Training Your Mind: Reflection
Reflection is an essential part of accepting ourselves.
This journey of training our minds we are on is not about being idealistic. It is not about blaming society or our parents for the things that work or do not work in our lives. Instead, it is about accepting ourselves without being judgmental, understanding what we want from our life and achieving our full potential. It is about training our mind to take full control of our life.
Reflection is an essential part of accepting ourselves. Self-Acceptance is also the most difficult step because of our fear of judgement and our expectation of perfection from ourselves. As we start thinking about ourselves and the choices we have made or are making, the key is to not judge ourselves and to not expect us to be perfect.
Begin the journey of training your mind by setting aside some time for reflection every day.
Tweet
Begin the journey of training your mind by setting aside some time for reflection every day. It could be 5 minutes or 15 minutes. Whatever works for you. It could be everyday or a few days a week or one day a week. This is your journey, you set the pace. No pace is right or wrong.
During reflection remember to be kind to yourself. Everyone is different, there are no set rules on how to start recognizing ourselves. There is no need to race through everything. There is no need to expect ourselves to acknowledge all of our deepest fears, and analyze every action in one brainstorming session.
During reflection sit quietly. Observe the thoughts that are going through your mind. If this is too much, you can close your eyes and focus on your breathing. If sitting quietly doesn’t work for you, you can start writing down all the thoughts that are going through your mind at the present moment. Write down everything without being judgmental and worrying about how it will seem to others. This is most important: Remembering to not judge yourself during reflection.
Another goal of reflection is to recognize how speeded up our mind is. Notice the amount of thoughts that go through our mind at any given moment. Also, notice how judgmental we are in those thoughts.
Recognizing and accepting our thoughts is the first step towards self-acceptance.
When I started my daily practice of reflection it was sometimes terrifying. It was difficult to be honest with myself and recognize that I am human and imperfect. It was also difficult to recognize some of the decisions I had made as my mistakes. But, most importantly it helped me understand what is important to me. Over time, it also helped me realize how hurried my mind was and how fragmented my thoughts were.
Have you tried Reflection? What are your experiences with Reflection?
Read all three post. Very nice and true. I am inspired to start meditation. I hope I can maintain the routine.
Thank you for reading my posts and for your comments. Meditation and Reflection has helped me bring a lot of clarity and peace over the years. I am humbled to know that my posts inspired you to start meditation. Hope it helps you.