We especially girls like admiring ourselves. We use mirrors to our beauty. A mirror reflects your body, face, complexion, hair, etc. but it cannot reflect our mind and soul. You all have thought of how you look and how sharp and attractive are your features but have you ever felt concerned about your insight? Have you ever looked within? Have you ever peeped into your mind and thoughts?
No. Very few people have realized the importance of self-reflection. It is very important to be aware of your inner self.
What thoughts are going in your mind?
Is your mind really at peace?
Are you feeling fresh and active from within?
Do you have a balance of mind and control over your emotions?
Do you know why you think the way you do and act that way?
The answer to all the above questions is practicing self-reflection.
“The journey into self-love and self-acceptance must begin with self-examination. Until you take the journey of self-reflection, it is almost impossible to grow or learn in life”.
– Iyanla Vanzant
What is self-reflection?
Self-reflection is a process of driving your attention towards your thoughts and acknowledging what is happening in your life in a mindful and open-minded way. All of us are so busy in our life that we don’t have time to stop a bit and spend time with ourselves. It is creating self-awareness and thinking about what is going within us.
It is looking neutrally towards our thoughts, emotions, and actions. It is something like piercing deep within oneself with interest, curiosity, and inquiry to explore ourselves. Self-awareness is very important to have a positive mindset and have a sweet connection with oneself. It makes us mentally strong and determined to take the right actions at the right time.
Why is self-reflection important?
- To make things sensible:
“There is no greater journey than the one that you must take to discover all of the mysteries that lie within you.” – Michelle Sandlin
Self-reflection is a great exercise of your mind. When you can deeply connect within, you become more strong and realistic. Confusion and lack of knowledge create frustration and an exhibition of wrong behavior. If you are mature enough to understand the situation; you will of course react aptly.
- To solve all the mysteries:
I have experienced that after self-talks and spending time in silence with myself, I always end up solving a problem or clearing a doubt. When we try to focus within; everything starts to become clear and the problems appear to be smaller than used to appear before. Sit back and relax. Take out some time to reflect on you. You have the solution for a majority of problems. Everything can be sorted out by a calm and composed mind.
- To change your thoughts:
I have often heard that the man is the biggest enemy of oneself if his thoughts, way of thinking and reactions are opposite to the demand of the time and situation. You must have complete control over your emotions and reaction.
With self-reflection, a man learns how to win over his senses and mind as well. Of Course, it is very difficult but not impossible. If we can alter our thought process and change our mindsets we thereby can solve more than half of the problems around us.
- To recognize changes and track progress:
When you learn the art of self-reflection you will realize what difference it creates in your life and way of living. Eventually, you will realize that everything has changed so much. The behavior and relations change a lot with the change in approach towards your life. Sit in solitude, evaluate your thoughts, and question yourself to feel the change and track the difference. By self-reflection one is thus able to evaluate the difference in the mindset and the happiness generated.
- To increase self-awareness:
In this journey of self-improvement, we need to be clear about the present situation as well as the desired life. Through this process of self-reflection one tries to become more and more aware of the present and able to crack the riddles of the future too. Increasing awareness makes you more sensible and rational which is key to the achievement of the desired destination. Self-reflection enables you to evaluate various parameters of the present life and make changes suitable to make a happy and healthy future.
- Self-acceptance:
Self-love and self-examination begin with self-reflection. Only this aids your growth and development. It’s all about being positive and keeps on learning as u grow. Whenever you feel that you are doing something wrong and feel negative vibes within, just divert your thoughts towards your positive side.
Accept whoever and whatever you are. If you accept yourself the world will also welcome you. Thus, when you become aware you can live in your present more joyously.
- Improved relationships:
As you become more sensible and thoughtful your relationships also change. By following the process you get rid of misunderstandings which spoil the whole essence of tr; relationships. The panic and wrath also reduce to a great extent with the increase of maturity and balance of mind. As you grow more and more mature, you can understand the sensitivity of relations more aptly and direct your efforts towards increasing the unity and love of the family.
- Improved decision making:
We have to make thousands of decisions in a day. Some of them are insignificant and are done continuously in our unconscious mind. But some decisions are very significant and require a handsome amount and quality of thought. For such important decisions, one needs to think and rationalize things. Also, you need to have a clear and wide perspective of the future. Such perseverance comes from the process of self-reflection.
The right decision is necessary to put you on the most optimal path for your better well being. Self-reflection leads to fewer regrets, less guilt, and more opportunities by helping you to make the right choice.
- Better sleep:
When you make a habit of thinking every day about yourself, your actions, and your responses you become more satisfied and all your queries also get answered. When there are no un-cleared doubts and confusion you are sure to get sound quality sleep. As you exactly know what is happening and how to handle it you are less aggressive and feel more pacified. The only caveat to this is that your negative vibes may turn against you and make you feel restless. But this should not happen. All your negative thoughts should be channelized and converted into positive ones. Thus, self-reflection is the necessary medicine for relaxed sleep and sweet dreams.
- Gives a purpose to live:
Living without any particular aim and just walking blindly is not at all happening in this era of continuous growth and development. When you indulge yourself in this thinking and reflecting process you can identify your passion and skills in a better way.
Therefore it will not only guide you towards your ultimate destination but also promises self-confidence and happiness in the path to success. It also encourages you to find ways of how you can add more joy and fun into your life.
