Know Yourself

By Lexie Brockway Potamkin

Everyone's life is driven by a personal philosophy. It is something that can keep us stuck, or set us free, depending on how much of our philosophy is created by choice, how much was imposed upon us, and whether we are even aware of it.

 

Know Yourself is meant to help you define your current life philosophy and look for ways to open your mind to new ways of seeing the world. It shows you how to identify which beliefs help or hurt you in life, and how to revise your view on life to invite more happiness, greater strength, and deeper compassion for yourself and others.  You will discover some of the following:

 

- Insights into how your personal philosophy developed

- Exercises and ideas for improving self-awareness

- Tips for creating a wisdom tool kit you can call upon in daily life

- Understanding of why struggle, suffering, and pain are part of life

- New ways to perceive your life and the world around you

- Instruction on how to meditate – even if you never have

- How to develop a practice that will touch your soul

- Techniques to help others through the use of ancient wisdom

 

Harvard's Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, PhD, and bestselling authors Marco Borges, Dr. Jay Kumar, and Dr. Gail Gross, and others have praised Know Yourself:

 

"At a time of wounded bodies and spirits, of emotional and social ills, and of turmoil and loss, how does one find inner strength and peace? Know Yourself offers to people of all backgrounds a needed answer to this question. In her Intellectually rich and deeply moving personal meditation on finding, knowing, and becoming a person of compassion, Lexie Potamkin provides an array of philosophical and spiritual pathways to a better, more meaningful life. Most of all, she blesses us with insights that help us to be true to ourselves through embracing a self-love capacious enough to love those who are different from us."

 — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, PhD, Professor of History and of African and African American Studies, Harvard University

 

 "Lexie has spent years immersed in the work of bringing more compassion to our world. It's a wonderful thing for us all that she has shared her journey while creating a brilliant roadmap from it for achieving true happiness. This is an incredibly soul-nurturing book that is exactly what the world needs right now."

 — Marco Borges, New York Times best-selling author, exercise physiologist and founder & CEO of 22 Days Nutrition

 

"Know Yourself speaks to the very soul of a wounded world coping in the midst of crises and to the heart of humanity seeking hope for a brighter future. Lexie's valuable lessons for achieving both personal transformation and global peace guide us to explore the fundamental nature of our core identity, purpose in life, and sense of being. Integrating timeless spiritual truths, cutting-edge science, and her own personal wisdom, Know Yourself provides the timely antidote we require to become a happier, stronger, and more compassionate world." 

— Dr. Jay Kumar, Author of Science of a Happy Brain

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lexie Brockway Potamkin
• Release date: Nov 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9780982459034

Book preview

Part One

Understanding the Roots of Personal

Philosophies and Values

Chapter 1

Embracing People of All Backgrounds

Cultural differences should not separate us from each other, but rather cultural diversity brings a collective strength that can benefit all of humanity.

― Robert Alan

Someone asked me what is your religion? I said,

All the paths that lead to the light.

― Sneha Maheswari

When I am asked what my tradition is, I often say: I am an Inclusiastic. I include everyone. Being Inclusiastic, to me, means being compassionate and all-embracing. It means celebrating all traditions and welcoming people who hail from all backgrounds.

There is a great perk to being Inclusiastic: You get to hang out with people of all cultures and faiths, and learn from them. One of the most powerful lessons is this: Most traditions share undeniable similarities and people are not as different as we may assume they are. I believe we are all world citizens connected by our humanity.

I am a firm believer that we can benefit by reaching outside the circle of family and learn from people from other backgrounds. We might even choose to explore or blend in the tenets or beliefs of philosophies that appeal to us. For example, while I was raised in a Christian household, I’ve also been drawn to Buddhism, Taoism, and Eastern philosophies. And while I studied psychology and interfaith ministry, I also have a passion for science. I often say that if I were a tree, my trunk would be Christian and Buddhist and my branches would be Jewish, Hindu, Sufi, and many other world traditions.

