Look inside to wake up. Rediscover yourself to meet again and heal. In a world full of incessant noise, uncertainty and moments of chaos, it is necessary to start a journey within oneself to regain strength.
Written and verified by the psychologist GetPersonalGrowth.
Last update: 15 November 2021
Sometimes to better understand what surrounds us we need a moment, a moment of calm to listen to our inner voice. Close your eyes and pause the world to take a journey through thoughts, emotions, needs and values. Too often, we focus on what's on the outside. Maybe it's time to go back, to go back to yourself.
We often come across studies, books and articles that explain the importance of social relationships to be happy. Having solid friendships, a partner who makes you happy, and a family that appreciates and loves us edifies us as people, it's true. However, there are those who, despite having all this and more, suffer from depression. Because?
What is missing in these cases is inner harmony, feeling good about yourself. You have to create a bond with your inner self through which to convey self-esteem, self-confidence, managing emotions, and thus achieve complete acceptance of one's person. Otherwise, there will be no welfare. Nor will the people around us matter.
How to listen to our inner voice
Goethe said that our reality is organized so well that each of us, in our place and in our time, is in balance and in harmony with everything else. It might be true as long as you are psychologically well. However, when one's ego is fragmented and weak, no one can feel in tune with their surroundings.
The question arises: what are we referring to when we talk about the "inner voice" and the importance of the "inner connection"? These concepts are usually explored by fields such as spirituality. From a psychological point of view, we refer specifically and exclusively to the mind.
This dimension is everything and it is our authentic Self that shapes it. In that mental space our conscience, thoughts, memory, imagination, emotions, personality, fears, needs are enclosed.
The mind is more than just a creation of the brain, as Hippocrates stated 2500 years ago. All that we are is in our mind. For this reason, we must never forget what happens inside it.
As Scott Barry Kaufman, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania and author of numerous books on human intelligence, says, creativity is our potential. Mental life doesn't just happen in our brains, but it also manifests itself in relation to our body, therefore based on how we feel physically and how we relate to others.
If we neglect it, if we don't cultivate our inner connection, there won't be that absolute harmony that Goethe talks about. Here are some tricks to achieve it.
Identifying feelings and emotions, the first step towards inner connection
As the famous neuroscientist Antonio Damasio tells us, emotions come from the body and feelings come from the mind.When we come into contact with our inner self, we must detect all those realities that concern us in the present moment.
Take a moment to understand how your body feels. Do you feel pressure on your stomach, your heart beats faster, does your jaw or neck hurt?
Emotions activate physical responses which then travel to the mind to define feelings. Maybe that stomach ache is the product of fear, anxiety, frustration… Try to identify these dimensions and accept them, giving them a name.
Does the inner voice help us or does it poison us?
To hear our inner voice, we need to close our eyes and hear what our thoughts have to say. And above all, our inner dialogue.
Sometimes that voice makes us suffer, poisons us, filling us with fears and insecurities. Despite this, we must take care of his speeches, his statements, his obsessions. If you find him acting like your worst enemy, you'll have to clean up that dialogue.
I accept myself, I deserve the calm, I deserve to be fine
Absolute acceptance of who we are and have mitigates a large number of inconveniences. Nothing is as comforting as the right amount of self-esteem, letting compassion, forgiveness, self-recognition flow. All of these dimensions heal and remind us that we have a right to be well.
Creativity: towards inner connection
Boris Cyrulnik, neurologist, psychiatrist and author of numerous books on the psychology of resilience, has published a new work in which he talks about the importance of creativity in promoting inner connection and overcoming trauma.
For this expert, in difficult times, nothing is so cathartic and necessary to deepen oneself and free what is in one's being like literature, poetry, art, music… Any activity that connects the mind to a task that allows us to create something has the power to metamorphose pain, release it and, in turn, reconnect us with ourselves to heal.
In this way, we will be able to join the broken pieces and become stronger people, free and ready to be happy. Let's always remember that.
“Life is madness, isn't it? So it's exciting. Imagine being a balanced person with a peaceful life: there would be no events, crises, traumas to overcome, only routine, nothing to remember; you wouldn't even be able to find out who you are. If there are no events, there is no history, there is no identity. Human beings are exciting because their life is madness. "
-Boris Cyrulnik-
