themes

Sometimes it seems like a theme follows me around until I face it. Whatever it is will appear everywhere until I acknowledge its presence and consider its implications. This time the theme is "know thyself." And it is everywhere.
My best friend has it tattooed on her back in another language. My yoga classes, even with different instructors, have nearly all brought up this topic as the focus. Furthermore, I have heard snippets of conversations between other people as I walk by on the street, that are devoted to the same topic at exactly the moment I walk by. I think that if I am honest with myself, I have spent a lifetime avoiding this concept in a lot of ways. I have been afraid of my own nature: afraid not only to embrace it, but even to know it.
The truth is, and I realized this recently, that it actually takes me more work to actively avoid this knowledge, than it does to experience it. Like anyone, I have ideas about who I want to be, and they are not always congruous with who I am at the moment. They are goals. But I am so afraid of failure, that they become limitations. Sometimes I can't even admit my own shortcomings to myself; sometimes I can't even allow myself to know them. It seems easier to force myself to fit inside the parameters of a pre-defined mold than it is to explore the outer edges of my own. What if I am like my mother? What happens when I see things in myself that scare me? What if I experienced the depths of my consciousness at surface level. Is that what it means to "know thyself"? What if I loved myself completely? Not just the parts that I approve of, but the depths of my own heart and soul. Can I still love myself even if I don't like myself?
I am a work-in-progress. I am still a mystery to me. I have a lot to learn, even just to know myself.