Self Knowledge

Introduction

Before you can focus on restarting your business, you first need to take care of yourself. When the going gets, tough one needs to be resilient, which is much easier if you are strong as a whole person.

The first step is to understand yourself better. For this discussion, we divide self-knowledge into the following main categories:

• Mind
• Body
• Spirit

Secondly, identify the areas where you need and want to make the required changes in your life.

Next, implement the changes and do regular reflections on your progress.

An experienced coach can be of great assistance in this process. It will be advantageous to select a coach who knows neuroscience and emotional intelligence.

This article intends to provide helpful and informative material. The purpose of this article is not to diagnose, treat, cure, mitigate, or heal or prevent any health problem or condition, nor is it intended to replace the advice of a physician. No action should be taken solely on the contents of this article. Always consult your physician or qualified health care professional on any matters regarding your health and before adopting any suggestions in this article or drawing inferences from it.

MIND

In terms of the mind, we recommend that any person at least understand their personality, thinking styles, and emotional skills.

Personality

A great tool to use is the enneagram. The enneagram describes personality types in terms of conscious patterns of:

• thinking,
• feeling, and
• behaving along with their repressed shadow aspects.

As a framework, the enneagram also speaks to the journey of integration and development deeply. Therefore it assists in uncovering the uniqueness of each individual and his/her journey. Above all, it does not only reveal what holds an individual back but also offers insights into the journey towards strength and liberation. In other words it is connecting us to our strengths and higher selves.

The enneagram creates self-awareness and uncovers the patterns of behavior that subconsciously drive and motivate us to act in specific ways. We make these patterns and motivations conscious. Above all we can then transcend them and develop more fruitful, more supportive ways of being.

Working with the enneagram empowers individuals to take responsibility for their behaviors and growth. Therefore they can do it from a greater understanding of why they act and react the way they do.

As a result, it is an excellent tool for doing the hardest part of consciousness work:

• realizing,
• owning, and
• accepting your blind spots.

Thinking Styles.

There are several assessments which one can use in determining your thinking style. We are using the Brain Brief Profiles designed and administrated by Six seconds.

By learning more about your brain, the research Six Seconds has done, you will be able to make better decisions. Therefore you will be happier, more successful, and increase the quality of your life (and the lives of people around you).

The brain profile reports available, assist you in answering the following questions:

• How are your style, strengths, and challenges creating results?
• What are your brain’s critical strengths for creating the future?
• How does your brain focus, decide, and drive?

You can now decide how you want to improve your thinking styles.

Improvements in people’s thinking lead to significant and lasting improvements in people’s performance.

Emotional Skills (Emotional Intelligence)

Daniel Goleman defines emotional intelligence as “the conscious recognition of different emotional states, the ability to assess how one’s emotions affect his or her behavior, and the ability to manage emotions and act appropriately based on certain situations.”

An excellent EQ assessment tool is the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Assessments (SEI™). For instance, the SEI provides practical measures that help people develop and apply emotional intelligence professionally and personally.

Research done by Six Seconds proves that there is a direct relationship between the EQ scores you obtain in the assessment and the outcomes you get in your life. The SEI assessment allows one to identify how well you perform using your emotions to reach the following results in your life:

• Effectiveness (decisions and influence)
• Relationships (networking and community)
• Wellbeing (balance and health)
• Quality of life (satisfaction and achievement)

By understanding your emotional skills, you can now develop plans on how to build your emotional skills, which will have a direct influence on the improvement of your life success.

SPIRIT

Spiritual Intelligence or SQ according to Danah Zohar in the book Spiritual Intelligence is:

“The Ultimate Intelligence (based on the brain’s third neural system, the synchronous neural oscillations that unify data across the whole brain) offers us a viable tertiary process for the first time. This process unifies, integrates, and has the potential to transform material arising from the other two processes. It facilitates a dialogue between reason and emotion, mind, and body. The process creates a fulcrum for growth and transformation. as well as provides the self with an active, unifying, meaning-giving center.”

Above all, spirituality has no necessary connection with religion. Lots of people find their expression of spirituality in religion. However, spiritual intelligence lies in the soul.  Similarly, through SQ, we can heal ourselves by making ourselves whole.

