How Well Do You Know Yourself?

This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them. We're fixing you. And that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. Hey there, I'm your host, Dr. Zoe, and I'm so glad you're here today. Today our topic is how well do you know yourself? But first up, my win and my fail. For my win this week, I wanted to acknowledge and thank those who have left reviews for my podcast. So the most recent one was, uh, I believe this is Dr. Debbie. Thank you, Dr. Debbie, for leaving a podcast review. She said, I had the privilege of being a guest on Stronger in Difficult Places podcast. Dr. Zoe is an excellent interviewer. Her insights and expertise offer listeners relevant tools to improve their relations with themselves and others. Thank you. And then this one was from Stasiewicz. She said, love Dr. Zoe. I really enjoy listening to this because Dr. Zoe is very real. She has a lot of knowledge on how to learn from and reflect on your relationship and choices. She's positive and concise. Thank you for your advice and stories. So thank you for those recent reviews, and I'd like to encourage you, if you get something from this podcast, if you enjoy listening to it, please rate and review. It helps other people find my show. So there's my win. My fail is that my summer is getting away from me, and I have a couple summer projects that have just not gotten done. I'm sitting in my she shed looking out at my backyard, and there's this project. It's That I've been wanting to get these beautiful rocks for, but I needed to put down some certain plants that I wanted to do. Long story, I bought the plants, they've been sitting there for months now. It was supposed to be my summer project, and I'm just not sure. It's a fail, but the reality is, you know what, there's some other things going on and it's not priority, and sometimes you just have to shift. My guess is it's going to get done. I don't know when. I keep watering the plants, so they're doing well. They're just sitting in their pots that I bought them in. You guys are probably gonna hear me talking about taking my son to college for the next 4 weeks because of course that's what's looming on the— in the back, the front, all parts of my brain. And that's where I am right now. I'm deep in getting ready for college, making all of the appointments that we need to make, the dental, the orthodontist, the eye appointments, the doctor checkups, the vaccinations, all the things, making sure we're getting on top of everything before he takes off. And that right now is taking priority for me. And that's a good thing. Grieving will come. And that is also a good thing. So on to the topic. How well do you know yourself? Anne Morrow Lindenbergh said, when one is a stranger to oneself, then one is estranged from others too. I love that. I love that because I feel like it sums up everything that I do in terms of my work, is recognizing that you have to first work on yourself, right? You know, you may spend significant time investing in knowing the other people that you're in relationship with. You might know that your daughter likes the cheese next to the bread but on top of the lettuce in her sandwiches. Yes, that's my daughter. You might know that your son likes the fan in his room on at night but not during the day. You might know that your husband gets worried when he hasn't communicated with his elderly mother in 24 hours. You might know that your best friend sleeps in on Sundays, and so you never call her before 10. You might know that your sister's biggest dream is to leave corporate and own a small farm one day, and so you contribute a small donation to her savings in order to support her and be a part of her journey. You might even know that your dog prefers the firm dog bed with the high sides, not the fluffier one without the sides. You know your people well, and yet how much time do you spend getting to know yourself? You know, I think often the assumption is that if you spend enough time with someone, that you'll get to know them. And that you would know them well. But the truth is that you can spend a lifetime in the same home with someone and never really know them at all. And the same goes for you. You can spend a lifetime in your skin and never get to know yourself. I see this time and time again in my practice. And that's one of the reasons why therapy has been so life-changing for me, because I have Set out quite a long time ago on a journey to know myself. And it is journey because, you know, we're always constantly relearning and getting to know people we're in relationship with because we grow and we change and we have to relearn people. We have to understand where they are right now in this point of their life. Knowing someone comes down to a combination of time and intention, not how much time you spend with someone, but time and intention. It's about being curious and caring enough to want to know what's going on with someone. Wanting to see the world through their lens and asking the right questions, having interest, and also a little bit of faith in the process of getting to know someone. I talk a lot on this podcast about relationships. We know that, right? And of course, we know my focus is on how you show up in relationships because you're the only one you can control. If there's a breakdown in your relationship, it's easy to point the finger and try to figure out why your partner is wrong and what he needs to do to change. But if you do the hard work instead of pointing the