THE REFLECTIVE MIND: UNDERSTANDING THE MECHANICS OF SELF-REFLECTION

Being present with oneself, in the moment, being mindful, mentalizing, reflective function—all of these constructs point toward a crucial recognition of one’s own experience that takes place repeatedly on short time scales, as much as it is an overarching way of seeing that spans a lifetime. Practicing curiosity fosters open-mindedness.

There is a firm but gentle way to be intently aware, where one almost sees oneself as a beloved stranger. Being a stranger to oneself can represent alienation and nihilism, but it can also be the beginning of a love affair as we meet ourselves anew. Closeness to oneself, however, can pose a variety of real and imagined threats. It is important to respect our own boundaries, self-consent to all major decisions, and equip ourselves well.

Self-Absorption vs. Self-Reflection

In the journey of self-discovery and personal growth, two seemingly similar yet fundamentally different concepts often arise: self-absorption and self-reflection. While both involve introspection and inward focus, understanding the nuances between them is crucial for fostering genuine growth and avoiding potential pitfalls.

The Key Distinctions: Intentions and Outcomes

At the core of the distinction between self-absorption and self-reflection lie the intentions and outcomes of each mindset. Self-absorption is driven by a need for validation, self-aggrandizement, and the preservation of one’s ego. It often leads to stagnation, interpersonal conflicts, and a lack of meaningful connections.

In contrast, self-reflection is motivated by a genuine desire for personal growth, understanding, and empathy. It fosters deeper connections with oneself and others, promotes self-awareness and emotional intelligence, and cultivates resilience in the face of challenges. Achieving a balance between self-absorption and self-reflection requires mindfulness and conscious effort. Here are some practical strategies to navigate this balance effectively:

Understanding Self-Inquiry

Rooted in various philosophical and spiritual traditions, self-inquiry involves a deep exploration of one’s thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and motivations. At its core, self-inquiry is a process of asking ourselves profound questions and reflecting on the answers that arise. These questions may vary depending on individual needs and circumstances, but they often revolve around themes such as identity, purpose, values, fears, desires, and relationships. Through self-inquiry, we seek to unravel the layers of conditioning, assumptions, and unconscious patterns that shape our perceptions and behaviors. Key Principles of Self-Inquiry may include:

The Dangers of Excessive Self-Reflection: When Introspection Becomes a Trap

Self-reflection, like any tool, can be misused or taken to extremes, leading to a host of negative consequences.

1. Paralysis by Analysis: The tendency to overanalyze every aspect of our thoughts, feelings, and actions. Instead of leading to clarity and understanding, this can result in a state of paralysis where individuals become stuck in endless loops of rumination and indecision. They may find themselves constantly second-guessing their choices, unable to take action for fear of making the wrong decision.

• Increased Stress and Anxiety: Constantly scrutinizing our thoughts and behaviors can also lead to heightened levels of stress and anxiety. When we are hyper-focused on our perceived flaws and shortcomings, we are more likely to experience negative emotions such as worry, self-doubt, and fear of failure.

• Self-Obsession and Narcissism: Excessive self-reflection can also fuel self-obsession and narcissistic tendencies. When individuals become overly fixated on themselves and their own needs, they may lose sight of the bigger picture and struggle to empathize with others. This can lead to a sense of entitlement, a lack of empathy, and difficulties in maintaining healthy relationships. Eventually it can result in feelings of loneliness, isolation, and a lack of meaningful connections.

• Inhibition of Spontaneity and Creativity: Constantly analyzing every thought and idea can stifle innovation and prevent individuals from taking risks or thinking outside the box.

• Distorted Self-Perception: Excessive self-reflection can also lead to a distorted self-perception, where individuals become overly critical or judgmental of themselves. They may magnify their flaws and shortcomings while minimizing their strengths and achievements. This can erode self-esteem and confidence over time, leading to feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness.

Benefits of Self-Inquiry

The practice of self-inquiry offers a multitude of benefits for personal growth and well-being:

Self-Inquiry Is A Complex Affair

There are so many layers and options, and fully cataloguing every dimension would be quite an undertaking. Taking it all in and using it implicitly would be ridiculous. In the meantime, here are a few questions and related observations, which may be handy.

A) Why am I thinking this? I mean this thought, right now: . . . While this can simply be a curious question, it may feel critical particularly if the emotional tone (the inner tone of voice) is short or explicitly berating. However, there is a possibility that this is a useful question, as it allows one to trace back the origins or triggers of a particular train of thought or sequence of experiences. “How come” or “when did you first notice this” can be other ways to wonder why.

