Your Self is Calling—Are You Listening?
Many years ago, when I first ventured into the world of healing and personal growth, I was searching especially for these answers: Why was my life so difficult? Why did I struggle with my body, my children, their father? I wanted to understand the hidden factors that caused me to suffer. It was one rather uncommon therapy method that became my go-to approach for self-discovery for many years: an adaptation of so-called family constellations that explored the inner and outer conflicts governing my external struggles. To this day, it remains one of the most awe-inspiring experiences I’ve had in personal growth.
At its core, family constellations help uncover what has been hidden from us—often parts of ourselves or our past that unconsciously dictate our lives. The work is usually done in a group setting, though adaptations exist for individual practice. However, I believe, nothing can quite match the power of using real people to physically embody different parts of your inner world. Generally, I’ve found any therapeutic work in groups much more efficient than 1:1 work.
Each workshop would last an entire day, typically with four to eight participants. Everyone would have their dedicated time—about an hour—to work on a personal question or intention. A trained facilitator would guide the process, gently encouraging both the participant and their representatives (the people chosen to enact various aspects of the participant’s life) to engage with each other and reveal the hidden dynamics at play.
Depending on the variation of family constellations, certain "parts of yourself" or key figures from your life are enacted by representatives in the group. As these representatives move and interact with each other, hidden dynamics and unresolved conflicts begin to surface, offering insights into the deeper forces that influence your relationships and personal struggles. Through this process, patterns are revealed, and the participant can gain clarity and healing by seeing their inner world externalised.
And here’s where constellations become almost inexplicable: when someone steps into the role of, say, your father, your inner critic, or even your physical pain, they somehow begin to intuitively act out the emotions, thoughts, and conflicts tied to that role—without knowing anything about you. They may express anger, sadness, or tension in ways that eerily mirror reality. Nobody truly knows why this works—only that it does. Watching your inner world unfold before your eyes—without your conscious interference—can be deeply unsettling, yet profoundly transformative.
When you attend one of these workshops, it’s not just your personal constellation that can reveal profound insights. Often, you experience even stronger "aha" moments by witnessing the constellations of others unfold before your eyes. Watching someone else’s dynamics play out can trigger a deep resonance, making you realise how their struggles mirror your own. Additionally, being chosen as a representative in someone else’s constellation can be equally enlightening. As you step into their role, you may suddenly experience emotions or physical sensations that feel incredibly familiar, offering you valuable glimpses into your own lived experience. Through years of attending these workshops, I learned things that still shape how I see the world:
We all have hidden aspects of our personality that influence our actions, often without our awareness.
Our family and relationship dynamics, the powers, the love dynamics, are far more complex than we sometimes realise.
The relationships our parents had with each other can have a profound, lasting impact on how we form and maintain our own relationships.
Opening My Eyes To The World
I stopped working with family constellations five years ago. At some point, I realised that this method had shown me all it could—at least for where I was on my journey. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned about healing is that no single method holds all the answers. Understanding our lives, our patterns, and our past is powerful, but insight alone isn’t always enough to create real change. And yet, this work has left an undeniable mark on me, shaping how I see authenticity, relationships, and the hidden forces that shape our lives.
From the moment we are born, we begin adapting to the world around us. As children, we need to belong. We need love, approval, and safety. To gain this, we begin to suppress parts of ourselves that might threaten those connections with our caregivers. We learn to hide our true emotions, desires, and instincts to fit into our environment—be it family, friends, or society at large.
What we don’t often realise is that this suppression of who we really are, doesn’t just go away as we grow older. It becomes embedded in us, influencing our thoughts, actions, and decisions without our conscious awareness. We may become conditioned to think that these repressed parts of ourselves are too dangerous to confront, too painful to acknowledge, or simply unimportant. But they continue to shape our relationships, career choices, and personal sense of fulfilment, often manifesting in ways that are confusing or even painful.
As we grow older, we create coping mechanisms and beliefs around these suppressed parts of ourselves. These same mechanisms often cause friction with our environment. For example, if emotions weren’t openly embraced in our childhood or were suppressed by our caregivers, we might emotionally freeze when others express emotions. We may even get angry or reject the others’ feelings, which causes hurt in the people around us.
Narcissists and other toxic people are often prime examples of people with deeply destructive coping mechanisms, formed earlier in life, that end up causing severe pain to others. One such mechanism is DARVO—Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. This mechanism is used in toxic relationship dynamics, where the blame is reversed onto the victim without their awareness, further perpetuating the cycle of dysfunction.
But it’s not only so-called "toxic" individuals who carry manipulation and deceit within them. We all have our own ways of avoiding our authentic selves around certain aspects of our lives. We can be remarkably creative in the ways we deceive both ourselves and others. And without our conscious awareness. As you become more aware of your true self, you begin to realise just how much you’ve been able to lie to yourself over the years.
The vast majority of us remain oblivious to these inner dynamics throughout our entire lives. But some of us reach a moment when it becomes indispensable that we confront our struggles
At this stage of my life, having studied relationship dynamics for almost 10 years now, it’s become incrdibly painful for me to engage with most people because I almost feel like I can see behind their facades. I see the hidden struggles in their relationships, the ways they hold themselves back or lie to themselves, or how they sabotage their own happiness without realising it.
Why We Ignore the Call Of Our Selves
So, how do you know when your true self is trying to get your attention? The signs are often subtle at first, but they grow louder the more we ignore them. It might show up as feeling disconnected from your own life, like you’re simply going through the motions without being truly engaged. You might find yourself repeatedly attracting the same type of person or situation that leaves you feeling drained, unfulfilled, or stuck, no matter how much effort you put into changing things. Despite external success or achievements, there’s a lingering sense of dissatisfaction or emptiness that suggests something deeper is missing. These are only some of the signs that your true self is trying to get your attention, letting you know that it’s time to look inward and make a change.