Viktor Frankl, in his book Man’s search for meaning, writes that our search for meaning is the primary motivation in our lives. It is this search that makes us the spiritual creatures that we are. And it is when this deep need for meaning goes unmet that our lives come to feel shallow or empty. For a great many of us today, this need is not met, and the fundamental crisis of our times is a spiritual one.

Two areas to specifically focus on are:

• Spiritual practices, and
• Belief systems/religion

Spiritual Practices

Illinois State University identified seven ways to improve spiritual wellness. These areas are:

1. Explore your spiritual core. You can do this by asking yourself questions about the person you are and your meaning.
2. Look for deeper meanings. By doing this and analyzing occurring patterns will enable you to see that you have control over your destiny.
3. Express yourselves. Expressing what is on your mind will help you to maintain a focused mind
4. Yoga. Yoga can help improve your spiritual wellness by reducing emotional and physical strains on your mind and body.
5. Travel. If you can, take time for yourself to travel to a comforting place or somewhere new, which can do wonders for your mind.
6. Positive thinking. When you start viewing things in your life in a positive manner, you will find yourself thinking differently and refocusing your mind to a happy, healthy place.
7. Meditation. Meditation is a spiritual practice. Therefore to be in meditation is to be in tune with the higher spiritual self. Similarly, the entire exercise is one consciously or unconsciously directed to develop in spiritual ways. Whether in the morning when you wake up, during your lunch break, or before you go to sleep, take five to 10 minutes to meditate each day. In conclusion, by fitting mediation and relaxation into your lifestyle will free your mind and foster a stronger relationship with your spiritual wellness.

Belief Systems/Religion

“All religions, arts, and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed towards ennobling man’s life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.”- Albert Einstein

Belief is a state of the mind when we consider something real even though we are not 100% sure or able to prove it. Everybody has opinions about life and the world they experience. Therefore mutually supportive beliefs may form belief systems, which may be religious, philosophical, or ideological.

Religions are belief systems that relate humanity to spirituality. The following definition from Wikipedia provides a good overview of the many dimensions of religion:

“Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values.”

Practicing religion or living out your belief system influences your identity, regardless of whether you consider yourself religious or spiritual or not.

Making time for these practices every day can be advantageous to you.

Higher SQ means getting to the deepness of things, thinking about something, assessing yourself and your behavior from time to time. Above all, you need to practice this on a daily basis. Similarly, you can practice this through a few moments of quiet time set aside, daily meditation, work with a counselor, therapist, coach or just going over each day before you fall asleep at night.

BODY

The saying “a healthy body hosts a healthy mind,” proves to be true in all instances.

What we think, eat, drink, and do daily each day, determines the vibrational health of our inner terrain, because the frequency is everything.

Ther are three major areas to look into when one discusses a healthy body, namely:

• Eating and drinking habits
• Health Indicators
• Fitness

Eating and drinking habits

I prefer not to refer to a diet. After all, the reason is that there are so many negative connotations to the word diet. Most of the time, we link a diet to a specific period. In addition, diets are not sustainable over the long term. One needs to change your eating and drinking habits.

Wolfe, Dr. Darrell; Malcolm, Lorie. In their book, Healthy To 100 writes, “Stop the diet battle! Diets don’t work as they are not in alignment with our psychology. Deprivation increases the stress hormone, cortisol, which, as a result, increases the acidity level in the body. Diets are irritating, and where we see irritation, we see inflammation along with plummeting energy levels.”

The purpose of this article is not to provide comprehensive advice on eating and drinking habits. Above all, I am not a dietitian and have no medical background. What I refer to underneath is based on my research and what I found working for myself.

Eating and drinking habits do not need to be bored and dull.

Evaluate eating habits from the following perspectives:

• Your unique health perspective.
• The number of carbohydrates – Good carbs like Apples, Pears, Sweet Potatoes, Bananas, Pine Apples.
• Protein – Eat organic products like lamb, chicken, turkey and beef, fish, eggs, nuts, broccoli, and spinach.
• Sugar.- limited as far as possible
• Gluten (unless sensitive, then eliminate it).- limited as far as possible
• Corn. – limited as far as possible
• Soy. – limited as far as possible
• Dairy. – limited as far as possible
• Some research suggests that the healthiest strategy is to cut back on certain types of saturated fats (primarily palmitic acid and foods myristic acid), which you find in dairy foods and factory-farmed meat.

