Meditating on self-reflections

Meditation often confuses people. Many times, they understand it as focussed concentration or sometimes as a nonchalant observance of thoughts. Some take it up as a means to settle the clutter in mind while some reflect on all that’s happened in the recent past. To be honest, none of them is wrong!

Meditation is what you make of it. But in this post, I want to focus deliberately on meditating silently and self-reflecting.

Being aware or conscious determines the next action you take. While this seems logical, the life of awareness is very short. If not reminded of on short intervals, it starts to fade away. To put in other words, awareness acts like GPS, it needs constant feedback to locate itself in the terrain, geography around it. This is what meditation on self-reflection can do.

Okay, alright; nothing new here, right? Indeed. The rather significant question is, how to do it? What questions can one reflect on?

Again, a very open question. Almost similar to asking “How to think?” Maybe I can help you get started.

A common for almost all meditations is that of being alone in a space where there aren’t many distractions. The electronic gadgets that pop notifications can be turned off or at least put on silent mode. It can be announced to the people around you that you need some ‘me time.’ Then the most important thing is to set an alarm. For how many minutes you ask? Start with 5 or 10 mins.

Why set the alarm? So, you know when the time to reflect is over and you don’t worry yourself with the thoughts of checking on it.

Once you’ve done it, close your eyes. Of course, you can decide in advance on which fragment of your life you want to reflect on, but you don’t necessarily have to. The first thought that comes to your mind after closing your eyes is a fantastic starting point!

Is it about a friend? Or is it about the stress at your work? Is it the tension within your family? Just pick up a thought. And if you still can’t find a start, maybe start with going over the events that happened this week.

Once you’ve picked the theme, it’s time to start asking yourself questions. These questions are at the crux of this exercise. Only you can raise them because they occur to you! But to help you get started, here are some common themes and the questions based on them.

Reflecting on the week:

How did you do this week? Were you overwhelmed at some point? What was it? And then what did you do about it? Whom did you speak most with this week? Did you plan to? Did you do what you set yourself to do this week? How much per cent?

Reflecting on friendships:

Who are those friends in your close circle? Did a conversation take place recently? What was it about? Is one of these friendships slipping away? Or are you trying to hold on tightly to a rope that isn’t reciprocating? What has changed over the past few months? Have you done your part? What has been bugging you about your friend? Are you conforming beyond your identity to please someone? Is that devaluing you?

Reflecting on relationships/family:

Are you happy with the way things have turned out? Could it have been worse? Was it in your hands? Did you actively do what could be done? Are you being listened to? What is that one thing that you know if you do could make things better? Did you do it? What has changed over the past few months? Have you betrayed someone’s trust? Have you been betrayed? And now you think of it, is it the same way you felt before?

Reflecting on yourself:

 What were you doing this day last year? Are you doing something different now? Are you satisfied with it? How much has the situation changed? Are you taking responsibility for yourself? Did you do what you promised yourself? Have you betrayed yourself? What steps have you taken to change yourself? Which changes have occurred relatively naturally? Did you follow up on your commitments?

What things are you proud of? What is your identity in eyes of those who matter to you? Have you rewarded yourself enough? Did you express gratitude for the things that you’ve been bestowed upon with? Are you on the track to do what you asked yourself to do?

And many more such questions to reflect on! Now it is absolutely normal to not have answers to all of them. The point of this exercise is to raise questions and then the answers may arrive when they have to. Again, it’s about making yourself aware like GPS concerning your surroundings. GPS doesn’t have to decide where to go.

And if this self-reflecting meditation makes you uncomfortable, then it means you are doing it right. They make the objects in the fog visible. You may not like to see them, but you need to; if you want to avoid accidents.

A weekly or even monthly repetition of this exercise, one can truly open their eyes to all that is happening to them. The answers to all these questions will be reflected in your actions.

Self-reflection exercises need the courage to face the uncomforting facts. But if you can get yourself to do them then your vision for life will get clearer. The possibility of bringing your actual self and the ideal version of yourself closer will get higher. Cheers! 🙂