Reflection requires courage.

You should do it.

Another mirror themed post! The properties of the mirror have a lot to teach us. Mirrors, so often given a bad rep for those who gaze, there are other ways to do it that are the opposite of self absorption.

Photo by Andre Mouton on Unsplash

I accidentally started reflecting in a moment where I wasn’t sure what I should be doing right then and it caused a little panic. I so actually googled “should I think about myself?” and believe it or not the search got mixed results. Some people saying yes, some people saying it’s a waste of time and a distraction. I then reworded the question to: Should I reflect on my life? The best article on this was actually centered on being a better business person but I think that maybe that’s just because just being a better person doesn’t pay as well.

Rolfe et al's (2001) reflective model

So interesting is the reflexive reputation of reflection. While people may label it self absorption, real reflection tends to actually be a bruise to the ego and uncomfortable. Reflexion may be executive functioning, but the way it improves your subconscious after the reckoning can be the payoff that goes way beyond appearances. It can actually be shocking as to what far extent that what you think is happening is not actually happening when you reflect properly.

vitriol: bitterly harsh or caustic language or criticism

Surprise: this is not what I expected

Failure: this tends to be embarrassing

Frustrations: seems I can’t get what I want

Asking questions and reflecting on these key moments tend to bring the most growth.

If you weren’t sure if you should be reflecting on your life, because let’s be honest it doesn’t always feel good, the answer is that you should. My disbelief that maybe I shouldn’t be thinking about my life came from a similar but destructive habit which was thinking about the same thing over and over but not ever being released from it. If I’m not reaching actionable places, maybe for a lack of trusting my own instincts, it’s not useful and it’s not functional.

I think that’s where I developed a deep distrust of self reflection, of course I do it sometimes, to live, but doing more of it and doing it with more confidence in the goodness in it IS something that time must be put aside for. For it is in the quiet uncomfortable and even the bothersome repetitive thought that a creative endeavor can be hatched and even re-hatched rather than rehashed.

The 5R framework for reflection https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit/reflecting-on-experience/what-so-what-now-what

You may be pleased to know this has allowed to me get a haircut. I no longer needed all that hair I had been caring for.

The other thing that I googled recently was “is there a drug that can make me love cleaning?” Apparently that is not something I should be searching for because the only response was substance abuse hotlines so… I will not be pursuing that much further. Maybe I will ask a doctor about it.

Are you a doctor?

Mutability

Percy Bysshe Shelley

1792 –1822

We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
  How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!—yet soon
  Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
  Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
  One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest.—A dream has power to poison sleep;
  We rise.—One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
  Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same!—For, be it joy or sorrow,
  The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
  Nought may endure but Mutability.