finger back to yourself, you have the ability to create the biggest impact. So when I say point the finger back at you, it's not to say that all things are your fault. Of course they're not. But it's rather to recognize what you need to change because you're part of this system. So whether it's needing to increase boundaries or increase empathy, there's always something you can do. But you can only do this if you know yourself well. So in today's podcast, I'm going to encourage you to invest in knowing yourself better. I'm going to be asking you a lot of questions. Think about this: anything you know about someone was the result of a question asked, even if it was a question about something completely unrelated. I'm sure you can think of the exceptions to that rule, but let's just go with this. On a first date, you might ask somebody about when they were born, and the next thing you know, they're sharing about their zodiac sign, about what point They came along in their parents' lives, their siblings, their siblings' ages, and you might even learn that he has an ex who now hunts manatees in Brazil. I have no clue why I said that, or if they're endangered, and that might not even be a thing. But all of that can be gleaned from just that simple question of, when were you born? So as we move along today, and this is gonna be a quick episode, you might easily know the answers to many of the questions that I ask, but if there's only one that you have to dig a little deeper, that gives you a little bit of pause before you answer it, then it's worth the time invested in this podcast today because that's you getting to know yourself. When you commit to being curious about yourself, you will learn things that you haven't even considered, especially because something humans often do is avoid anything that's painful. And so sometimes we don't want to ask ourselves these questions, sometimes we don't want to think about it because it hurts. But we're going to go ahead and we're going to release our fear story today about who we're supposed to be. And I want you to focus on who you are today. Yes, you're growing. Yes, you'll be different tomorrow. But who you are today. So here we go. You can find the link to the questions I'm getting ready to ask in the show notes. So you don't need to write them down. Just be present with these questions. The first set of questions is actually a quiz about how well you know yourself. The second set are prompts for self-exploration. You'll have access to them, so don't worry about it. So first, answer yes or no to these first questions. Do you know your greatest flaw? Can you easily name your greatest trait, your greatest positive thing? Do you contemplate your dreams? Like, if you have them and you remember them, do you spend a lot of time contemplating them? Do you get embarrassed easily? Do you find it difficult to pick a movie to watch when you are alone? Do you often find yourself feeling upset and you don't know why? Do you have a clear plan for your life in 5 years? Okay, so I hope that you took a second and quickly answered those questions for yourself. Like I said, it's a quiz. If you answered no to 2 or more, then you could get to know yourself a little better. Now I'm going to ask you 4 questions, and these are questions I just want you to consider. These are not yes or no. Answer them honestly. This is between you and yourself, and there's no need to write them down. And a link to these are also going to be in the show notes. And your job, my friend, is to start being more comfortable with her. So question number 1: What do you lie about? What feeling does the idea of 3 days alone with yourself create in you? Who do you envy and why? Do you feel comfortable being angry at God? Number 5, how do you feel about going to a restaurant by yourself? Number 6, what area of your life feels out of control? And number 7, in what area of your life do you feel completely in control, and why? Number 8, whose opinion do you rely on the most? I hope these questions have prodded you to get to know yourself a little bit more, to be a little more curious about who you are and why you are. Christopher Alexander said, it's hard, so terribly hard to please yourself. Far from being the easy thing that it sounds like, it's almost the hardest thing in the world because we are not always comfortable with that true self that lies deep within us. I think those are such true words. You know, it's hard not to develop empathy for someone once you get to know them. And although it may be scary, facing the demons, facing the scary things, being honest with yourself about who you are is so very freeing. For 2 reasons. You realize that, that lifting a burden of secrecy, even to yourself, about who you are makes your life lighter. And then also, once you've done that, then you can look at yourself honestly and think, okay, so what parts do I want to keep? What parts do I want to grow? But you can only do that if you're willing to admit who you are right now. So congratulations for taking a moment to be curious about yourself. Commit to knowing yourself as well as you do all those other people that you love and care about. You've got this. Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. New episodes go out on Tuesdays. Hey, subscribe and leave a review to help others find this podcast. Feel free to reach out if you need any help and get on my email list so you can see what I'm up to, check out the books I'm reading, and get some encouragement from me. Have a strong week.