Self Reflection- Key to Introspection
Self-Reflection- what is it? My version of self-reflection is a steady evaluation of my mood, feelings, and every day life. In that, I try to check in with how I’m feeling, what I can do better, what’s working well, and making sure negative things aren’t building and setting up shop. It’s examining my hurts and my perceptions and finding healing for those areas so that I can be healthier. For me, when I hang on to my hurts they really impact me in a negative way, even though I try to push them down and act like they don’t. Because a lot of the actions, decisions, and way I lived my life previously were from a negative place of unhealed hurts and lack of addressing those things, I work to not go back to that place. It felt like I was carrying a HUGE weight. I don’t feel I have that weight or burden as I keep moving forward. I feel stress, anger, irritation, sadness, and all the normal emotions, but I don’t let them take over. I believe there’s a grey area that is unique to each situation where we allow negative feelings to stay too long. There’s nothing wrong with feelings, they exist for a reason. I, however, have been guilty of hanging onto those too long and not releasing them or allowing them to heal. This lead to a “victim” mentality. I blamed everyone and everything around me, not wanting to take any accountability for what I could be contributing to the situation. I was caught up in a lot of negative emotions for a good period of time. My lack of healing and allowing hurts to be healed, shoving everything so deep down to try not to deal with it, and building walls around many areas did contribute to my circumstances. I didn’t realize how much all these things were impacting me until it came crashing down, and that lead to some painful, tough, but almost even beautiful times.
I can’t say it was one day that it all came crashing down, more like an accumulation of years of not taking care of me or my mind came crashing down. My marriage was a mess, my home life was a disaster, and everything around me felt like it was falling apart. My husband and I were getting separated. I didn’t start talking to all my friends and family about everything. There wasn’t a lot of trying to repair the relationship or anything. There were a lot of things I needed to look at internally before I could even think about those things. I took time to really sit and think. I wasn’t in touch with myself anymore, and I needed to find me. I realized how far I’d gotten from being me anymore. I’m sure lots of moms and even women in general can relate. You pour out to everyone and forget taking care of yourself is a part of everything continuing to run smoothly. I was a negative influence for my kids with relationships, perceptions, and so on. Damage that we’re still working on changing years later.
As I sat reflecting, often through journaling, I couldn’t deny my role anymore that I played in our situation. I felt so empty and hopeless to start. Journaling helped me start to find where a lot of my hurts and feelings existed. I found I didn’t need the relationship. The perception I clung to before was that my husband needed to complete me, and he would just love me and make me whole. I believe another person can support, help, and even compliment other people with skills, tasks, and with how they interact. However, I wanted my validation and worth to come from him all those years. This isn’t exactly a healthy basis for a relationship. It puts a lot of stress on everything, and I realized a healthy view point was me completing myself and being my own source of validation. Being whole, complete, and accepting yourself, even as a mess, leads to healing and health. The bottom line is that self-reflection and being able to hold myself accountable helped me move in the right direction and keep going.
Take the time to do the work because it’s important. In a world where it seems like there is never enough time, stop and reflect on yourself and things going on with you. It leads to healing, and that leaves you in the best position to put your best out into the world and live your healthiest life. Once I started making these mental mindset movements, I was really able to tackle healthy living as a whole.
