My Brain's Not Broken

Getting to know ourselves is a lifelong journey – full of twists, turns, surprises and disappointments. What doesn’t matter to us one year could be monumentally important the next, and so on and so forth throughout our lives. I used to think that learning new things about myself was more cinematic. Time would slow down, and my moment of clarity would spring forward. But as with many things in life, perception and reality don’t always link up. We don’t always choose to learn new things about ourselves, and dealing with that can be tricky.

My therapist told me something this year that’s come to fruition time and time again. She said that once you recognize something about yourself that you’d like to improve, you’ll start to notice ample chances to act on it. For instance, as someone with anxiety, speaking up for myself can sometimes be a challenge. Once I figured out why it was such a challenge, I started to notice more chances for me to improve in the ways I speak up for myself.

Therapy is a very good opportunity to have ‘Aha’ moments to reflect on what we learn about ourselves. It’s one of the best places for me to sit and reflect. But most of the time, I have these moments when I’m busy with something or someone, and I’ll have those moments. And those can be difficult to navigate.

We don’t get to choose when we learn certain things about ourselves. Oftentimes, life circumstances and situations will teach us things about ourselves we might not have ever known or understood. Figuring these things out can feel awkward or even uncomfortable when you learn something about yourself you don’t necessarily love. But we still have agency in these moments and even though it’s easy to forget, remembering this makes a difference.

It’s not always convenient to engage with these feelings, but finding the right time and place to sit with this knowledge can do a world of difference. I used to think that every little thing I thought needed to be dealt with immediately. It took a long time, but I’m slowly understanding that doesn’t need to be the case.

So I’m going to continue looking for these opportunities for growth, and try to sit with them when they arise. But I can’t forget that getting to know myself is a lifelong journey, and there will be so many of these moments and opportunities. Whether we know it or not change is constantly happening, and it’s up to us to acknowledge it and learn from it.

This post is all about learning new things about ourselves, so I’ll turn it over to you. What is something new you recently learned about yourself? Let me know in the comments!