Here are 5 ways to help you know what you are really thinking and feeling:

1. Give yourself the time and permission to observe and explore your inner world.

Your first step to tapping into your unconscious world will come from allowing yourself the time and permission to become a non-judgmental observer of your self.  Your life is busy and you may not reflect inwardly much or maybe not at all.  The first step is to become mindful that you will need to allow yourself to look inward more often so that you can begin to create a sense of self-introspection.  This simply means that while part of you is taking action in your outward world, another part of you is able to simultaneously become an observer of your own actions as well. 

2. Observe yourself with a non-judgmental stance.

Now that you are going to become more mindful of the need to turn inward from time to time, you will benefit from taking the stance that you will simply observe and suspend judgment.  If your behavior makes you cringe with fear, repel with repulsion, or become self-critical, you will make a conscious pact with yourself that you will suspend these actions and judgments while you allow yourself to simply observe. 

Whenever you attend a movie with outlandish stunts that thrill and excite you, you engage in this process.  While you know that the movie’s depiction of the wild stunt is probably not feasible in real life, you nevertheless find yourself amused and thrilled by it because right after you bought your ticket, you made an unconscious decision with the movie’s director to suspend disbelief for the purpose of allowing the director and yourself to be entertained with fantasy for the next couple of hours.

 You can make this same pact with yourself.  When you observe something about yourself that you would reflexively push away from your awareness, remind yourself that you are simply an observer that is attempting to be more aware and that no judgment will follow. 

3. Pay attention to your slips.

Recognize that all of your behaviors (or lack of action) have meaning.  We do things for reasons and we fail to do things for reasons.  Purposeful action has meaning, but so do your errors.  Errors or slips (as they are commonly referred to in the psychological vernacular) refer to saying the wrong word or phrase (an error in speech), recalling the wrong facts (error of memory), or engaging in the wrong action or failing to engage in an action (error of physical action).  These slips can be a sign emanating from your unconscious process. 

 Example of a Slip of the Tongue

A young and attractive woman goes car shopping and is greeted by a car salesman who eagerly takes her for a test drive.  As he attempts to point out the features of the stereo system, he mistakenly refers to the “eject” button on the CD player as the “ejaculation” button and simultaneously reveals his attraction for the woman.   

Example of a Slip Involving Lack of Physical Action

A woman is on her way to rent an apartment, but forgets to bring her check book with her in order to provide her prospective landlord with the deposit.  She very much needed the apartment as it was the only affordable one of the 10 that she had just driven all over town to look at.  By forgetting her checkbook, the apartment was given away to someone else.

In therapy she is asked to provide her thoughts and feelings about that particular apartment and she recalls how the carpeting reminded her of her childhood home during which time her life was much happier and carefree. 

By forgetting to bring her checkbook, though, it appeared that her unconscious was telling her that she really did not want that particular apartment.

Though you might think that she would want to have a living space that reminded her of a more pleasant time, therapy reveals that she avoids anything that reminds her of it so that she does not have to recognize the negative aspect of her present life –an avoidance of reminders of happier times allows her to stay in denial about what might need to be addressed in her present life as many of her current life circumstance seem overwhelming or unmanageable.  

These are just two examples of the many slips that can occur.  The point is that whenever you make a slip, it is worthy of your self-analysis, as it may reveal much more than you thought.

4. Tap into your dreams.

Your dreams contain rich and meaningful information about your deepest wishes and fears.  Your dreams can be either unfulfilled wishes and desires or fears and anxieties.  In some instances your dreams may actually be a process of attempting to master past trauma (recurrent nightmares in some cases). 

Your mind will automatically begin to erase your dreams upon awakening in order to keep the meaning of your dreams out of your awareness. Though you try to recall the details (images, thoughts, and feelings) to them they slip through your fingers like grains of sand.

To increase your ability to retain your dream details, upon awakening, do NOT get out of bed or move at all! Do NOT try to get “cognitive” with them by igniting your logical mind and “thinking” into them –though you may think that this will help you retain the information it will ironically do the opposite –push the dream material back down into the unconscious.

Upon awakening, simply let yourself become a quiet and casual observer of the dream. Allow yourself to listen and watch without any intrusion or judgment –put your energy into suspending these critical thinking aspects and become more aligned with your fluid mind. This will help to reduce your psyche’s natural tendency to squash the dream!

The process of dream analysis is complex (and happens in therapy) but to get yourself started in the right direction, begin to tap into your dreams by practicing.

5.  Look at your illogical or irrational behavior.  

Usually when you behave in a way that seems illogical to everyone you are most likely hiding something even from yourself. 

Fictitious Clinical Example

A woman goes jogging on a regular basis alone late at night in a crime-riddled park in a large metropolitan city.  She knows that her friends and family would be horrified at her behavior so she hides it from everyone.  Her rationale is that “it’s not as hot at night” or “it’s the only time” that she has to exercise in her your busy life. 

With the numerous affordable home exercise equipment on the market these days and the escalating threat rising crime rates nationally, the decision to engage in this behavior seems illogical. Clearly, since the dangerous aspect of this situation appears to outweigh her rational some other driving force must be behind her decision to continue in her reckless behavior.     

In therapy, it is discovered that the woman came from an extremely controlling family who made her feel “smothered and overprotected.”  Her parents did not allow her to go out at night as a teenager for fear that she would be “raped,” which made her feel overcontrolled and terrified.    Years later, running alone at night in some aspect made her feel both frightened of the possibility that her parents’ fears could become a realization (tempting fate) while also providing her with the counter-phobic stance that each time she returned home unscathed she had outwitted a possible negative result.