I talk about self-reflection a lot because it has been my saving grace this past year.
The truth is, I can be really critical to myself and others.
I start making myself a victim in my own life with how critical I am to myself. The negativity sucks out any ounce of confidence or hope I have.
I suck.
I’m a mess up.
I will never be good enough.
I will never be smart enough.
I will continue to fail.
I will never be normal.
Life sucks.
Why do I have to feel my emotions so intensely?
Will anything good ever happen for me?
When will this hard part of my life end?
Why me?
This habit of bringing myself down is something that I have dealt with for a majority of my life, and still continue to struggle with it today. I am grateful though. I’m grateful because I don’t think I would have been able to see this blindspot of mine if it weren’t for my new love for self reflection.
I can now reflect on situations and ask myself: is the way I want to be treating myself or someone else? Is this the way I want to feel? Is this lining up with my values? Am I speaking up for myself? Is my behaviour hurting myself or someone else? Is it reflecting the person I want to be?
I also give myself permission to feel. I let myself feel the disappointment, shame, fear, and embarrassment I try to run away from. I do this because I’ve learned that by allowing myself to feel my emotions — I am able to start changing my narrative around them.
Instead of asking myself why I’m so emotional I remind myself it’s okay so be sad, angry, hurt, and everything else I am feeling. I remind myself that I’m so lucky to be able to feel my emotions the way that I do. With self reflection, it has given me a brighter outlook on how intensely I feel things — feeling emotions so intensely helps me relate to others so easily. It allows me to show empathy and provide comfort when someone is in need of it.
I remind myself that it’s okay to feel shame for ditching my friends for the millionth time in a row. I remind myself it’s okay to be embarrassed that I find it hard to work right now. I just keep reminding myself that I am human and I am allowed to feel my emotions. I’m allowed to be struggling. I’m allowed to feel confused with life.
Right now I know that my brain is wired to react with criticism, blame, projection, and shame. Self-reflection has given me the ability to start rewiring my brain to choose compassion, love, forgiveness, and kindness. By allowing myself to be open-minded and curious about why I am the way that I am — it has helped me become less of a victim in my own life, and more of a confident, self-loving advocate for myself.
So now, my question is:
What is stopping you from self-reflecting?
Is it fear? Is it because you don’t know how? Is it because it will put you in a vulnerable position with yourself that you haven’t allowed yourself to be in, in a very long time?
Ask yourself why. Ask yourself why again. Keep digging deep until you find the reasoning behind it. And when you think you know the reason behind it — ask why again.
What is the core reasoning behind the way you think, act, and talk?
What is stopping you from asking yourself why you get angry when you’ve been waiting for over an hour on hold for a bill that you shouldn’t have received?
What is stopping you from reflecting on the way that you judged the person at the table beside you at the restaurant for giving the staff a hard time? Instead of continuing to judge the other person, stop and ask yourself why you are judging them in the first place?
Do they have something that you want? Are you subconsciously judging the other person so you don’t have to feel the shame knowing you can show the very actions you’re judging the other person of?
Every single one of us has something we want to work on or should work on. No one is perfect. Perfect just doesn’t exist. I used to think it did, and sometimes I still expect it from others, and myself. But, at the end of the day, I know that perfection is an unrealistic goal to put on myself or anyone else. It drains us. It makes us say things that go against our values so we look good for others. It makes us say yes to too many things in hopes that people will think we are invincible and can do it all.
We are all human. We all have flaws. We all will make mistakes. We all will fail at something. We can’t do it all, all of the time. We need rest. We need to put ourselves first for once.
So, we can continue to let these things break us down, or we can start to self reflect. We can start to become aware of who we are and start choosing to work towards the person we want to be instead. We can start to make changes that allow us to be our true selves. We can become so resilient and happy.
Who do you want to be? Become aware of who that is and start becoming that person.
Take a step back. Be kind to yourself, too. You are human. We have flaws. We will mess up. We will hurt someones feelings. We will have to make a plan B, C, and maybe even a plan Z. The beauty in self-reflection though, is that it’s the first step towards becoming the person you want to be that has been hidden away behind a mask for so long.
Cheers,
K
The Pink Rose Diary 