Self-Knowledge in Chaotic Times
Sometimes I wonder why I write about self-knowledge while the world descends into political chaos. No greater time exists for being centered within oneself.
Those who attack and resort to violence, blame, yelling, labeling, and name-calling are those who lack self-knowledge. They don’t understand why they do what they do. They act out of blind fear and unconscious powerlessness — trying to achieve comfort by controlling others through manipulation and fear.
I grew up amid chaos — around parents and family who acted out on each other because it was the only way they knew to get their needs met.
Meanwhile, I had to learn to keep myself centered and calm — dissociated from my needs. I had to stay invisible so irrational adults wouldn’t further act out their inability to meet their own needs upon me.
It’s taken a lot of work to learn to be rationally calm, and to choose to stop my own irrational swinging between false calmness and anxious acting out.
When you have self-knowledge, it’s not that you have no fears or needs. But you’re aware of them. When you’re aware of your needs, you can meet them. When you’re aware of your own irrational impulses, you gain the ability to keep them in check. You gain real calm.
Self-knowledge gives you a choice: to remain rational and take care of yourself even while people around you lose their cool.
Seventy-two of one hundred.