But why do we often push away the discomfort instead of facing it? The answer is complicated. It could be a subtle fear of facing ourselves, but more often than not, it’s probably comfort. Many people just have no desire to change their lives, so they become victim of their struggles rather than using these struggles to transform our lives. I think, we all have a natural tendency to avoid confronting our true selves. It might stem from the fear of what we might uncover when we look or the worry that whatever we find will only prove how inadequate we are. After all, many of us have been in situations with others that we’ve been guilty of and, at times, even hurt or manipulated others. Our darker sides.
Our environments generally reward us for maintaining the status quo. We’re praised for our achievements, our ability to “keep it together,” and our adherence to societal norms. To step away from this is to risk judgment, rejection, or even social exemption. It’s easier to blame external circumstances for our unhappiness than it is to look inward and take responsibility for our own role in the struggles we face.
Accepting responsibility means accepting the pain of past wounds—acknowledging that we’ve been living in a way that doesn’t honour who we truly are, or worse, in a way that ignores or oversteps our true needs. Becoming aware of this is extremely uncomfortable, and it’s why many resist transformation—self-awareness can be painful, and change requires effort. Many resist transformation because facing these parts feels overwhelming. It’s easier to stay in the comfort of the familiar—even if it’s hurting us.
How to Start Listening to Yourself
Conflict is often seen as something negative, something to avoid. But in the context of self-discovery, conflict—whether it’s in our relationships, work, or finances—can actually be a mirror to our unresolved inner struggles. It can also be a reminder to move forwards.
For example, when we face external conflict, it’s easy to point fingers and blame others for the difficulties we’re experiencing. Many of us avoid introspection because it’s painful to admit that we have a role to play in the conflicts around us. Instead, we look outward for the cause of our pain, afraid of acknowledging that we might be contributing to it. But if we take a step back and look within, we can often find that our role in these conflicts is more significant than we realise. Taking accoutability for our actions can have transformative powers in our relationships.
Introspection offers us a chance to break free from these patterns and begin healing. It’s through this process that we can start to hear the call of our true self, the part of us that is ready to be seen, heard, and loved.
My experience is that it’s not the easiest part of healing—to become aware of who we are and which parts of us have been hiding. The reason why I loved group work so much is that it’s almost impossible to become aware of our less well-serving behaviours and thoughts without other people holding up mirror to us. The same goes for shadow work.
Shadow work is another word for the same process of uncovering and integrating the unconscious parts of ourselves that we've repressed or denied. It’s called "shadow" work because these hidden aspects are like shadows—always present, yet out of our direct view, influencing our behaviour and emotions without our awareness.
A common shadow many of us carry is the fear of not being good enough. This shadow often manifests as perfectionism, self-doubt, or an overwhelming need for external validation. We may push ourselves relentlessly or avoid situations where we feel we might fail, all while secretly fearing rejection or inadequacy. Integrating this fear involves first acknowledging it without judgment, then exploring its roots—why it developed and how it shows up in our lives. Through self-reflection, self-compassion, and sometimes therapeutic practices, we can slowly disarm its power, allowing us to accept it as part of our whole being rather than something to hide or fix.
The path to self-awareness is not straightforward. You can use therapy, coaching, or group work like family constellations to better understand yourself—all aspects, both your strengths and your destructive tendencies. If you ask, 'How do I do it?' I would say the best way to reconnect with yourself is to let life trigger you, take the time to reflect on those moments, and take responsibility for your actions and how they may have influenced the outcome.
As we walk this path of self-discovery, we inevitably have to learn how to handle conflict and, more importantly, how to work with criticism—even when it’s not constructive. The more self-awareness we develop, the better our insights and the more mature our social interactions become. Learning to accept uncomfortable truths from honest friends is, in reality, one of the greatest tools for personal growth.
A major part of my own self-reflection has been reading books that challenged me to rethink my life. There’s also so much to learn from listening to people share their experiences and insights on social media.
They say the first step for change is always awareness—and that’s very true. Most importantly, self-discovery is not a box you check off on your healing to-do list—it’s an ongoing, life-long process that deepens with every challenge, insight, and shift in perspective.
Reconnecting with Ourselves in a Changing World
Self-alienation is a profound sign of a society that often upholds narrow definitions of purpose, where authenticity is seen as a threat to efficiency and functioning. In such a society, individuals are conditioned to suppress their true selves to fit predefined roles—whether it’s through emotional suppression, conformity, or the avoidance of what is considered too wild or unconventional.
From childhood, almost every person in both the East and the West has been trained to adapt to societal expectations, which often means losing touch with their inner compass. We are also surrounded by unrealistic fears—fear of illness without medication, fear of homelessness without financial stability, fear of ignorance without extensive education, and the fear of insecurity without the right kind of insurance—all of which shape how we are raised and what we come to value. These deep-rooted societal fears have created an environment in which we often prioritise external assurances over inner peace and fulfillment, leading us further away from authentic living.
Fortunately, some of us are gifted with a strong sense of self—our authentic self—that calls us back to wholeness. For some, this call might make life unusually difficult or cause our health to deteriorate. Yet, it is this very resistance that brings us closer to becoming curious our true selves. My hope is that more and more of us embark on this journey of self-confrontation, for in doing so, we can begin to build stronger, healthier communities grounded in authenticity and mutual support.
I invite you to share your own experiences with '“self-confrontation'“. What was your path of self-discovery like? What challenges have you faced along the way? I’m excited to read your comments.