I have never believed that one thing must preclude the other. We can embrace many influences and studies at once over the course of our lifetimes. Some of us struggle or feel stuck in a certain way of being, or we may feel limited by some of the messages of our upbringing, but if we are open to learning new things it can lead to evolution and change.

Different Cultural Ideas Can Shape Us

My dad was an engineer so we moved around—a lot—when I was young. In fact, traveling was a family tradition. I was born in Idaho, but lived in Oregon, Washington, California, Michigan, Florida, Belgium and Italy, and I moved to New York at age twenty. While it was sad to lose friends and have to start over, I learned to easily adapt to change. It was also a great blessing to be exposed to so many different parts of the country at such an early age. It opened my eyes to the fact that there were so many people in the world that were not like my nuclear family. The world was filled with people who had different beliefs, came from different cultures, and hailed from many ethnic backgrounds. They ate different foods, danced certain dances, and sometimes spoke with accents or in a different language. I learned early to embrace and celebrate people from different traditions, and I feel very fortunate for these experiences because they help define who I am today.

My penchant for Inclusiasm set me up to become a world traveler. It was another blessing in my life that I was able to see so much of this amazing world and connect with so many people as I traveled for work and leisure. I cherish the opportunity to study the nuances of so many cultures and see how people live in their day-to-day lives around the world.

The Monks Who Walked into My Life

My life truly changed when I was introduced to a group of Tibetan Buddhist Monks, led by Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, PhD, from the Drepung Loseling Monastery, who became my dear friend over two decades years ago, and who led me to the teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Meeting the monks and Dr. Negi―whom I affectionately address as Geshe-La―changed my life. They now call me Acha-La, which means revered sister. They were the first teachers to show me how to meditate and go within, and they helped me step onto a spiritual path that led to the journey of exploration and spiritual growth that brought me to this moment.

I have been devoted to my meditation practice for many years, and it has helped me stay balanced even in the most difficult times. It has also proven to me that with practice, we can grow, change, and improve our lives. Along the way, I have been drawn to many spiritual studies, but I have engaged most deeply with the philosophies of Taoism and Buddhism. The main reason is that both are extremely open-minded and incline heavily towards philosophy rather than being based on dogma.

I have also participated in much professional training to improve my ability to help others; this includes being ordained as an interfaith minister in 1998, graduating from a counseling program at the University of Santa Monica, taking grief and loss trainings and attending a two-year inter-spiritual wisdom course through Spiritual Paths Wisdom Institute.

I know that in real life we must take time out for family and work. I understand how distracted we can become by everyday life and how overwhelmed we can get while caregiving for others. But I truly believe that when the student is ready the teacher appears. And that when we are open we will be given life lessons that help us grow. When we allow ourselves to learn more about how others live and identify our own true passions, we can activate new aspects of our being. This expands our personal philosophy.

Follow Your Own Passion

Once I opened my mind and heart, my hunger for more spiritual wisdom never subsided. I loved learning spirituality from other cultures, but I did not need to convert to any other tradition that called to me. What I found on my path were tools to be happier, which happened to hail from different parts of the world than the area I was raised in.

By the same token, my spiritual explorations did not interfere with my other emerging interests. For example, I developed a keen interest in philosophy, science, and how the brain works. I did not feel called to go to school to become a neuroscientist, but I am fascinated about the ways in which the human brain developed and how our minds operate. I have loved learning and blending the soulful and the intellectual aspects of life, the spiritual and the scientific, and I love exploring where the paths intersect. This has enhanced and expanded my personal philosophy.

Every road I have taken has led me to understand some of the most important keys to life, including what I see as the most crucial in our world today: That we must love and have compassion for one another. And ourselves. This is a theme I will revisit often in this book.

Embracing Everyone

When I was a child in school, I was taught that America was a great nation, a melting pot, because it was comprised of peoples of all nationalities from all over the world. Our country has always welcomed others. Lady Liberty, a beacon for all newcomers, stands on a pedestal emblazoned with a plaque beginning with the words, Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.

