing.
3. You may feel a response immediately inside your mind or body. On the second line, write down that response. If it’s just a feeling, write the feeling like this: *your feeling here*. You may have multiple, distinct responses. Write them all down, each in quotations.
4. On the third line, address ONE of your responses. Write, to this side of yourself, “Who are you?”
5. What does your mystery respondent write back? Write that on the fourth line.
6. Congrats, you’ve just found a part of yourself! Continue the conversation until you feel satisfied. Some good questions to ask: “Why do you have a problem with me doing that?”, “What’s important to you?”, and “What do you believe?” Try to find out why they act as they do.

You have now awakened a simple yet powerful new ability. It feels just like thinking and feeling, right? But now you can bring awareness to the parts of you creating those thoughts and feelings. You can see them more clearly. Now you can chill with them, fight with them, team up with them. Just sense the possibilities.

The first step to working with yourself is to see yourself. What are the parts of you, and when do they take action? And the easy thing about this method is you can start with what you want, consciously. Then see what else in you reacts to that desire. And then, from there, let the journey take you further than you imagined possible. Have fun with it!

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