12 Tips to deepen self-discovery

No matter who you work with as a guide, mentor or coach, no matter which courses you take or books you read that impact self-awareness, ultimately you are on a journey of self-discovery and progress at your own pace. Ponder these ten tips to deepen self-discovery with little or no money:

1) Look beyond traditional education.  Whatever it is you think you wish to learn or do, be aware many ways exist to obtain some insight for free.  Explore newsgroups, meet-ups, instructional Youtube videos.  Interview people, attend public lectures by those who have done it. The avenues are endless.

2) Nurture a creative art.  This is a way to unleash what cannot be said in words.  This is not about expressing it to an audience or gaining approval.  Its about translating inner knowing, revealing things and growing to trust yourself. Pottery, weaving, painting, design, dancing, knitting, or any combo of creative activities.  Whatever gets the juices flowing. Do it. 

3) Go on a group excursion in nature.  This could be anything from a bus trip and picnic lunch in a local park to a hike, extended canoe trip, mountain climbing or more rigorous trekking. Join a regular birdwatching group or walking group. Stillness speaks.  Interaction with new people can be suprising.

4) Research the mystical. This could include things like reading, watching films, going to an ashram, exploring meaning in night dreams, or taking up a spiritual internship with a mystic or shaman. Whatever it entails, ponder what enlightenment is and what it is to live life more fully.

5) Travel.  Put yourself in situations where you need to act on your feet. You could volunteer for an organisation, find a job abroad, be a live-in nanny, hitchhike or take your motorbike through new territory.  Whatever you choose, experiencing a different culture, learning a language, or fending for yourself in a foreign place allows you to see life from new vantage points.

6) Change your job or career.  Step outside the familliar.  Check out want-ads.  Try out for community theatre. Identify transferrable skills, new priorities or an inner longing to do whatever you have been postponing.  Now is the moment.

7) Face a fear. Whether its public speaking, sky diving, being more assertive or expressing yourself with more honesty to people in your life, take steps to show yourself that fear is an illusion that begins and ends in the mind.

8) Be entrepreneurial. You could start your own business, offer to be an apprentice or intern to test the waters or simply be more pro-active in different ways in your life.  Consider Jon Bon Jovi who started a restaurant where you give back in time or effort to the place rather than pay for the meal.  Imagine the possibilities.  A limit only exists when you believe in it.

9) Take a break. Take a year off from what you regularly do or had planned to do. This could be a gap year from school, a sabbatical from paid work, time to yourself away from relationships, a multi-month hiking trip, or maybe you join a crew on a ship sailing to a foreign desination. See what unfolds as you trust the universe.  Realize everything comes together.

10) Write.  Be it a diary, journal, blog, newspaper editorials, an email newsletter, contribute posts to a Facebook or other community group.  Discover what the power of words reveals.

11) Meditate.  Explore different meditation practices and listen to the wisdom of silence more often.  This is the way to rediscover what true listening is.  Its a practice humans tend to be conditioned away from.

12) Be an 'initiate'. This hard-to-define term implies a person who, through intense inner work, achieves enlightenment, illumination, and selflessness to work wholly out of the spiritual world for the sake of the world and humanity.

Savor the meanings of 'trial & error'

Infinite ways to learn exist.  Human beings adapt to learn through 'trial and error.'  This is finding the courage within yourself to take risks and choose what is worth retaining from each experience.  It is all part of a positive process that awakens your awareness.

At a given moment, you do not realize the depth of the many choices you make.  Down to the cellular level, conscious and unconscious parts of you are learning all the time.  Your blood flows as it will.  Physical and non-physical sides of you learn, regenerate and grow.

This is mind, it is useful to recognize that perceived mistakes are valuable as any other experience.   Sense value in things you would not choose to do the same way again.  You collect insights, even at every crossroads.  It is the way you evolve to piece them together that gives you a clearer sense of who you are and what you believe you know.

It is said a spiritual person makes 30-50 mistakes each day and communicates with Higher Forces in some form to reflect on how to perceive and respond next time. Toltecs would view this as the way of the Warrior.   Mindsets flow in your veins.  You think and learn by focusing on what hooks your attention. You choose what to learn or, what to disregard.

How you view education may be traditional or alternative.  You always have repeated chances to decide what you wish to be, do and have next.  Self-directed learning may seem like a conscious choice, but its also unseen.  Your awareness changes as you learn.

What can you learn from a child?

Adults are often conditioned to assume that they need to teach the impressionable minds of children lest they be permitted to wander.  But, wait a minute! How often have you, as an adult, asked yourself what you can learn from a child? Its never to late to learn:

1) children instinctively know how to be happy in the moment for no reason

2) children dream with no limits

3) children find meaning in choosing to be busy

4) children find it easy to nurture unwavering faith in what they do not see

5) children realize sometimes its necessary to struggle in order to learn

6) children sense value in honesty and are apt to say what they mean

7) children find ways to make sense of what is happening but do not strive to explain it

Why is control an illusion?

Whether or not you realize or accept it, you exert no control over what is happening outside yourself.  You have free will and exert control when it comes to your thoughts and feelings, but you don't control anything else.  You are only responsible for you.

Now, if you gaze into a kaleidoscope, you glimpse interacting shapes and colors.  This serves as a fabulous analogy.  Every moment, every human being is contributing to changing shapes and slants inside this kaleidoscope.  Life moves through us and with us. 

Imagine your life as a series of experiences.  You add pieces to your own section of the huge kaleidoscope.  It includes sections contributed by every other creature and living thing.  How could you control all those colors, feelings and experiences?  You don't. The assumption you can is the illusion you create out of a desire to control what you can't.

You are the only person who can discern and change your behaviour.  Do you ever sense your choices are selfish or self-centred?  Do you ever take steps to fight your own resistence?  Pay attention to your vibes.  Listen to your mind.  Choose to avoid conflict, arguments and negative energy.  They are unnecesary illusions.  Why not let them go?

Re-awaken your inner child

Dreams live within us, but sometimes we forget what they are. To awaken or re-awaken your inner child is to give yourself back the freedom to explore the things that mean the most to you.  When was the last time you created an environment to just be you?

You may say, "adults do adult things." But, what does this mean? Are you often serious and focused? Do you allow yourself to smile? Do you hear echos of laughter that bubble up from within yourself? When did you last give your facial muscles a work-out?

Tapping into your inner self involves opening up to let feelings flow. In order to realize how you truly feel toward life situations, you need to experience them with your body and soul.  Dreams appear compatible with how you perceive yourself from inside. 

If you don't know your inner child, that innocent, loving part of you that is untainted by external influences, its less likely you'll uncover what truly means the most.  The reassuring thing is that anyone can become reaquainted with who they really are.