Weird But Effective Self Discovery Exercise (For Creatives And All)

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You have tried all the self discovery activities you could find, and now you want to try some brand new self discovery exercise? You are in the right place!

Get ready because this is going to be interesting.

In this post, I am presenting the most unique self discovery exercise you can find on the Internet.

Sounds ambitious? You’ll see!

You’ll learn how to explore the deepest corners of your mind and discover surprising things.

As a result, you will build a stronger connection with yourself and discover your true self.

This post is all about a unique self discovery exercise.

Table of Contents

🕵🏻‍♂️ What is self discovery?
⭐️ Why self discovery is so important
🏰 Self discovery exercise that I first tried when I was ten
✂️ Tailor the exercise based on your preferences
🧩 So how does it work?

🕵🏻‍♂️ What is self discovery?

The definition that I find the most straightforward yet complete is by Britannica Dictionary:

Self discovery is the act or process of gaining knowledge or understanding of your abilities, character, and feelings.

It is simply getting to know your true self. It is a lifelong process because we always change and evolve.

There are no specific rules for this process: there are quite a few ways to discover yourself, as well as exercises and techniques that you can use.

⭐️ Why self discovery is so important

Knowledge is power.
Francis Bacon

There are TONS of reasons why it’s absolutely necessary to spend time learning about ourselves.

I think the most important one is that we find a deeper connection with ourselves.

Self discovery allows us to cultivate self love.

You see where the trick is?

Self discovery process answers the questions:

Am I actually doing what I truly want?
Am I following my genuine path?
Am I fulfilling my potential?
Am I truly happy with where I am?
What do I want?

(These above actually make a list of some great self discovery journaling prompts.)

HERE ARE SOME OF THE OTHER REASONS WHY SELF DISCOVERY IS SO CRUCIAL:

You learn what your values and goals are
You learn about your passions
You learn about your traumas and reactions to events and people
You learn to be insightful
You get a more profound understanding of yourself
You develop greater emotional intelligence as you learn about your feelings
You figure out what works for you, and what doesn’t
It helps you understand your strengths and weaknesses, and how to work with them

If you are like me, you are insightful by nature. And self discovery exercises might seem pretty easy and enjoyable.

If you aren’t — no need to worry.

It works like a muscle — the more you train it, the stronger it becomes.

The more you work on self reflection, the easier it gets.

🏰 Self discovery exercise that I first tried when I was ten

I discovered this exercise in a book that my mom bought for me when I was ten. The book was called The Book Of Magic by Cornelius Ramstackle.

It went out of print a long time ago, and no one actually knows who the author really is — it’s a pseudonym.

Obviously, for me back then this was a game book with exercises and activities to teach me how to make magic…

But when I stumbled upon this book in my old closet a few years ago being a fully grown adult, I realized that the book is actually about… manifestation and meditation.

It was a book teaching kids spirituality and self-awareness in a playful manner.

And that’s when I fell in love with it even more than when I was an excited ten-year-old completing tasks on creating lucky charms or building imaginary towers.

The Wizard’s Tower is an exercise that I’ve never seen anywhere apart from this book.

The following three chapters are my translation of the book chapter called The Wizard’s Tower (since the book is written in my native language, Russian). I removed some parts to make it less childish for the purpose of this post.

All you have to do is to follow the following guidance.

The Wizard’s Tower

We are going to build a tower.

All you need is a little bit of time and a little bit of inner work. And some practice, of course.

The tower doesn’t exist in the physical world — only in the astral world. We build it in our imagination following the plan that I’m going to give you.

This plan consists of some start-up descriptions that will help you visualize a smaller part of your own tower before you find yourself all alone and face-to-face with the rest.

You are going to create an image of the tower — let’s try to make it as vivid as possible.

You have to not only see it but also hear all the sounds around, sense the smells, and touch the objects.

Just imagine that you are walking freely in the tower, exploring it, touching the walls, testing the furniture and other objects around, and so on.

And it’s not enough to do it once.

You have to practice every day until you are able to “teleport” to your tower immediately once you close your eyes. And it shouldn’t matter where you decide to do it — whether it’s your workplace, coffee shop, or an airport.

Your tower is your sanctuary, inner workplace, and a lot more.

And yes, it’s not just a tower — it’s a whole castle.