- Makes us a better human being:
Self-reflection is dwelling inside you deep into the silent space. With this continuous practice you become focused and a sense of sensitivity and kindness is also generated, when you become master in it, spiritual awakening is inevitable. Likewise, entering into the empty space and imagining yourself and the universe made me realize how small I am in this giant universe. But I can become so powerful that I control my destiny by my thought process and will power. Self reflection makes you see the truth about yourself and your worldly connections. It makes you feel content and happier from within. Soon you become a better human being who has a good heart and love and generosity for everyone.
Life has become so busy and challenging that it is hard to remember that when was the last time you sat and relaxed to think about yourself and the circumstances. You hardly have any time to think and feel happy about your achievements or the sorrows you have endured. We get so caught up in the hustle and bustle that we end up becoming numb to pausing and deep thinking. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Not thinking at all and utilizing your mind, may prove to be very dangerous. It is very necessary to take time to reflect on the mental and spiritual well-being of any person. But now the next question that comes to mind of everyone is how I do it.
Self-reflection is a deep and continuous process. It has to be practiced every day, every week, and the whole of the year. It is a particular kind of awareness which is applied on many levels like
- Spiritual
- Mental
- Physical
- Emotional
How Ritu Singal Helps You With a Self Reflection Program?
In order to understand the concept of self-reflection and its benefit, I take you through the details while guiding you. Recently I helped a person struggling with both professional as well as personal life. After the detailed discussion, I reached the decision of helping him with self-reflection. I have developed a self-reflection program where I put the person through different tests in order to test their personality, thought process, and other things that could help me to analyze the core issue and help him or her. This includes a personality test, baseline test, and wheel of life to know how exactly your life is going and come up with the solutions to make it better. It’s A 10-week program that could really transform your life so you can start to enjoy it instead of just living it.
How will you start to practice self-reflection
Self-reflection should be learned and started immediately if you have not yet done it. I used to walk like dumbs in confusion and had no recognition until I started to take time for self-reflection and doing everything that was well planned and meaningful. Actually, no such particular way to start self-reflection but here is a way generalized steps you may consider:
Determine your goals:
The first step is to set goals both short term and long term. It has been observed that many of the goals and hidden desires always go unaccomplished in absence of awareness that comes from self-reflection.
When you have a clear vision you can better evaluate your current situation and assessment of what has to be done to go to the desired destination. The goal must be clear, obvious, attainable and time-bound.
Evaluate your strength and weakness:
Knowing your limits and powers is very important to survive in this world. Self-reflection is very important to make us realize and think about our strengths and weaknesses. Thus you can build upon your strengths to become better and replace your weakness with better qualities and characteristics.
Consider what you can improve in the next time:
There is always thought upon your past day space for growth and development. The next thing is to think about your past day and what you want to change in it. Take the dime to reflect your daily experience like this. Know where you are and where you actually want to be.
Forgive yourself:
As a part of self-reflection you sometimes may dwell into your dark side also. Nevertheless you must accept yourself whoever and however you are. Self-acceptance is the basic requirement of self-reflection. Mistakes are a part of life but that does not mean that we become harsh with ourselves, Embrace you gently with love. Everything can be sorted out and everything can be made dining with awareness. Hurdles can be turned into opportunities as well if you reflect upon them and act aptly.
Keep a track:
Self reflection is all pervasive and you ought to keep doing it continuously. Self reflection is meaningless if it is not able to bring qualitative changes in your life. To reap the actual benefits of self-reflection you have to stick to the process. Keep on tracking your growth and monitor your observations to know who successfully you have been able to implement it. You can maintain a journal also so that you can jot down your points and track them.
Gibbs reflective cycle
Graham was an academic researcher who created a model to make you understand the effectiveness of self-reflection. This model depicts different steps in this process. These steps are a roadmap of how to practice reflection and bring changes into your life through it. Its detailed study will create an understanding and help us to better implement this process and bring changes into our lifestyles.
Here is a story to help you understand better:
There was an elephant who was walking towards his herd after taking a bath. There came ape which was coming from muddy water and was covered with mud. As the pig approached the elephant gave him side to move past him. While walking ahead the pig laughed saying that the elephant was afraid of him. The other pigs were also amused and started laughing.
To this the other elephants enquired of why he did so and didn’t say the rude pig anything. To this the elephant replied that “To which the elephant replies, “No. I could have crushed that pig under my leg if I wanted to, but the pig was muddy and the mud would have splashed on me too. I wanted to avoid that, hence I stepped aside.”
Moral: The elephant didn’t react in anger. He first examined the situation and responded in a rational way that saved him from dirt and negativeness. Petty things cannot disturb you when you are in a higher state of vibration i.e. if you are aware. You generate a deeper understanding of what serves you and what does not.
Spending your precious energy arguing/fighting with someone who is egotistically motivated is never going to serve you. It just leads to a, ‘who is better’ battle where no one wins. You end up giving your energy to an energy vampire who craves attention and drama.
Instead, you are better off spending all your focus on things that matter and simply discard things that are of a lower significance.
So let’s get started!!
To conclude i can only say that peace and harmony are very important to live a healthy life and also for sustainable growth and development. This can be only achieved by a continuous self-examination and awareness. It helps us remove the inner roadblocks and become aware of things that actually matter us and are becoming hurdles in the way of our success. It is not easy and requires eagerness to improve, one has to be alert, cautious and open to several possibilities that can come from within. Understanding oneself better, examining the strength and weakness and knowing all the driving factors one can better adapt to continuous changing situations in life.
