Useful habits for self-correction

In my quest to get rid of all echo chambers affecting me, both internal and external, I've discovered some habits which have been immensely helpful. They all have to do with bringing the things that don't get too much attention in ourselves to the foreground. It's about bringing to light parts of ourselves that are there but that we don't acknowledge, for whatever reason.

Maybe these are parts which we don't like about ourselves and which we actively suppress, to the point it's become an automatic behaviour. Maybe we keep ourselves ignorant to these parts because the ignorance benefits us in some way, or maybe they are parts that were hurt in the past and hurt too much to actively bring to light. Maybe it's just a faulty idea that's been unexamined, or anything else. Who can say what's hidden in you waiting to be discovered.

The problem with the hidden parts of ourselves is that we don't see them, but they still influence our lifes without our knowledge. Often, we can only see their effects, but not their causes. Like wind blowing through the trees, you only see the leaves moving, not the wind itself.

Don't underestimate how much the unconscious rules our lifes. It may seem like our consciousness is big and wide, but there's still so much we can miss if we're not careful. Consciousness is a pretty scarce resource, and mechanisms can be created in your mind to actively keep things away from your view, even by yourself.

What can we do? I'm not looking to scare you of big scary monsters lurking in your own mind, I often look at discovering hidden parts of myself like a treasure hunt, like finding treasures and digging them up, that's how it feels for me. To bring the unconscious into consciousness, we need to look at the effects of our hidden parts, and question these behaviours to find out what their origins are. Like looking at moving leaves to find out how wind works.

We don't necessarily know what behaviours of ours are caused by hidden parts, so we need to do a sweep, find patterns, do a little exploration. Often, thoughts that go on inside of our heads do give indications of our concealed parts, but we are quick to dismiss them as thoughts are very transient.

We need a way to make our transient thoughts more concrete, so that they can be examined more closely. The problem is that our thoughts go everywhere, and that mechanisms might be in place to actively surpress certain thoughts. This brings us to our first habit: Morning Pages.

What are Morning Pages? Essentially, it's writing three pages of text, or about 750 words, first thing in the morning after you wake up. Either with pen and paper or on the computer, whatever way you prefer. What do you write about? You write down everything that comes to mind, without censorship. The words are a stream of thought. Just literally everything you think about at that moment, you write it down.

What do you do with them? Nothing really, you don't have to ever read them anymore, if you want. You don't even have to keep them after you wrote them. They work by you writing them, and the most important thing is that they remain completely private. Nobody else should read them, ever. They are completely private, and that's why they work their magic. You can write about anything you think of, no matter what it is, because nobody else will ever see them anyway.

Because you write them first thing in the morning, the mechanisms in your mind that suppress certain thoughts are not awake yet, allowing you to write more freely. I'm not sure why this is the case, but I've noticed it for myself. You will suddenly bring into awareness things you've never had in your awareness before, and you can begin to examine them and see how they influence your life, and take appropriate action if needed. Trying to resolve them somehow, or maybe make a compromise.

These completely changed me in the time I've been using them. They are the absolute cornerstone of my habits and lifestyle now, no doubt. We complain on the Morning Pages, and when we've complained for enough days and get bored of complaining, we start making plans to change it. Writing it down throws us out of loops and keeps us straight, just so we don't have to write any more about it. We get irritated of our own complaining.

It's like exploring the terrain of our minds and mapping it, eager to discover more of the landscape and everything in it. Highly recommended. Keep them every day and always write all the words or pages, even if you have nothing to write about. They will truly change you. It costs about 15 minutes every day, but that's completely worth it for the freedom. Don't expect immediate changes, discoveries often happen sporadically, so be patient when you begin.

The Morning Pages come from the book "The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity" by Julia Cameron. Originally a book to help artists suffering with problems in their creativity, the habit is also a beautiful tool for self correction in general. I can highly recommend the book, even if you're not an artist at all. This was also the case for me.

Another great habit is meditation. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but it did help me quite a lot. Consistenly practicing sitting down and keeping your focus while thoughts are trying to distract you keeps you centered, and this center is very useful when wanting to look at certain behaviour in yourself throughout your day-to-day life. You get better at spotting them in yourself and in others while they happen. I personally use a mantra, but you can probably use other methods as well, as long as you try focusing on something. I do it every morning and evening, for about 15 minutes each.

I have no idea how it works, but a side effect of meditation was that it made me seek out nature and the natural world more, just by itself, over a course of about half a year. I didn't really intend on doing those things, it just happened. Meditation leads to some very slow, very gentle changes. I can definitely recommend it.

These have been the most important habits for keeping myself alligned. If you have anything you'd like to share as well, please let me know in the comments. Time to find some hidden treasures!