4 ways to understand yourself for love to thrive

I am passionate about personal development, awareness and growth. As a result I have been on my own personal development journey for many years. I have read many self-help books, pursued academic, professional and leadership courses in pursuit of knowledge and wisdom.

I have recognised the importance of understanding who I am, acknowledging my strengths and working on my weaknesses.

As we come to the end of the year, I would like to share some insights that will transform your life because they revolutionised mine. It is my desire that as you use the remaining days of the year to reflect, meditate and refocus that you will find this helpful.

Developing an ability to tune into your feelings and recognising your emotions is very powerful. It helps you grow and become better adjusted.

It is said awareness is the heartbeat of therapy and therefore, learning to be self-aware of both your positive and negative emotions is important, like consciously taking an aerial view of yourself. It is about becoming sensitive to how you feel and react, notice your mood pattern particularly if you suffer frequent mood swings.

One may experience irregular mood shifts from elation to extreme sadness. Sometimes mood swings are reactions to circumstances. The reactions could be mild or extreme, seeming inappropriate and not proportional with the events and circumstances.

There could be no apparent reason for the varying mood swings. It is worth noting that extreme mood swings could be hormone driven and may require medical attention.

Be sensitive to the emotions of significant others around you and harness your ability to manage their emotions as well by applying emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and those of significant others. It is the ability to understand, anticipate, control and recognise emotions in order to regulate and manage your personal emotions and recognise and manage emotions of significant others.

To experience personal growth, you need to watch out for:

Anger and aggression: These are signs of lack of personal awareness and growth. You experience various types of fear; fear of losing love, fear of rejection, any fear that threatens your peace and causes you to react in an inappropriate manner. If fear petrifies you, then there is need to address it.

Sometimes passive aggressive behaviour is acted out by not voicing your anger and being aggressive in a non-verbal manner. Instead of communicating honestly about your feelings you act out anger and look angry, frustrating every effort of those around you.

Playing victim: It is worth noting that every time you find yourself defensive the problem is internal not external, you are afraid of exposing your ignorance, and feel frightened and vulnerable. Are you finding yourself overly defensive, watch out, being overly defensive is a sign of weakness.

Being controlling: Insecure individuals are always controlling, manipulating to ensure they are always in charge and maintain power. They ensure their significant others remain dependent on them because they fear losing them.

If you are continually having the need to control those around you, watch out, it means you are fearful and lack confidence.

Making excuses: Are you always blaming others, avoiding taking responsibility for your mistakes, then the blame game needs to come to an end.

Excuses about your choices, failure and feelings encourage dysfunctional thinking. The fruit of this is undesirable actions and behaviours resulting to failure. Take responsibility and stop making excuses.

The writer is a Relationship Coach and Author of “Marriage Built to Last”

You can reach her on; www.jenniekarina.co.ke