A few years back, when I underwent my mid-life crisis I was unsure of a secured future or a secured present. But looking back, I choose a life of my own and did things that I wanted to do always. Well certainly criticism was part of it, well when is it not there isn’t it a part and parcel of our growing up. It’s good to have critics as they challenge you but not everything needs to be criticized and that gives an angle of “Narcissism”. Well, that is a topic to be best left for another day. I learned a core lesson during those initial and very crucial days of my life and that was “Self Reflection”.
The easiest way which people choose in life is to blame people and find a narrow pathway and escape or look for faults in others. Very few are courageous enough to take ownership of their acts, words, and actions and self-reflect the patterns and break them n rework on self in order to put forward for a better future.
We always have two choices in life to sit and do the inner work or the easy way as I mentioned above to blame others for the failure.
I choose the first one in every step of my life, I was kind of fed up with a few of the same set of life events happening in my life and a few patterns I could identify about myself that I was unable to break free from. While I was a little aggressive in order to break them which was my initial step but eventually I realized not everything in life can be controlled the way we want them to be. Sometimes we want to mould everything as per our views or visions and ignore the lens of others.
I certainly want to thank a dear friend of mine from my school days, who helped me in the identification of a few of my patterns which I was in denial or I can say when you have your own inner critic which is more critical than the outside world, so naturally, we won’t be in a state where we would like to hear more of criticism.
Often people ask what is self reflection and how do we do this, it’s very simple what we are inside we will see outside and among people. The best way is to work on the moment u get triggered by someone by any means of verbal communication, gestures, or actions. let me make it simple and share a tool I had been using for the last 6 years which has helped me immensely to grow in my life in all areas.
Example: You are irritated by say an ” ABC ” because of non-communication.
So, write on a piece of paper these lines
ABC is irritating me to the core as she is not communicating with me.
You can write the whole situation out by penning down the things which have irritated you.
Now replace where ever you have mentioned “ABC name” and write your name and me.
Example: ABC is irritating me to the core as she is not communicating with me
Reflection: I am Irritating myself to the core as I am not communicating with myself.
Now ask your self is it true or not, and be honest with yourself as it will help you resolve your own inner conflict.
Almost in all cases, the answer is yes. Now keep your hands on your heart center and now let the emotions come up it can be anger, tears, irritation just witness it to release and then say loving words to yourself and keep the magic. You will feel much lighter and happy post this exercise.
It took me some time close to 6 months to make this as a practice in daily life but eventually, it has become a habit and used it whenever possible. It not only helped me improve on myself, but my relationship with people around me also improved.
When we leave the whole “Garba” of being in drama and look from outside through a macro perspective we will find our answers in silence. They say peace amidst the chaos and it holds so true. Just a simple step to take forward that is a determination and honesty with ourselves and we can make huge huge changes. Eventually, my inner critic took a back seat and I started taking ownership for my own actions and behavior be good or bad it’s mine.
Self-love journey is certainly for the brave hearts it’s not a cult that everyone can follow and maintain considering the mundane life we lead every day where there are deadlines, stress, pressure about each and everything .
One step at a time but do practice mindfulness activities it helps a lot to improve n bring huge life changes.