Evaluate your drinking habits from the following perspectives:

• Your unique health perspective.
• Fruit Juice. – limited as far as possible because of the high sugar content.
• Coffee. – 300 mg per day
• Green tea. – Healthy alternative
• Rooibos tea. –  Healthy alternative
• Drink ample water continuously during the day
• Lemon juice and fresh ginger. – first thing on an empty stomach to improve alkalinity.
• All Soft drinks with high sugar content is a no-no.
• Alcohol. – Alcohol contains carbohydrates that do not have any nutritional value. It is unique in that it contains seven calories per gram instead of the typical four calories per gram found in other carbohydrates. In addition, alcohol decreases firing in the prefrontal cortex, the most human and thoughtful part of the brain. It also disrupts sleep. Alcohol predisposes you to sugar abuse, stimulates your appetite, prolongs the time you sit during a meal and is associated with continued eating even though you feel full.

Evaluate your use of vitamins and minerals.

Based on my research and what is working for me, I use the following supplements:

• MCT oil. – improve metabolism and energy.
• Omega 3 capsules. – Have several health benefits like limit inflammation, lower blood sugar, reduce triglycerides.
• Ginkgo Biloba tablets. – Have several health benefits like to support healthy cerebral (BRAIN) blood flow and good heart health.
• Probiotic capsules. – Have several health benefits like to support gut health.
• Zinc tablets. – Have several health benefits like the improvement of the immune system, decreasing inflammation, and is suitable for prostate health.
• Vitamin B complex tablets – Have several health benefits like prevention of infections.
• Vitamin C. – Provides health benefits for the improvement of the immune system.
• Vitamin D. – Have several health benefits like the boosting of weight loss and improvement of sleep quality.
• Magnesium. – Have several health benefits like energy creation, protein formation, gene maintenance, muscle movements, nervous system regulation.

Health Indicators

Do at least a yearly health check at a qualified health practitioner where you as a minimum look at the following:

• Blood glucose
• Blood pressure
• Stress ECG
• Cholesterol
• Mammogram (women)
• Pap smear (women)
• Glaucoma Screening
• Dental health check
• Prostate examination including PSA (men)
• BMI- Body Mass Index

I recommend that you discuss the above with your health practitioner for his/her professional advice. The majority of medical aid schemes can also provide you with relevant information in this regard.

Exercise.

The most important exercise is to become active. Just start moving.

Every person needs to do the exercise and participate in the sport that suits their unique capabilities and circumstances best. There is NO excuse for not exercising. Even people with severe physical limitations are exercising and participating in sports.

Find an exercise regime you enjoy, so you keep doing it. If you like it, you will do it often.

The biggest mistake we can make is ignoring our body’s messages and continuing to push through the pain. Repetitive exercise with intensity will always show to be damaging to tissues, joints – and yes – even to the heart. In other words, just because you lift more weights and run or cycle with a large group where everyone pushes through their pain, does not make it right or healthy. Don’t be caught up in the herd (hurt) mentality of no PAIN, no GAIN.

Do not overdo it. High-intensity exercise over a long time may be associated with cardiac remodeling and increased risk of cardiovascular problems, such as heart arrhythmias. I again say maybe. I recommend that you discuss High-intensity exercises with a medical practitioner before you get involved with such type of training.

Extreme exercise is not necessary to reap the many benefits of exercise. Research suggests that long bouts of highly intensive training may cause more harm than good.

I found the following three types of exercises to work well:

• bursting or interval training, ( I do this during cycling and jogging)

• strength training, (I use free body exercises and weights)

• coordination exercises (I use standing balance with ball tosses, contralateral and ipsilateral marching and several others)

Exercising at an average of 80% plus of your target heart rate for 30 to 45 minutes 3 to 4 times a weak is beneficial. I attempt to do such exercise 4 times per weak. There are generic ways to calculate your target heart rate based on age. However, this might not be relevant to you. The best is to consult your health practitioner in this regard.

It is again essential to consult a health practitioner before you commence with any exercise program.

Conclusion

Write down your current status. You then write down your desired situation. After that, you write down three actions you can implement to reach your target status. You need to do this for all the areas and detail elements within the areas, as discussed above.