Discover & Know Yourself Through Your 5 Senses

If you feel lost or like you don’t know yourself anymore, there are simple, easy actions you can take to re-center within yourself and and re-discover who you are.

Discovering and knowing yourself begins with exploring — on the most basic level — what is fundamental and true for you.

And the good news is that you have access to all of the information you need right now.

The first portal of the The Radiant Threefold Path is Return. Returning to yourself is the first and best place to go when you’re feeling uncertain, unsure, or filled with self-doubt. In the portal of Return there is one Invitation, and that is to Know. To know yourself — inside and out.

What does it mean to know yourself? How, in practical terms, do you return to who you are?

Knowing yourself means being aware of what you’re experiencing with your 5 senses. It means being aware of your emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions.

Today I’ll cover how you can discover and know yourself more deeply through the experience of your 5 senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.

Each of the 5 senses described below is followed by invitations for you to explore that will support your journey to knowing you.

Knowing You Through Your Sense of Sight

The sense of sight is one of the most important human senses.

We rely heavily on our sense of sight to learn, orient, navigate, connect, and assess the relative safety or danger of people, places, or situations.

With your eyes, you see color, texture, shape, light (as in sunshine or lamplight), empty space v. high visual stimulation. You also see both darkness and light as these qualities manifest in color, texture, and in your environment.

Invitations for exploring the sense of sight:

• What are the dominant colors in your home, or in the space where you spend the most time?
• What shapes are the most pleasing shapes to you (e.g., round, square, oval, organic, rectangular, etc.)?

Knowing You Through Your Sense of Hearing

The experience of sound can range from soothing and inspiring, to startling and even terrifying.

Sound includes voices, music, urban or rural soundscapes, nature (including pets), the everyday sounds of your home or workplace, the movement of water, and silence.

Invitations for exploring the sense of hearing:

• What voices do you prefer to listen to? Female? Male? What is the volume and tone you prefer?
• What sounds of water do you most enjoy – the sound of a waterfall, incoming tide, a stream, rain, the sound of running bath water?

Knowing You Through Your Sense of Smell

Scent is a powerful sense that can instantly transport us back in time and evoke strong emotion.

The experience of scent or smell can be  sweet, light, rich, sharp, warm, heavy, or toxic.

Invitations for exploring the sense of smell:

• What are your top 3 favorite scents? (These can include food, essential oils, the smell of rain and other scents experienced in nature.)
• What scents are calming or relaxing to you?

Knowing You Through Your Sense of Taste

Scientists describe the seven basic tastes as bitter, salty, sour, astringent, sweet, pungent (e.g., chilis), and umami.

Invitations for exploring the sense of taste:

• What are your two favorite flavors?
• What tastes do you associate with healthy pleasure?

Knowing You Through Your Sense of Touch

Touch is a fundamental human need. In fact, babies who don’t receive adequate touch may experience a number of cognitive deficits and suffer more mental health problems.

Touch can be feathery light or strong and heavy. Sensations of warm, cool, moist, dry, rough and smooth are all part of our tactile experience.

Invitations for exploring the sense of touch: 

• What fabrics or textures feel most pleasurable against your skin?
• What kinds of healthy, self-nurturing touch comfort you?

There is so much to explore and learn about you through your 5 senses.

This way of discovering and knowing you may seem too simple or too elementary. Or you may wonder how it can help with the big challenges you’re facing in your life.

The women I work with tell me that after doing a deep dive into the uniquely individual experience of their senses, they are inspired (sometimes compelled!) to make changes to their homes or physical environments that better support and nurture them.

They also tell me that they become more aware of situations (or people) that feel uncomfortable and even unsafe to them, and they take action in those situations to create more comfort and safety.

When you know how to Return to yourself by tuning into your direct experience in the moment, you have all the information you need to make decisions and take the actions that change your life.

What did you discover about you through this exploration? Of the 5 senses, which is the most powerful for you?

(If you’d like to go deeper into an exploration of touch, click here to get a FREE video lesson where I will guide you through an exploration or the experience of nonsexual self-touch.)

© Victoria Priya (2023)