“THIS ABOVE ALL: TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE.” ~Shakespeare
introspection
in-truh-spek-shuhn
noun
-
: an examination of one’s own thoughts or feelings
Synonyms: soul-searching, self-examination
Anyone who seeks truth by looking inward is an “Introspectionist.”
But what’s the purpose of being an introspectionist?
Typically, we find that we gain self-knowledge and self-awareness when we examine our thoughts and feelings – whether we do it by writing in a journal, meditation, prayer, or perhaps a conversation with ourselves while we are driving in our car. Self-reflection often helps us better understand ourselves, our nature, and our relationships with others and gives rise to small, positive changes within us.
When you see inwardly, everything becomes more peaceful. ~Paramaguru Sharath Jois
We all may think we know ourselves quite well. Until, maybe we are tested or put under pressure, and subsequently take an action that is surprising or out of character. We also may know that we do things a certain way, but perhaps never before questioned WHY we do these things a certain way. Maybe we have habits we would like to change or behaviors that keep getting in the way of having healthy or happy relationships.
It’s also true that what we think of ourselves is not how we are in reality or how others perceive us.
And … we also may not be honest with ourselves about who we are because we have the misconception that we are supposed to be perfect instead of recognizing that it is impossible to be perfect. While it may not be possible to be perfect, it is possible to understand our imperfections and work around them so we can live more harmoniously.
When we self-reflect, we often do it wrong. We may think negatively about our weaknesses and punish ourselves or be over-critical of ourselves. This is not good introspection … the point is not to make ourselves feel bad for not being the person we wish to be, but to better understand ourselves so we can reach our full potential. We can’t beat ourselves up over mistakes or poor choices; we can only be grateful that we now know what they are so we can learn from them. It is important to foster a certain level of positive thinking when being introspective. In other words, be kind to YOU!
About the Author:
My birth certificate says my name is Jami. Nice to meet you. And THANK YOU for being here – on my blog and planet Earth.
Please enjoy reading my musings on my struggles and strife through life, love, travel, and yoga.
Hi Jami. I’m enjoying your blog! Let me know if there’s a way to follow via wordpress or e-mail updates… I hope you’re enjoying the class at Creative Nonfiction.
Elizabeth
Thanks, Elizabeth! I added a little orange feed button at the top right, so you can subscribe there by clicking on that and picking the way you’d like to subscribe 🙂
I get the morphing faces too and like you seemed to start when I started to sleep less well, and always appear during the twilight of sleep.
The faces are monochrome but slightly orangy, bearly visible on an almost black background.
Only the face is seen, no hair, clothing or anything else, only the flesh of the face.
Like you the faces morph ever 2 or 3 seconds and change from happy to sad, or a serious face like one that looked like the complexion of a typical male red indian chief with a stern look with eyes that had seen much to concern him in life.
I have never seen female faces only male although some are gargoil looking. None of the faces are familiar and I never see landscapes. I have latterly with perseverance been able to force the face to smile or grimace at will but that ability seems difficult to maintain as it tends to want to keep morphing, so any effect I can have on the face’s expression lasts no more than a second.
I don’t believe in a Biblical god, ghosts or any other metaphysical phenomenon, being a scientific rationalist. Therefore I view the performance as a bleed through of processing from the subconscious.
A while back I read and article on the understanding of what makes a face attractive and it said we find beauty in faces that have 2 characteristics: 1) Symmetry about a vertical line down through the nose such that the more a face is symmetrical the more beautiful it is perceived to be: 2) If the face looks like an averaged face of the wider culture one lives in.
The artical said that we take snap shots of every face we see (one for males and one for females) from the time we were an infant and our brain continuously averages them creating the averaged male and averaged female face.
An analogy was given that if digitally you averaged 1000 male faces, most of the individual faces will be non-symmetrical: left eye higher in one person, the right in another, yet another will have a higher left ear another the right will be higher. But once averaged in morphing software the result would not just be a symetrical face but the more faces are averaged over time the more symmetrical our internal templates of beauty will be.
In addition to symmetry the resultant averaged face will be the average of say our culture. So, if you are Japanese and live in a Japanese culture having had no influence of other cultures and never had TV then your template of beauty of both males and females will be a Japanese face. The same applies with any culture.
A scientific rationale was given for why the brain did this. It said it has been found that people seen as beautiful (displaying facial symmetry and having an average face of their tribe or race) have a stronger immune system. Thus finding a partner with looks close to our internal template of beauty the better survival chances our children will have. Hence our desire to get the most attractive mate we can.
Although with today’s medical advances our nation’s health service looks after our longevity and hence why many young people today can overule this tendency to look for beauty even when its available to us and prioratise intellectual compatability instead.
Whether this averaging process the brain does and the area it does it in is some how bleeding into our conscious state when we start dropping off remains to be found out. But I believe the answer lies in neuroscience not metsphysics.
Thank you for this thoughtful reply! Glad to know I am not alone in seeing faces before I fall asleep at night, haha. And yes, I agree completely – neuroscience will help us understand what is happening here. I feel the world gets freakier and freakier though – we are starting to understand weird phenomena through science and technology like these fascinating new photos of the Universe.