Introduction || Goals || Approach || Course Requirements || Books

Introduction

It is probably not possible to know yourself totally. We are such complex creatures that we can never really bring all aspects of ourselves into awareness at once, or even consecutively. It is very hard to see the parts of ourselves that have been there so long that they are invisible to us. We are so accustomed to them, they seem like qualities everyone has.

And even if we could see all these parts at once, we keep on changing. When I was a girl, I reacted and thought differently than I did as a young mother, and again I have changed as I have grown older. All the elements of the girl are still in me, and the things that were part of my history then are still part of who I am becoming. But each element has evolved, built on itself, merged with other parts, and produced new elements. Nobody can keep track of all of that.

Too, we all seem to have built-in mechanisms that make us blind to parts of ourselves. Maybe this is a safety mechanism of some sort--if we could see ourselves fully we might be overwhelmed or become narcissistic or full of self-hate. Or perhaps we cannot see parts of ourselves because we are not ready to. However, getting to know ourselves a piece at a time can lead to greater understanding of the whole person.

Additionally, awareness of ourselves--our motivations, beliefs, knowledge, values, likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses--can help us to become more able to understand others.

We are all a bit like St. Paul when he said, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do" (Romans 7:15, NIV). Greater awareness of ourselves may help us better understand our actions and our responses to things. 

From Gardner, Howard. (1993). Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. BasicBooks.

Intrapersonal intelligence [is] knowledge of the internal aspects of a person: access to one's own feeling life, one's range of emotions, the capacity to effect discriminations among these emotions and eventually to label them and to draw upon them as a means of understanding and guiding one's own behavior. A person with good intrapersonal intelligence has a viable and effective model of himself or herself (pp.24-25).

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Goals: The primary goals of this course are to:

• guide students' exploration of themselves while developing awareness and understanding of who they are.
• promote personal growth.

A secondary goal is to stimulate students' awareness of their role in their relationships with others.

Approach: 

Students will examine themselves in five dimensions of a person and develop two projects. The dimensions are Emotional, Social, Intellectual, Spiritual, and Physical. The projects allow more in-depth study of selected personal aspects. There are two additional introductory assignments.

See this link for HOW to do your assignments. (This is very important, so be sure to read it.)

We look at each dimension of the person separately, knowing that in reality they are all integrated. For instance, the social dimension is affected by and influences emotions. The intellectual aspect influences the social dimension through knowledge of social skills and understanding of other people's psychological needs and motivations. One could describe many more examples of the interconnection of the separate dimensions of a person, because they are not in truth separate sections of who we are. But looking at the dimensions does make the job of understanding ourselves a little easier, just as breaking a seemingly impossibly large task into smaller pieces makes it easier to accomplish.

Here is a brief description of the five dimensions of a person.

In this course, each dimension has several topics listed under it. In some cases, it is clear that the topic fits in that dimension. For example, the intellectual dimension is a good fit for the discussion of knowledge. In other cases, though, you may question the classification. For example, personality types may not clearly fit only in the social dimension.

The second assignment in this course is to rank the dimensions in order of importance to them. Although this is a difficult task, it does appear that people place different emphases on various aspects of their persons. For some people, the physical takes last place, while for others it is the most important. This course should help people see the importance of all dimensions and examine their own emphases. 

Each dimension has a separate web page which will have some or all of these elements:

• informational or introductory text
• links to other web sites containing information and/or self-tests
• assignments
• list of recommended reading. 

Here are some things I found in my web search about self knowledge that I thought were worth passing on to you:

• Self Knowledge in Philosophy, Psychology and Religion - by William O'Meara, 1997

• Self and Identity in Everyday Life - from the International Society for Self and Identity

• Quotes on Self Knowledge - This site has quotes about the self, self knowledge and much more.

• From The Prophet - by Kahlil Gibran 

Books about the Self

These books relate more to the self as a whole rather to any one dimension. They may provide inspiration for a project. 

• Covey, S.R. (1990).  The 7 habits of highly effective people: Restoring the character ethic. New York: Simon & Schuster. Covey presents a holistic, integrated, principle-centered approach for solving problems.
• Godwin, M. (2000). Who are you? 101 ways of seeing yourself. New York: Penguin Putnam. It might take several months to work through this book, which is full of self-tests and help in interpreting their results, in the physical, spiritual, mental and emotional dimensions.
• Ornstein, R. (1986). Multimind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
• Ornstein, R. (1993). The roots of the self: Unraveling the mystery of who we are. HarperSanFrancisco. "Presenting a new personality theory grounded in the latest research..., Ornstein challenges many popular assumptions in a brilliant, exciting, conversationally written synthesis" -- Publisher's Weekly.
• Reiss, S. (2000). Who am I? The 16 basic desires that motivate our actions and define our personalities. New York: Penguin Putnam. Through exhaustive research, Dr. Reiss discovered that nearly everything we do can be traced to 16 fundamental desires and values--a system that radically challenges commonly accepted beliefs about motivation.

Note: This course mentions a few books. They're mentioned because they're good, but sometimes it is only a small part of the book that is relevant to the topic at hand. It is not required that you read these books, nor is it intended that you buy them, unless you decide you want to own them. You may find them at your local library or your school library. If they don't have them, ask the librarians to borrow them through interlibrary loan.

From a mug with Chinese characters on one side and this on the other:

10 Ways to Good Health

Less alcohol. More tea.
Less meat. More vegetables.
Less salt. More vinegar.
Less sugar. More fruit.
Less eating. More chewing.
Less words. More action.
Less greed. More giving.
Less worry. More sleep.
Less driving. More walking.
Less anger. More laughter.

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Last updated September 2008