I often speak about self-reflection and the importance of being open and curious about ourselves; how we process the world, our core beliefs, how our past informs us, our accountability when it comes to our choices and our behaviours. I have decided to post self-reflection questions, not only as a way to get us thinking, but also as a way to potentially generate conversations with our loved ones. The entries won’t be posted as a series, but rather once in awhile, as self-reflection bridges.
“Am I employing a healthy perspective?”
Our perspective when it comes to processing is quite important as it is an internal practice. Our thoughts are internal, our feelings are internal; let’s face it, we spent a lot of our time ‘inside.’ Our internal dialogue tends to play an integral part on our overall perspective. If we tend to be too hard on ourselves, this will affect our self-esteem, confidence, and the ability to move ahead. Our core beliefs can also affect our perspective. If we see everything though the eyes of a schema that leans into failure, mistrust, self-sacrifice, and the like, it will affect how we view the world in a big picture way.
We are much better served to begin by identifying our overall perspective and see if it fits into a healthy category or an unhealthy one. A healthy perspective tends to be built on a secure sense of self. It tends to include:
- the overall acceptance of our feelings without judgement.
- the faith in our own agency, and the ability we have to make choices regardless of the circumstance/challenges that face us.
- the knowledge that adversity builds resilience, as does gratitude and appreciation (of ourselves and others).
- actively being curious as it works to temper fear.
- our ability to be self-compassionate – to give ourselves the same wiggle room for success and failure as we would give our loved ones.
- to lean into positive affirmations, especially when we can feel ourselves slipping down that slippery slope of negative bias.
Generally speaking, a healthy perspective feels rooted, grounded, it makes sense. It feels right.
Journal this question if it helps. Think about your automatic, immediate reaction to things as well as your overall, general way of thinking. And ask yourself, “Am I employing a healthy perspective?”
Photo credit: http://Photo by Genevieve Dallaire on Unsplash
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