Self-reflection is the basis of most kinds of therapy and also most meditation practices – the ability to look inward, recognize how you are feeling and why, and then make a conscious choice of what to do next based on your knowledge of past, present, and wishes for the future. It’s a pretty powerful thing, if you think about it. However, in a fast-paced and information-loaded world, I think we are less and less encouraged or even taught about how to self-reflect. Think about your childhood: if you’re like me, you were a child during a time when there were not smart phones or tablets, and so the ways you spent your free time feel much different from the ways children do now. I used to sit and read and just think for hours on end. Now, my six-year-old and even my three-year-old get bored with playing with toys after a short time and their impulse is to ask if they can play a game on the tablet.
Teaching yourself (or your kids) to self-reflect necessarily starts with a conscious effort to slow things down. We have a lot of reasons and maybe some excuses why this is hard to do. However, when you do take the time to sit quietly and look inward, it allows you to recognize, and maybe spend some time with, the feelings that are propelling your actions automatically throughout the day. You can start this process of slowing down with a few short reflective questions:
1) What am I feeling? – go beyond the first, most obvious responses of “happy,” “sad,” “angry,” there are probably several layers of feelings you might be able to recognize. Sit with it for a while and just let the feelings wash over you and through you.
2) What things have led to the feelings I’m having now? – identify if you can the reasons behind your feelings. Recognize when assumptions or judgments might be playing in to your feelings, i.e. when you feel someone was being passive aggressive in that meeting at work, or you think that you’re feeling a certain way because you’re stupid or someone else is – when our feelings are based on assumptions or judgments, they may not actually be based in truth.
3) What can I let go? - Let yourself feel the experience of letting go of a feeling that you don’t think is helping you. You can do this visually, by imagining the feeling as a object (whatever speaks to you most) and visualizing it lifting from your shoulders and flying away. Or you might decide to mindfully focus on something else to replace the feeling. Either way, you are moving from self-reflection to mindfulness, which are so linked that this is a natural progression and one that really helps us practice something that will help us make change in our lives.
Reflecting on your feelings is the first step toward creating a change – we can’t change something we don’t see or recognize. And there is benefit in just the seeing – when you take time to look inward, you will get to know yourself better. Knowing yourself better allows you to see where your strengths and your weaknesses are – and we all have both! Knowing your strengths and weaknesses allows you to find environments and life situations where you can be and feel at your best.
