“I am not what happened to me; I am who I choose to become.” —Carl Jung

Knowledge and Reality

When was the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror? Did you like what you saw? Did you really know that person? We all wonder at times who we are and what is real. When we question ourselves, it can be unsettling because we are facing our own identity and reality—and we fear what we may see. Philosophers like Plato (360 B.C.E./1994) and psychologists such as Jung have posed these questions for centuries. They have observed we are good at deceiving ourselves but also always have a choice in how we respond to life's curve balls. Our choices have consequences for our physical and spiritual lives. Put another way, the better we know ourselves—i.e., strengths, weaknesses, biases, and blind spots—the more prepared we can be to face life's challenges. The principal benefits of self-knowledge gained from a spiritual journey focus on improving our relationships with ourselves, fellow human beings, and the divine reality of God (Foley, 2018).

Relationship With Self

In The Republic, Plato (360 B.C.E./1994) uses a fire cave analogy to describe the fleeting nature of reality. Humans, who have spent their lives shackled and studying shadows cast by the fire of truth behind them, believe the fluttering shadows projected on the wall before them are their reality, the objective truth. After all, it's all they've ever known. Once released from their bonds, their eyes burn from staring at the bright flames of truth, not truly convinced but still fearful. Likewise, we tend to believe what we want to about ourselves and others, convinced of our version of the truth—sometimes to everyone's detriment.

Similar to glances at the fire of truth, transformative experiences known as dark nights can lead us to spiritual growth, freedom, and interior peace. A major fruit of such self-knowledge is humility, a sense that we fall short of our ideals and can sometimes project those weaknesses onto others. When we are humble in relationships, we become less judgmental of ourselves, aware of our faults, and of our partners. We can be more honest with ourselves and others. In short, being consciously humble helps improve relationships in many aspects of our lives (Foley, 2018).

Relationship With Others

Knowledge of self can help us identify strengths and weaknesses we did not know we had, identifying potential blind spots in our psyches. Acknowledging these areas and admitting we cannot travel along life's path alone is essential before seeking professional help for mental health issues such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Indeed, becoming aware of trust issues in one’s past can mitigate inaccurate self-narratives and cognitive cycles that harm relationships later in life (Didonna, 2020). For example, it took several years for me to comprehend that my compulsion to brief my wife on every quotidian detail did not ensure communication was flourishing in our marriage. To the contrary, I was unknowingly short-circuiting our trust and muffling her voice because I was blindly focused on assuaging my fears instead of listening to her.

Relationship With God

Self-knowledge can also assist in our relationship with God. Regardless of the version of the divine in which different people believe, when we become aware of our shortcomings, we realize how much we depend on the divine and others (Foley, 2018). We are not alone, nor can we negotiate life alone. We learn about ourselves only to realize how little we know, humbly accepting the help of others and God. The truth—the reality—in which we believed has been shattered and we can seek assistance to transform our reality. It is in such moments that we can find ourselves not only in intimate dialogue with ourselves but with God. This experience is called prayer (Allen, 2018).

Action Plans

My wife and I found such knowledge informative when we designed action plans to confront and live our lives despite OCD (Culkin & Culkin, 2021). One way to think about these approaches is how they can assist our relationships with ourselves, our neighbors, and God. Together we explored ways to strengthen our marital bond while respecting each other's preferences. While this can be a difficult task, it leads to the worthwhile end state of trustful communication. Some of the ways we have built mindfulness and self-knowledge in our relationship could, perhaps, help you:

• Walking together and sharing our work experiences.
• Taking a yoga class together—and laughing about it.
• Going on short trips targeting a theme such as food, museums, a national park, concert, etc.
• Going on retreats together and separately.
• Participating in heritage or fraternal organizations to socialize with people other than your partner.
• Picking up a hobby that really motivates you that you can share with your partner. For me, it's painting.
• Playing low-tech games together on a regular basis.
• Cooking together according to particular themes.

These activities commonly reinforced our communication and shared joy of life. In the final analysis, it matters how we choose to spend our time with ourselves, others, and God. What are the consequences of your choices?

Conclusion

We've examined some benefits of self-knowledge in terms of developing our relationships with self, others, and God. The actions suggested are just a few that may assist you in developing those relationships. How are you going to improve your relationships?