Self-Knowledge: An Essential Key To Efficient Ministry
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Date
2011
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Publisher
Tangaza University College
Abstract
The self is a concept which defines what is most personal and unique about an
individual. The self includes the body, mind, and spirit; abilities and limitations; and repressed
and remembered experience both positive and negative, bodily experience, relational experience,
cultural experience, religious experience. I think there is a great need to know and to accept
ourselves just as we are. Those of us with power and social standing have subtle ways of hiding
our inner handicaps, our difficulties in relationships, our inner darkness and violence, our
depression and lack of self-confidence. When all is well we may fall into conceit or pride; when
there are difficulties or failures, we can fall into self-depreciation and depression.
How difficult it is to accept our limitations and our handicaps as well as our gifts and capacities.
We feel that if others see us as we really are they might reject us. So we cover over our
weaknesses. I have experienced my own limits at certain moments, when I realized there was
great anger and violence rising up in me with respects to certain members of my family. That
truth was first revealed to me by my novice master. He called me one day during my Spiritual
year and told me that he could perceive that I was carrying a deep sense of anger. He could see
it, he said, in my actions and behaviors. He said that this problem was affecting my relationship
with the other members of the community. He told me that I was aggressive. Of course I did not
agree with him. I told him I have always been a quiet man and very focused. He asked me just to
think about what he had just told me. Since then, I have never been at peace with myself. Deep
inside me, I started feeling the need to know why my novice master mentioned to me that I was
carrying anger in my mind. What could be the origin of this anger? Some years later, I talked to a counselor about my troubled mind. He helped me discover things I never suspected in my life. I
have discovered that my actions were motivated by a sense of winning approvals, acceptance,
and love. I was searching ways to affirm myself, to demonstrate that I was capable, that I was
somebody. And to achieve my goal, I have developed an ability to 'sacrifice' my emotions and
feelings, and anything that I loved. I ended up loosing my sense of self-appreciation. Unless
someone else appreciated me or my actions, I was not able to be pleased. My counselling
sessions helped me on one hand to understand that the root of this problem was to be found in
my early age, through my family background and in the other hand I discovered that I do not
have to live my present life with the motive to prove to others, especially some family members,
or myself that I was somebody. I learned that I do not have to compete with other people, but
that I could work hand in hand with them to have a better result.
I have often come head-to-head with my own handicaps, limitations, and inner poverty. I did not
always find it easy, especially when my failure was evident to others. But then I began to realize
that in order to accept other people's disabilities and to help them to grow, it was fundamental
for me to accept my own. I have, after all, learned something of my own character. I am
gradually learning to accept my own shadow areas and to work with them in order to diminish
their power over me.
How many people, just like me, are more or less governed by instincts and drives that originate
in the beautiful and painful experiences of childhood? How many people still believe that to be a
success and to be admired, means that we be competent in what we do? But for most of us, it is
not enough just to be good at something. True success, we feel, comes from the recognition of
others. This desire for success and admiration can be a good thing, for it encourages us to work
well and hard; however, such a desire for success can draw us away from acting justly and serving others. It is true that everyone needs approval and recognition, but if the lack of these
causes intense anxiety and anguish with a feeling of being unworthy and unloved, then
something is wrong with the person's self concept. I believe that the development of a healthy
personality brings a person closer to God and others.
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Keywords
Self-Knowledge