Self Discovery is going on every moment of your life

Dr Tae Yun Kim is a martial artist, an author, a speaker and much more.  Here is an excerpt from her book, The Silent Master.

THE FOUR STAGES OF SELF-DISCOVERY

"Self Discovery is going on every moment of your life. The question is: Are you sitting in the driver's seat? That is, are you guiding the process so that you discover a self that has freedom, energy, and love? Or are you discovering a more limited self every day?

I have learned there are four basic stages in true self discovery. These four stages may recycle over and over again as you grow and rise to higher levels of knowing yourself. As a tree grows, doesn't it create more than one branch? To some extent, of course, the four stages may overlap or happen at the same time. But for the sake of discussion, we can talk about them separately to see what the main challenges are at each stage.

I call the four stages of self discovery: Readiness, Energizing, Life Examination, and Rebirth. We will discuss these stages in depth in the following chapters, but for now we can just define them.

    

1. Readiness

There's a story about a Rabbit that fell into a hole in the woods. He hopped up and down inside the hole time after time after time, trying so hard to get out, but never succeeding. Many other woodland animals came and watched this show, feeling sorry for the rabbit and expressing all kinds of sympathy and concern. But of course, that was no help. Finally they all left. The next day when they returned to continue watching, they found the rabbit sitting calmly by a tree covering the hole. "You got out!" they exclaimed in amazement. "How did you do that?" "Well," the rabbit replied, "there was this big tree falling down over the hole, and well...I had to." 

 And so it is that many of us aren't ready to discover our spiritual nature until we feel we have to. Suddenly you may have a life threatening illness, or perhaps experience some kind of loss. At these times you generally feel the need to search for a way to cope and a deeper meaning to life. You naturally turn within yourself, looking and listening for a feeling of something true and real. That something is your real Self, your Silent Master consciousness.

This is why adversity can be a blessing in disguise. It turns you to your true self, where you not only find healing, but more of your undiscovered potential as well.