Self Reflection like a Bowl of Muddy Water...

On a roll today!  It is raining outside and in Canada it is the long weekend, marking the first weekend of the Summer Season even though technically we don't have Summer Solstice until June 21st marking the first day of Summer. Anyway, I am inside because it is cold, wet and miserable and I am quite frankly wondering where Spring went and did we even have one and how we could be even contemplating Summer on this wet weekend.

So as I am oft to do, I am using this time to be Self Reflective and one of the best ways I know how to do that is to blog.  So here is a blog on What I think Self Reflection is and why I think we should do it.

I like to think of Self Reflection as a "Bowl of Muddy Water" and I have two choices:

- One, I can keep Stirring the Water, or

- Two, I can set the bowl down and Let the Whole Thing Settle.

So let's look at the "Stir the Water" scenario to see if I can see anything.  Pretty hard when you think about Muddy Water and SEEING anything, but if you just visualize it for a minute you can imagine that there will be things that float up to the surface as you stir and other things that will sink only to be driven to the surface again as you continue to stir.

So as I sit here and stir my Bowl of Muddy Water I see a few things floating around in there.  But what are they?  So with a bit of anxiety I reach into the Bowl and pluck out the first thing I see floating by. 

What does it mean?  Well I could go to the obvious and say it is about blah blah blah and be all happy with that concept but if I am really being Self Reflective I will still not feel that the reason I gave so quickly is the right one. 

It's kind of like Dream Interpretation for me.  I wake up with most of the Dream fresh in my mind so I write it down, and then I take it out later and start trying to make sense of it.  Of course what I wrote down earlier does not necessarily match my now faded memories.  So I go into analysis mode and I start looking in the Dream Dictionary and I start attributing meaning to the individual items in my dream and by the end of it I have convinced myself that the Dream is about "X" and I am content and move on.

And then 'bits and pieces' of the Dream keep floating up in my consciousness.  I ask myself 'Why is it that the Dream keeps coming up?' 'What's it telling me?' 

The dream, just like the thing that I plucked out of my muddy water bowl, I don't know where it comes from, I just know I don't understand it fully.  But I do know it has some meaning for me and that I want to know what that is.

So when practicing Self Reflection I can get a random result!  And so this begs the question: 'If I can't find meaning right away, that is, if it isn't obivious to me, then what's the point?'

Well the point for me is, that if we just "let our Muddy Water Settle" instead of "stirring it up", we will never know what lies beneath our mud!

There could be something of great value amongst all the things we stirred up!

So as I sit here and watch the rain and see the people rush by bundled up in there wind breakers, I reflect that the benefit of practicing Self Reflection, by "stirring that bowl of muddy water," is that we can LEARN much about ourselves by looking at what knowledge about ourselves we already possess. 

It's just that that knowledge is stuck in the mud and needs to be stirred to the surface again and again before we find its meaning.

Miquelina

Belief, what is it and why do we need it?

I recently started to reflect on a number of questions I had about things I was witnessing in my life. Things that struck me as needing to be reflected on.  Things that made me question my beliefs.

It all started when a friend wrote in an email recently:  “what was I thinking when I started all of this, why, why, why,...?”

These are the questions I started asking myself as a result:

          Ø  Why  am I looking at both my children and saying,

                  same environment, two different results.  What should I

                  make of that? Why do I feel so guilty?

Ø Why am I looking at my partner and saying, wow, why am I here? Why can’t I be happy with someone who doesn’t want to get married?  Why do I feel so all alone?

 These questions of Why were definitely in my consciousness and were forcing a self-reflective process for me.

These questions honestly gave me pause when I reflected on them

and I was driven to one question as a result:

Why when I notice that my eldest child seems totally incapable of effecting change of a positive nature in her life, and my youngest child is all about changing and adapting and learning and with very positive results I might add, am I so unsettled?  These two had the same experiences the same environment and yet approach their lives in very opposite ways.  What is missing for one and not the other?

Why, when I hear my eldest say….”I know, I know” and then she does something so radically opposing to that ‘knowing’ that it makes your head spin, do I want to ask her what is wrong with you?

On the other hand, when I listen to my youngest' and I don’t hear the phrase “I know”, but I do hear the phrase, “I am doing”, I want to ask, how can that be? 

I mean a change in a few words, from "I know" to "I am doing", made such a difference!  Really when you look at how such a tiny change in language has such a huge impact on the outcome, you have to be amazed. 

Then I started asking the question: "Why do some say 'I know' and others say 'I am doing…?'

The answer that came was: 

"People who are 'doing', BELIEVE, and the ones that just say 'I know' don’t BELIEVE, yet.  

So now I ask, "why is believing so important?"

And the answer I have is: "I KNOW leaves us with an answer but not a way to take action, however, adding  BELIEF to this equation allows us to have the mechanism to take ACTION."

Said in another way, "What we know about ourselves and our choices and our abilities, and our ability to make change is not enough, we need to believe in these things, if we are to truly make a change in our lives."

But what is Belief?

Here are some of the definitions from various Dictionaries:

- a vague idea in which some confidence is placed

- the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or

  premise to be true

- it is a feeling, or energy that is subjective, and is necessary for

  manifesting goals

- an opinion lacking referenceable proof

- a state of mind in which trust or confidence is placed

  in some person or thing

It is this last concept, the one about confidence that really resonates with me. 

So when I hear myself, or my children or other people say, "I know," I will remind myself that we lack confidence to believe what we know so we will not effect change until we gain that confidence.

