You have level one self-awareness. In life you are largely the EFFECT instead of the CAUSE. This means you’re typically pushed through life by external forces- struggle, pain, crisis, adversity, conflict, pressure, deadlines, hardship, consequences, external authority and fear.

 

Because you are constantly battling these forces, a large portion of your focus is directed outwards toward the environment; leaving little space for you to deeply understand who you are, how you function and why you do what you do. This form of self consciousness narrows your understanding of self to your basic preferences: likes, dislikes, desires, aversions, opinions & immediate needs. This surface level perspective only permits a literal interpretation of things and prevents an in-depth understanding of yourself and the world around you. 

 

Rote memorization of ‘facts’, theories, rules, traditional values, religious doctrine, and cultural norms has created a very black and white way of processing information. Ideas that call for out of the box thinking challenge your values and view points and tend to make you feel uncomfortable. This black and white way of functioning prevents deep introspection and blocks independent thought.

 

Heavy environmental and childhood conditioning has wired the nervous system to immediately seek relief in the form of pleasure when confronted with stress, fear and pain. Quick, cheap and easy vices are often utilized to self soothe: this makes it very difficult for you to navigate your inner world because emotional pain is buried, stuffed and ignored, instead of examined. The inner voice can constantly shift your mood, mess up your moment and easily distract the mind with negativity and emotional chatter. Because of this, inner peace and happiness can feel elusive and impossible to achieve.

 

Because you are unaware of how you function and how to tap into yourself, it's easier to think all the problems are with others and the world. This fact causes internal suffering and self-victimization - however, you refuse to acknowledge the problem and/or typically are unwilling to change bad habits because you’re on autopilot. This creates problems with self regulation and self correction. Consequently, you form patterns of reliance and dependency on external authorities and systems to regulate your mind, mood and moment. Someone may have mentioned to you about ‘doing the inner work’ or ‘going within’.

 

This ‘inner work’ might sound like therapy but it's actually the process of utilizing self-awareness as the master key to break out of the mental prison. Inner work differs from therapy because you’re strategically identifying all the core fears, blockages, inner child wounds, conditioning, and subconscious programming that prevents you from living life on your terms. However, all that stuff to you is woo-woo and spiritual mumbo jumbo. You heard about it and laughed it off- you don't think its real and besides, you don't think you have a problem and/or you're not looking to change anything- you've accepted 'fate' so to say.

 

What is real for you is society and its rules. Because of that you are overly trusting of external authorities and rules- often self imposing and self enforcing rules and punishments upon yourself and others. If you distrust authority you may break the rules but are often victims of the ‘system’ or the ‘man’- be it financially, mentally, emotionally or physically. 

 

For you, success and the epitome of life is achieving all the basic bench marks of the ‘matrix’ (money, cars, clothes, sex, family, friends, house, career, etc)

 

Strengths:

 

1. Seeing is believing- pragmatic 

2. Value culture and tradition

3. Hard worker- strives to ‘survive’ or ‘thrive’ 

4. Grounded & practical- see’s life as simple

5. Innovative: find easy ways to do hard things

6. Once logically convinced and/or emotionally convicted you will go all in 

7. Simply fun- looking to have fun and a good time

8. Enjoy the simple things & relatively easy to please- will pay for the things you value

9. Great at completing mundane and repetitive tasks, rituals and routines

10. Have accessible support systems such as community, clubs and religion

 

Blindspot & Weakness:

 

1. Life is on autopilot-  Thinking, functioning and emotions are unconscious, automatic and habitual 

2. Highly susceptible to emotional manipulation, mind control and group think

3. Inner peace and happiness is fleeting

4. Inner voice is your worst critic & enemy

5. Easily emotionally triggered

6. Focus is almost exclusively external

7. Overly trusting of external authorities (news, police, governing bodies, etc)

8. Lack critical thinking and self analysis

9. Can be fanatical when you ‘believe’

10. Heavy denial & conformity- resistant to change, growth and uncomfortable truth