The Courage to Look Within Self-Reflection for Resilience and Growth

Welcome back. Self-reflection is a very important skill. Absolutely. It's an important skill, but it is not so common. Yeah. So like it says that the common things are not very common.

Yeah.

It is important because self-reflection is like having awareness of our self-awareness.

Yeah. That starts to go quite a bit deeper, doesn't it? It's like a meta.

It's like you watching over yourself. Yeah. And that's not a very comfortable and it's not people don't do it easily. Yeah. Because they don't want to own their not-so preferred or their ugly parts.

Yeah.

And that is why you might have seen that there are very few people in the world. Like one of my friends, Paul used to say that they would do anything, but they would not take any criticism at all. Yeah. Very, very sensitive to criticism. Yeah. Well, I the way I have evolved myself, I used to be there like 10 years back. Yeah. But the way I have evolved, that we have to welcome feedback. We have to welcome criticism. Yeah. And we have to see, of course, they were they sometimes criticism will come out of jealousy. And we need to discern that.

Yeah.

That is this criticism coming from what source it is coming from? Is it coming from more than one source? Yeah. You have to create a culture and an environment around you where people are able to say that. Yeah. And if they are not saying that, I think they are doing you a disservice. Yeah. So self-reflection, I was reading an article which said that people would rather die than to self-reflect. Yeah. And that's strong, isn't it? And also in the busyness of life, people would not take the time of for self-reflection. Yeah. And it's very important because again, as I shared with you, that in the boiling frog metaphor of the analogy, we have created a framework that even in the most challenging situations, because you see, if the things are cozy, rosy, or comfortable, all of us can have a good time.

Yeah.

Here I'm teaching that even if the challenges are of high level, how can you still thrive? Absolutely. And that is in the that is you, I know you pointed in the jacuzzi effect. I cannot complete it there. The jacuzzi effect makes the environment very cozy and enjoyable. Yeah. And that is what a gift I wanted to give myself and then my listeners and my readers, that we have not come so far in our lives to just be average.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's yes, there's a level that we want to go beyond. We can manage to survive, but then what does thriving look like? What can we be at our very best where we feel our very best, where we feel good? And this is something that self-reflection can help us with. We can self-reflect and find out that yes, things might be bad in this sense and this sense, and this is what I can do about them. But then there's a level beyond that, which is it's not just about living, it's about living well. It's about being able to create, being able to grow, to have that growth mindset, which you go into later on in the book, but to become the creative people that we can be, to become whole people. But it's a hard thing to do, as you say. It's hard to self-reflect. and it's good to reframe that as feedback in the coaching content context because your coach will feedback to you and you will notice things about yourself. And some of those things could be uncomfortable. If you're working with a coach, you have them there to support you and to help you in those moments with their with their presence, with their understanding of you and your personal story. And you can use the book on your own, of course you can, but it's good to have some support. If you don't have a coach, maybe have a mentor, maybe have somebody that you can talk to. But I would say the best person for that probably is a coach because they're not connected to other aspects of your life. They're that neutral person you can go to, that neutral space where obviously they want you to thrive, they're in on that mission with you, but that they're just not connected to the other parts of your life. You can be confident that anything you bring, the good, the bad, and the ugly, is being treated with respect and that it's in total confidence. You can just really be who you need to be. You can take a good look at yourself and you can feel safe in doing that, and that will really help. That will help you to move forward to the next level, to find resilience, to find the way to thrive.

Absolutely. I mean one of the things, Punella, in addition to what you said, that the quality of the emotions we feel on a day-to-day basis, on an hour-to-hour basis, or a minute-to-minute basis, is also very important. Yeah. And it goes back to self-awareness. Yeah. Are you aware of the emotions? Yeah. Now, if I were to ask you at this point of time, what are the emotions you are feeling? Tell me the top four emotions you are feeling.

Okay, I'm excited for what we're doing because we've been talking about doing this for a while. Right. I'm thankful that we're in this place together, that we've we've come on this journey. I feel engaged. I feel engaged in our longer discussion, which has been going on for years, but also very engaged in this moment with your mission. and I feel as though there's a part of me that is tapping in creatively to this too. Yeah, I don't feel like I'm just going over the same trodden ground as with speaking. I feel like there are new things that are popping up.

Yeah. So first you are aware of your emotions. Yeah. And secondly, you are the emotions you are feeling are positive emotions. Yeah. Now there are many people in the world who are not even aware of their emotions. Yeah. And if they are, and the emotions they are feeling are of low frequency, like shame, blame, anger, guilt, apathy, yeah, pride. Those emotions also set you for burnout. Yeah. Chronic stress. That's another, that's another discussion. Self-reflection or setting up daily exercises for self-reflection. Like what I would do on a day-to-day basis, sometimes during the lunch in my hospital, there's a beautiful lake. Yeah. I would go walk to the lake, and I would reflect on the most meaningful encounters I've had in the morning with the patients, with the families, with my colleagues.

Yeah.

I would connect to my breathing. Yeah. I would connect to my with my emotions. One should be able to set up some daily practices. Yes. Like mindfulness, journaling. Yeah, absolutely. Or connecting with others to help them to reflect. Yes. And also what happens with the reflection, like you mentioned about the like in the book, the illustration in the self-reflection is that there's a frog who's looking into the water, its image. And you can the frog can see a murky image of themselves. And there's another frog. And the other frog is wearing the cap of the coach. Yeah. And also holding the hand. The hand with support. Now, one of my friends, Phil, in US, he says that nobody grows till someone cares. So true. And that's about coaching. Yeah. Coach helping you to self-reflect in areas where you feel more comfort. Yeah. So there are two things. First, bringing your awareness of where you are at this point of time. Yeah. And the second part is what are the effective strategies you could do to become more and more self-reflective.

Yes. And I'm yeah, yeah. I'm glad you mentioned daily practices. That's something that actually, as an artist, is really important to keep going back into what your mission is and your sense of meaning. Because as humans, we have to have that. It's that sense of higher purpose. It's that sense of making meaning in your life. And it could be going down to the I love the thought of you going down to the lake and just reflecting on what's happened. It's not necessarily writing down something massive and philosophical in a journal, although writing in a journal can be helpful. It could be anything. It could be taking a picture on your phone every day. That could be your reflection, your moment of yeah, of just reflecting on what's been happening in the day, what's important, what's beautiful, where's that beauty in your daily journey? Yes.

Yeah. Absolutely profound, Funella. One thing I would add to add to that self-awareness is the destination we want to be there. Yeah. Because we know how it hel helps us evolve in so many things. And self-reflection is that vehicle which will take us there.

Yeah. Yeah. Into that those moments of awareness are so crucial. Who am I? What am I feeling? And do I need to adjust something? Is it good to feel this way I feel? How could I feel differently? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

That is I really look forward to building up on this discussion, especially completely. how do we continue improving this skill of ours? Yeah, self-reflection as we go to the next section of self-care, yeah, which is also very foundational because self-care is also very poor across the population for many, many reasons.

Yeah, and you have to reflect to know what care you need to understand what is that self-care I need to bring. Absolutely. Yeah, which you go into in quite a lot of detail. The self-reflection is where you can look at how can I regulate, how can okay, this is what's happening, how can I change that up? How can I make that something that's better, that's more supportive for me? And what are my strengths I haven't seen? What can I reflect on that I can leverage to be something good for me and for others? Which feels as though it's what you've done with the book. You weren't in a great place for quite a long time and you've worked through that and now you've produced this. Thank you very much for no.

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