Let’s begin…

You are standing on a green lawn, and the grey stone walls stand majestically in front of you. Those are the walls of a magnificent castle with lots of towers, turrets, and fortifications.

This is your castle.

The flags on the towers are your flags.

The emblem on the flags is your emblem.

No one can enter this castle without your personal permission. No one even knows how to find this castle — until you tell them.

There are a lot of castles in the world but there are no two that are the same.

This castle is special and it belongs to you.

You are standing in front of this epic structure and you see that it’s surrounded by a deep moat filled with water, the gates are down, and the bridge is lifted.

You are the only person who can command the bridge to come down.

You are the only person who can command the gates to lift.

Use your willpower and imagination to do it.

You hear the rumbling of the chains and gears of the lifting mechanism. The bridge is slowly coming down. You wait for it to lay over the moat, and then slowly cross the bridge. While you are walking, the gates start lifting behind you as if upon a voluntary decision. And again you hear the rumbling and grinding.

You get to the main arch of the castle. If you go through it, there is a vaulted tunnel with openings in the ceiling. There are niches in the wall under each of the openings, and each niche carries a gargoyle.

You confidently walk through the tunnel because you know that no one or nothing can harm you — it’s your castle, your most secret, innermost home.

You come out of the tunnel and find yourself in an inner courtyard. To the right of you, there is a barn with your horses. To the left — a kennel with your dogs. In front of you, there is a citadel of the castle — the tower itself.

You approach a huge wooden steel-lined door that opens once you come closer, letting you in.

You take a look at the room behind it.

You see an antechamber, it has a cobblestone floor and walls celled with wood. Along the walls, there are life-sized marble statues. There are three more doors here, solid and sound — on the right, on the left, and right in front of you.

Now take a step into the antechamber. Spend some time admiring the statues, examining them thoroughly, touching them. Then choose one of the doors to continue exploring the tower.

There are tons of things that can be found in the tower:

healing area
dining area
library
a central winding staircase that can get you to any floor of the tower
secret passageways
dungeon
chapel or a sanctuary
garden and so many more.

Unfortunately, I cannot tell you where all of these are located but I know for sure that they are somewhere in the tower. I haven’t been there.

For the same reason, I can’t describe what exactly the mentioned rooms look like. But I have already found these in my own tower. If you dedicate enough time to exploring your tower, I can guarantee you will find all these.

On top of that, you will find rooms and halls that I have no idea about, along with different objects that are going to help you at different points in your life, which shouldn’t be mentioned here because it’s your secret.

Whatever you discover in your tower is a part of your true self because it belongs to you as much as your body and soul.

The tower presents an opportunity to explore it — which means learning a lot about yourself.

The tower reflects the strengths and abilities of its creator — even those the creator knows nothing about it.

You can be exploring the tower your whole life but you’ll never fully figure it out.

Homework

Every day dedicate 30 minutes to exploring your tower.

Write down everything you discover in your journal. Pay particular attention to secret passageways: you can encounter them moving objects in the tower, for example, bookshelves or knight armors.

It’s extremely important to examine each room as thoroughly as possible. Walk around the castle in your imagination and make discoveries.

It’s absolutely, fundamentally wrong to be thinking: “A hiding place would look nice in here”, and then visualize it.

Get your mind right to treat the tower as if it was a real home you just settled in.

When you get the idea, exploring the tower will become a great pleasure.

You are going to want to learn more and more about your tower.

✂️ Tailor the exercise based on your preferences

If you don’t like the idea of a castle, modify the exercise a bit so that it fits your needs and brings you joy.

Instead of a castle, you can do

a mansion in the woods
a cave
a dungeon
a house in the mountains
a whole island etc.

Just don’t forget that it has to be a huge place with tons of rooms and secret paths so that you have the freedom to explore.

🧩 So how does it work?

It develops your connection with yourself, makes you learn things that are hidden somewhere in your mind that you would never think of, and supports your creativity.

It also opens up your own inner safe place that you can escape to at any moment — just like with meditation.

Also, you can always look back at what you wrote down while exploring your tower and learn a lot about yourself.

It is so powerful! Especially if you practice it regularly.

I personally feel SO incredible when I do this exercise.

I feel safe and peaceful but super excited at the same time.

I think that’s exactly what a true connection with yourself feels like.

There is another exercise in this book that requires the tower. It lets you find an answer to any question you have.

I’ll cover it in one of my future posts 😉