Getting To Know Me

I had this vague notion, as a kid, that I'd reach an age at which I knew exactly who I was.  I even thought, as an adult, that I had reached that mystical point.  But the fact is, I don't think we ever know ourselves, completely.  Not because we don't grow more aware of ourselves and more understanding of how we think and feel as we get older, but because we never really stop growing and evolving.  We can never know all there is to know about ourselves, because each new experience has the power to teach us something that sparks a change in us.  And sometimes, we discover something new about ourselves that we never even realised existed.

As my sister put it, rather beautifully, a few days ago: "When you're most open to the universe, the universe has the most to give."

I think that's absolutely true.  And I think the more open we are to the world around us, the more open we are to learning new things about ourselves.

In the last twelve months, I feel like I've learned an awful lot about myself.  I've learned things about myself that came as a massive shock, at first.  Things that confused and even scared me.  Things that I now see as simply new parts of myself that I want to get to know better.

I no longer look at things from the perspective of "some day I will know myself completely."  Instead, I tell myself that I know who I am right now, in this moment.  And I know that whatever else I discover about myself as I go through life, I will either embrace it or work on changing it (if it's a negative trait).

But, as my sister so rightly said, to know ourselves and to learn more about ourselves, we have to be open.  That doesn't simply mean that we're looking inwards.  We have to look outwards to truly be open to everything the world has to offer.  New experiences, new places to visit, new people to get to know...  Everywhere we go, everything we do, everyone we do those things with is capable of teaching us something, not only about life and the world around us, but about ourselves.  And only by being open to new things - perhaps things we never even considered, before - will we make those discoveries.

This is only a short blog, because I'm still not done cooking, yet.  I've got a lot more to learn about myself and my place in the world and that's fine.  I'm going to have fun finding it all out.  What I really want to say to anyone reading this, is just be open.  Do the thing that scares you.  Feel the emotion that confuses you.  Push yourself a little further out of your comfort zone and see what happens.  

I look forward to getting to know you, just as soon as I've gotten to know myself.