How to Embody the 13 Qualities of Your True Self: A Step-by-Step Guide
Connecting with the core of who you are, your True Self, is fundamental in healing from the past and creating a new future. Your True Self is the one who heals you, gives compassion and forgiveness, and is the most loving part that you can embody for your children, family, and friends.
In this step-by-step guide, you’ll discover the practices you can adopt to bring you into contact with your True Self. It’s an ongoing journey of healing, practice, and consistent self-awareness, but one that can offer you greater peace, purpose, and love.
As a recap, the 13 qualities of the True Self are:
Calm
Curiosity
Clarity
Compassion
Confidence
Courage
Creativity
Connectedness
Patience
Perspective
Presence
Playfulness
Persistence
Step 1: Begin with Embodied Self-Awareness
Embodied self-awareness is the ability to be aware of and experience your body, emotions, and thoughts in the present moment. Your body is the bridge between your unconscious patterns and your True Self.
Embodiment practice involves developing your felt sense, exploring the breath, and using movement to up or down regulate your nervous system.
Here are a few embodiment practices to get you started:
Breathing exercises: My favourite breath is the 4-7-8 breath. You breathe in through your nose into your belly for a count of 4, hold you breath for a count of 7, then exhale through your mouth for a count of 8 (ensuring all of your breath is expelled by the 8 count). Repeat for 5 rounds.
Body scans: Take a few moments before bed to scan your body. Bring your attention with your mind’s eye to your head and feel the sensations there. Slowly move to each body part and organ down to your toes. Notice tension, tightness, warmth, dullness, or any other sensation from your felt sense vocabulary. Bring your breath to any location with sensation that you would like to shift.
Step 2: Practice Introspection and Reflection
As you begin to develop your capacity to turn inward, you will receive new information that aids in deeper self-understanding. Setting aside time each day for quiet reflection or journaling will help you to integrate your experiences faster.
You can ask yourself these questions:
How am I feeling in this moment?
Where am I experiencing tension or discomfort in my body?
What emotions are present in my body and where in this moment?
What things in relationship are triggering me?
What intention do I want to set for today?
As you learn to tune in to your inner world, shifting to the True Self qualities of compassion, curiosity, and patience will guide you toward the next best step forward.
Step 3: Cultivate Daily Practices for Emotional Regulation
It’s essential to cultivate emotional regulation practices that help you become grounded and present in any situation.
Depending on your historical and current stress level, this can be quite challenging. For many, these practices were not modelled for us during our childhood and adolescence. Therefore, we must then reparent ourselves in how to navigate emotional highs and lows and various stressors.
Some effective practices include:
Grounding exercises: Imagine roots growing from the soles of your feet into the earth. This simple technique helps you feel more stable and connected to the present moment.
Sensory awareness: Stop for 5 minutes (possibly set a timer). Pay attention to sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and textures to anchor yourself in the present moment.
Step 4: Create Boundaries and Prioritize Self-Care
This step is about breaking the cycle of self-abandonment. Self-abandonment can look like:
People-pleasing
Perfectionism
Self-criticism
Lack of boundaries
Codependent relationships
Addictions
Ignoring your health
Pushing away feelings
Not acting on your values
To be able to embody clarity, courage, confidence, compassion, and presence, setting clear boundaries with work and family is important. You need to be able to protect your energy and well-being - and believe you are worth doing that for. Examples of this include:
Set aside time each week for self-care—whether that’s a quiet walk, a nurturing bath, gentle movement, time with a safe friend, enjoy a class, or time to read or journal. This can even start with 5 minutes a day if you have little support.
Become aware of when you are applying self-pressure: E.g. you have to have everything done, pushing yourself past your energetic limit because you worry about being the best mother or what you think your boss expects.
Stop engaging with the parent, partner, child, or colleague that enrages you. Allow them their comments and respond with appropriate boundary statements.
Step 5: Align Your Actions with Your Core Values
Can you list your core values? This is an exercise that needs to be returned to multiple times because your core values act as your North Star. They are what guide you when answers are uncertain and decisions are challenging.
When you look at a list of values, it can be hard to identify what your core values are. They all look good; that’s the nature of values.
Determining your core values requires self-reflection and the courage to stand up for who you truly are and what you value most.
My personal core values are 1) health and well-being, 2) presence, 3) truth, 4) service to others, and 5) continuous learning. These are how I live my life.
When I’m not acting in alignment with these values, it feels uncomfortable in my body and like I’m not living my truth.
My greatest tip in selecting your core values is to choose values that are your own. Not the values or expectations of society, your parents or friends. Embrace your uniqueness. Once you’re clear on your values, you can begin to act in alignment with them. This brings clarity and confidence into your life.
Step 6: Embrace Nonduality
A nondualistic frame of reference can lead to more compassionate behaviors towards others, the environment, and oneself. This is the idea that:
reality is a perfect whole or oneness. The word ‘oneness’ suggests a limit or boundary, so the name non-dual, not two, is preferred
light and darkness existed together before they were separated
that the True Self is beyond separation and can be directly experienced
the True Self is not anything that is experienced in the mind, but is the light of awareness that illumines all experience
The yin-yang symbol of Taoism is the most familiar symbol of nonduality.
This understanding allows us to understand that the fragmented parts of ourselves are not separate or damaged. The mind has created this illusion. The True Self can be the guide and support that brings back these fragmented parts into wholeness.
Step 7: Seek Support
According to Judith L. Herman, MD (author of Trauma and Recovery), the core experiences of psychological trauma are disempowerment and disconnection. This means that transformational healing can only occur within the context of our relationships.
Because we do not live in isolation, we need to cultivate healthy relationships that are able to support us as we navigate our inner world, reconnect to ourselves and discover our own truth.
Support can look like a:
women’s or men’s group
therapeutic relationship
relationship to the earth
relationship with Source/God/Goddess/Creator
safe partner
mentoring or coaching relationship
Final Thoughts:
These steps are not a linear process. Begin anywhere and the practices therein will begin to reveal your true nature. Your True Self will aid you more than anything else as you navigate the complexities of life.
If you’re looking for greater support on your own journey of embodiment and healing, then I invite you to work with me as your guide. Together, we’ll dive deeper into these practices that are designed to grant you greater access to your own inner wisdom and self-directed growth.