061_Cultivating Self-reflection to Live a More Self-aware Life

In today’s podcast we’re discussing the importance of cultivating self-reflection to increase both self-awareness and dismantle old patterns of reaction that no longer serve us. 

You’re going along feeling perfectly fine, peaceful, being in the moment, seemingly flowing with life, then BAM! All of the sudden something happen and you feel like you’ve go to take a stand, you got to make your point, defend yourself or your position — be right…

Is it really because what you’re taking a stand on or defending is really so important to you or is it because you have run up against unconscious conditioned beliefs you don’t want to look at? 

Self-awareness comes from noticing — and then reflecting on what’s really going on when we get activated by something that happens or someone says something and we feel ourselves getting defensive or wanting to distract or avoid the actuality of the moment before us. 

These moments when we ‘get activated’ are messages from our true being, inviting us to pause and reflect, and to ask ourselves questions like: 

• Why do I feel so defensive right now? 
• What belief is being threatened? 
• Where did it come from? 
• Is it happening now? 
• Or is it an old stand based in a moment (or several) in the past that I have not let go, and now this little thing or conversation feels bigger than it really is?

Self-reflection is simply being willing to pause and realize, “This is an old script. Let me look at it in context of this present moment in my life. The script is telling me I have to defend or whatever,… then seeing one thing and asking yourself is that really true? Then you peel back that layer and ask is that really true?”

If we don’t take a moment and ask ourselves, “what’s really going on here?” We let fear, defensiveness and justification not only drive this moment’s conversation, but all future conversations when this same topic arises … Just like it has for so many years in past. And we use the same excuse for behaving in a way that feels icky and doesn’t ever really satisfy because we are not actually dealing with reality, but a story we’ve designed to protect ourselves from the pain we felt in the past, which we haven’t let go and let the energy move through. 
 
Once you see that the past is gone,  you realize it can’t influence you unless you don’t let it go. But you can always let it go. Once you see it, releasing it is ultimately inevitable if you want to be free to be true to yourself and the moment you’re in.

Reason will tell you, it doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t serve you anymore. You take a breath, relax, and release the energy stored as stress inside. And your energy starts flowing and it is available for you to create an new relationship with this same topic, with out judgement getting in the way. 

Our conversation takes us into how we get activated by stuff that we see happening around us — the political scene, the pandemic, climate change, our neighbor, a friend, and recognizing that we’re actually powerless over so much what’s happening. 
But we get activated and all self-righteous about it. But the thing is, it just perception. I’m activated based on my perception of what’s right and wrong and what that says about us. But we’re just defending against the feeling of powerlessness. 

Shit’s just happening. It’s a constant. It’s not a problem for me unless I make it my problem. The question is, “do I want to be at peace with life or not?” By accepting what’s happening from a place of love, of unity, of peace, we have access to our own point of power within ourselves.  Then we can be free to be authentically ourselves. 
This is why self reflection is so crucial to living a yummy life. 
Getting activated is actually a gift of self reflection, resulting in more self-awareness.