When the world started closing down around us, it left us with emotions, experiences and futures we were completely unfamiliar with. Many people decided to take a brave step: amidst all the uncertainty, many of us chose to #focus in on ourselves and look at ourselves honestly, taking the time to #reflect, regroup and restructure our self-understanding and our journeys.

The Sanskrit term #Svadyaya comes from ‘sva’, own, self, soul; and ‘dhyaya’ derived from dhyai, meaning contemplate, recollect. This concept of self-study encompasses both the #Self—the ego, and the Self—our divine truth. By observing and listening to both, we can learn about the things we do that harm us, and the things we do that bring us closer to the divine.

As Sutra 11.44 tell us: “Study thy Self, discover the divine.”

This process is in no way an easy one. Learning from oneself requires #attention and #mindfulness on a whole new level, awareness and observation of our actions and thoughts, and the willingness to question them. 

It’s this act of challenging ourselves that can bring to light our hidden shadows, those parts of ourselves we push to the side, but that nonetheless play a central role in our interactions with the world.

Questioning ourselves can be intimidating, not to say terrifying. But it’s when we start understanding the answers that a whole new question arises: 

“What now?

I’ve brought some of my darkness into the light. I can see more of myself now. What do I do with this new understanding?”

Our gut reaction might be to panic and try and shove it back down. Our more mindful response might be to try and work on accepting it without judgement. Our wisest Self-reaction should be to give ourselves the tools to heal and channel it.

With self-love, self-compassion, and self-awareness, we can see where, how and why a Shadow element was born. We can start re-interpreting the triggers and re-calibrating our reactions. We can observe ourselves slipping back into it and take action to channel our emotions else-where. 

Self-knowledge is our power to self-improve.