Obviously, my personal philosophy was greatly expanded by my deep study of Asian philosophies, which are founded on the basic premise that we are all connected and interdependent. They have helped me see that even though no one overtly sets out to be selfish, we still live within the confines of ourselves, our families and our social circles. Many of us are largely cut off from the needs or suffering of those outside our environment. We are separated by neighborhoods and social status. But even if we cannot see someone else’s suffering firsthand, we can still wish for them to be free of suffering, just as we wish that for ourselves.

Here’s what I truly believe: When we develop a deep, profound love, an unconditional love for all human beings, this creates a space in one’s heart for people who hold different beliefs. When we are true to ourselves and have a place in our hearts for others, it transcends tolerance and acceptance. It’s a calling and a way of being—a life philosophy.

It’s up to people who have had the opportunity to season and exercise this part of themselves to make it more widely available. Those who have made progress on this must help others figure out how to see the importance of a powerful, inclusive love for all human beings in the world today. As a global society we need to look at this issue. I believe that our hearts and minds want to experience the peace of embracing all people rather than the pain of carrying hatred and separation.

I’m not saying it’s easy. In today’s busy world, we get distracted and we may not always have the support we need from those around us. But we have to summon courage. We must push away the fear that, just because someone hails from a different culture or looks different, we should exclude them. I believe there is a way to break through with profound love and compassion. It’s what I call loving kindness and equanimity.

In my heart of hearts, I believe we are an evolving species and we can all make ourselves better human beings with a little practice and awareness. That’s where science and spirituality work in tandem. There’s a need to keep learning, exploring, asking questions, and evolving. As we do more inner work, we can improve our ability to discern the real truth from inaccurate news of the day. With time we can create an intuitive approach that will determine our personal truth.

A Reverence for Life

There are many influences that shape our personal philosophies as we grow up. If we are exposed to experiences beyond our own little worlds, they may broaden our view and teach us a new way of seeing things.

My parents were so clearly the foundation of my own personal philosophy on life. They gave me the tools to navigate the world and to expand on all they taught me. I came to the idea about being Inclusiastic through something I learned from my father and mother. It is called a reverence for life. This is a concept my parents adopted from the Christian minister, philosopher, and medical doctor Albert Schweitzer, who famously said: Ethics is nothing other than reverence for life. Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, assisting and enhancing life, and to destroy, to harm or to hinder life is evil. Helping others was imperative to Schweitzer.

This is not something attained through the study of any philosophy or social science. It is the basic innate understanding of essential virtues and ideas, and how they are expressed uniquely, by every individual, in how we live our lives. This was not taught to me in words but from the example my father and mother showed me by how they lived their lives.

While I acknowledge and rejoice in the things we humans share and have in common, I am also excited and fascinated by our differences. We are the same in many ways, especially in our intrinsic value and the fact that we all deserve to pursue happiness in the way we feel we can best arrive at that goal. But every human being is still undeniably unique, and that is absolutely fascinating to me.

Learning about different cultures and meeting so many people with stories to share has been a driving force in my life. As a result I have learned so many philosophies that originated in different parts of the world. With open hearts and open minds, we can all be Inclusiastics, trusting that Divine Love and Spirit will give us strength and support to open our hearts and minds to diversity and inclusivity.

Chapter 2

How Our Personal Philosophies Develop

The outer world is a reflection of the inner world. Other people’s perception of you is a reflection of them; your response to them is an awareness of you.

― Roy T. Bennett

People tend to think of philosophy as a topic they are forced to study in school or something they read in a history or mythology book. The Oxford English Dictionary describes it as "the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline and the study of the theoretical basis of a particular branch of knowledge or experience." But the concept of philosophy is not just about ancient musings from Aristotle and Socrates.

My life centers on philosophy, and we all have our own personal philosophies on life; and some of our conclusions about the nature of reality are just as profound as the most famous masters of philosophical thought who have pondered human existence over the eons. In fact, many people build businesses, careers, and movements based on their personal philosophies. They write, speak about, and promote them on social media, and they encourage others to agree with their point of