How we gain confidence I'll leave for another blog, however, my first reaction is to ask the question, where do we get our self esteem?

Does it come from within, or without, or both?

Maybe some of you would like to add your thoughts on this topic.

Stay well.

Who Am I and Why am I Here?

Welcome Reader. 

Today is a new day. 

We are on the other side of Winter and today is a good day to talk about our relationships and how they influence our world.

You are all tied in one way or another to the 'cycles of your life' and to 'the cycle of life'.  How we navigate the multiple elements that "pull and push" us day-to-day influences how well we live.  

I know from my own experience that the relationships in my life have always determined my environment. Who I engage with ultimately forms my world. 

I am an Anger Management counselor and it was in the study of, and interaction with, individuals seeking help to "manage" their anger that I learned a great deal about that thing we call a "relationship". 

There are two things that I learned, and now counsel:  "Changing How You Think" and "Learning to Communicate Feelings" are integral in forming and nurturing healthy relationships.  Of course this sounds easy on paper (or on screen) but these are the two things that many of us, for one reason or another, have difficulty doing.

It is in these pages on this blog that I hope to share with you my journey to discover these two elements and how I am making out, integrating them into my life.

Please come and read often, and please send feedback.  Communicating with others in this medium is so important to nurturing this topic of "Relationships" and growing our "Awareness" of how we "Create" our world through our relationship choices.

Stay well,

Miquelina

Language and Demeanor

Why do Women Feel So Angry?

I recently read an article entitled: " Why do Women Feel So Angry? Welcome to the age of female rage." 

Being an anger management counselor I was intrigued to see if this article held any new 'nuggets' of wisdom that I could use in my own life and pass on to others in both my personal and professional lives. 

Unfortunately I was disappointed. 

This article served only to act as a way to VENT the writers own frustrations.  This is not bad necessarily, since Anger Release is a technique that allows us to expel negative energy in order to gain perspective and 'clear our heads' so we can problem solve more effectively. 

The disappointing part is that the article failed to demonstrate any problem solving.  The writer in fact only provided us with an account of how poorly she sets boundaries in her personal and professional life and worse yet blamed it on Societies Expectations of Women. 

I believe we should all have an opportunity to Vent our Frustrations, but in a constructive manner, especially if we are posting an article in a publication that receives a wide readership. 

This article, in my opinion, only served to say: "You Have a Right to Be Angry", that's the good message, "And it's because of Others Expectations".  Well that's not so good, because then we get into the BLAME GAME.

The BLAME GAME is about saying, "You Made Me Mad."  When in fact we make ourselves mad, by reacting to the situation.  It is our responsiblity to take responsibility for HOW we feel and HOW we act in every situation.

The rest of the message I would have liked to have seen in this article was:

- Set and Stick to Personal Boundaries

- Set Achievable/Fair Expectations at the beginning of all your relationships:  Work, Spouse/Significant Other, Family.

- Don't give into the Social Norm Thinking that "women should be the nurturer and if she has a job, well she should feel guilty for neglecting her family, so she should try harder and make sure that she does not neglect them for her career; oh and she should still maintain her job performance at a high level so she doesnt' jeopardize that relationship either."

You can find the article on the internet, I won't provide a link, just put the title:  "Why do Women Feel So Angry? Welcome to the age of female rage." in the SEARCH ENGINE.

On a personal note I would like to add that in order for us to Not Feel Stuck in our Relationships we need to Practice Self Reflection and then Take Action.  This article, if nothing else, brought up an issue, that for many of us, is all too real, and for that I am grateful.  But I think that we need to take our Frustration Beyond just Anger Release and move towards Problem Solving.  We need to Channel our "anger at our lives and the day to day frustrations" and use it to find Solutions to those situations, instead of "imploding" and "exploding" and then "imploding" and "exploding" as a Survival Mechanism.

Imploding is the Passive Anger Response (you feel unable to confront so you hold your anger, seethe in silence, and then tell yourself that you let it go, when actually you just stored it for later).

Exploding is the Aggressive Anger Response and is the action of Anger Release but with destructive results.

A good practice to get into when you are feeling Stuck in the Imploding/Exploding Cycle is to:

-Balance your load (personally and professionally)

- Don't give into other's unreasonable demands because you feel you have to.  Don't be guilted into feeling "less than" if you cannot be all things to all people.

-Reflect on WHY you are trying to be "All Things To All People" in your life; and

-Start with the Answer to that question;  and use it to: Change Your Thinking, and Change HOW you do things.

The HOW you think and HOW you do things is directly tied to Your Own Sense of Self Worth.  If your Self Worth is Low, then you'll try and overachieve to overcompensate for how you feel.  Your goal will be to be liked so you will over extend yourself, believing others will like you more if you do more for them; and you'll want them to recognize your personal self sacrifice and praise you for it. 

This is the wrong way to raise your Self Worth.  If you are looking for others to raise your self worth, you are missing the key.  The way to raise your self worth is by recognizing and celebrating your own personal achievements and by liking who you are. 

Self Worth comes from inside, not outside.  That's not to say that self worth should not or cannot be influenced by the outside, but it should not be the thing that determines it.

Outside praise should confirm what you already know about yourself.  Positive confirmation/validation of our feelings is important to personal well being.

How we see ourselves has a huge impact on How we interact with our world and our relationships.

Resentment comes from expecting others to 'lift us up'.

Fulfillment comes from 'raising ourselves up'.