How to Identify And Clean Your Inner Dirt

As our outer self gets dirty due to the pollution in the environment, due to our body movement that produces sweat, or could be anything in the environment that happens to fall on our body. Similarly our inner gets dirty due to due to our experiences, our culture and overall society in general. The world is moving fast, with the advent of technology, social media and global trade — we have lost track of our own self development in terms of our character, morals and personal values. We have stopped asking the following crucial questions: " How am I as a person?", "What is my purpose of life?", "What impact have I created in the lives of others?", "How many lives have I touched?" The answer to all these questions begins with understanding one self. In this article we will explore understanding self from the model of Johari Window which identifies 4 windows for self exploration.

OPEN SELF

This is the first step in self exploration. You need to understand yourself from the perspective of others. First step is to write down what you know about yourself, both good and bad things on a piece of paper. Then speak with your work colleagues, old friends, mother, father, siblings and most importantly your wife. Compare your findings with the information from your loved ones. See if it reconciles.

BLIND SELF

The second step is to find the reasons for the differences in what you know about yourself and what others know about you. Explore, analyze and ponder upon your blind self. In my personal opinion, your mother and wife can give you a better perspective of your blind self. Quoting my personal experience here, I had a habit of writing about my personal highlights of the day since I was 15 years old. I had saved tons of paper on which I had written my weakness and things that I needed to improve. Once I got married and after a few months I had a discussion with my wife regarding myself, what kind of a persona I am, what are the weird things that I do and how can I improve. I was astonished by her observation — you can never know about yourself even if you have spent years finding your inner self.

HIDDEN SELF

The third window is the hidden self. For this self you need deep isolation and pondering. This is the information that you know about yourself but others don't know. These are the evil or good thoughts, intentions, ideas or plans that you have ever thought about or constantly think about. It may be either in your subconscious mind or in your conscious mind, the point here is to think, ponder and reflect. Understanding why they occur is also very important, it might be because of past experiences, or new experiences or might be due to some other reason. Once it is written it can be better analyzed.

UNKNOWN SELF

The last phase of self awareness is uncovering the unknown self. It is the phase where you analyze all the information that you have gathered from your conscious mind, from other close friends, relatives & family and from your subconscious mind. This is the phase where you have identified the good side of yourself and the bad side of yourself. At the end, after gathering all the data, it is time to CLEAN YOUR DIRT that you have identified and become a better version of yourself.

Use the Johari Window to change and become a better version of yourself, before it is too late. As time and tide waits for none ~ English Prover.