B) What is happening? This is what is passing through my mind: . . . This feels like recognition, though the content may change. There is a sense of sureness, no doubt. It may be a fleeting notion, or an old familiar companion. Getting such repeating complexes of thought-emotion-behaviour, holistic experience, is useful. They may represent the brain’s resting state network, or default mode network (DMN) activity. Many people do not pay attention to this background noise, but it is not fully random. There are often large parts which are consistent over time. Whether they work as we wish, and so on, is another question.

C) What am I seeing? More to the point, where is attention focused?: . .  . .  A lot of how we think is in a visual mode. The mind is a high-entropy system, meaning it can be in many possible states.  According to physicist Emerson M. Pugh (though often ascribed to others), “If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t.” We can imagine anything, given enough time, but the reality is that at any given moment we have a limited capacity to hold information in mind. This is the paradox of the brain, which is effectively infinite to itself while being severely constrained, as in theory I can think, say or experience a massive number of possible things. In the visual metaphor, we can control how far away we are from the object of attention, creating a degree of detachment without disengagement.

D) Am I listening? Did I stop listening to what is important to me?: . .. .  Listening is key because we can expand the soundscape of how we take our own thoughts. Sometimes the littlest voices are the most important, as is often said. For example, suppose we look at it in different modes. Our default listening mode is meant to meander, and meandering is healthy, creative, and restorative. It lets us stumble upon interesting and potentially important things we might otherwise zip past. The executive control mode can remember what was prioritized, execute plans, and direct resources. The salience mode decides what to highlight and what to filter out, to a significant extent based on past experiences, for better or worse. Clearing the mind makes listening easier.

E) Am I using all my senses? . . .  . Other ways of self-attention track with other sensory modalities, scent or olfaction, touch, taste, body sense or proprioception, and subtle cues of a very basic nature, such as level of tension and groundness, feeling uprooted or firmly planted. It takes a bit of a Sherlock Holmes mentality to fully get a sense of oneself first by looking for all the tell-tale clues. Any sense can be a metaphor or template for ways of inner perception. The immersion in digital reality tends to make it harder to cultivate other senses, though, as audio-visual systems get disproportionately used, and highly developed. Adaptations to cyber-reality may make it harder to be present in an embodied form, as we come to expect and have become accustomed to obvious simulation. It also changes the way we relate to one another.

F) Am I present? . . . . .  The act of asking this question, which may be dispassionate and compassionate, can have the immediate effect of returning one to the present. This is especially true if the path is well-travelled. Neurotic tendencies interfere, with second-guessing and worry. It is like building a bridge into the air over a canyon without being able to see the other side. Being present uses up mental resources, taking other brain systems offline, such as those involved in excessive worry. It also means that we cannot think about the past and future in quite the same ways, as there is a sense of time standing still in the present moment. Long-term planning from this perspective is more of a blueprint, perhaps as imperfectly glimpsed in a dream.

There is a question of whether humanity has been sleepwalking — a manifestation of collective self-hypnotic somnambulism — and whether we are becoming woke, or not. Being present allows us to at least take stock of our personal inventory, possibly catching more of what we ordinarily downplay or completely miss.

Sometimes we have an idea, and while we are thinking about it, we realize we are struggling to clarify to ourselves what we are really thinking. We have an idea and wanted to communicate it to someone else, but find ourselves saying, “it’s hard to explain”. Some questions that may help us out of this are:

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

FEAR OF MISSING OUT (FOMO)

What Is FOMO?

This is a social anxiety stemmed from the belief that others might be having fun while the person experiencing the anxiety is not present. It is characterized by a desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing. FOMO is also defined as a fear of regret, which may lead to concerns that one might miss an opportunity for social interaction, a novel experience or a profitable investment. It is the fear that deciding not to participate is the wrong choice.

Social networking creates many opportunities for FOMO. While it provides opportunities for social engagement, it offers an endless stream of activities in which any given person is not involved. Psychological dependence on social networks can result in anxiety and can lead to FOMO or even pathological Internet use. FOMO could result from not knowing about a conversation, missing a TV show, not attending a wedding or party, or hearing that others have discovered a new restaurant. The fear of missing out refers to the feeling or perception that others are having more fun, living better lives, or experiencing better things than you are, and involves a deep sense of envy and affects self-esteem. FOMO is also the sense that there might be better things that you could be doing at this moment and involves a sense of helplessness that you are missing out on something big.

Brief History

The idea that you might be missing out on a good time is not new to our era. However, while it has presumably been around for centuries (you can see evidence of FOMO in ancient texts), it has only been studied since 1996. Social media has accelerated the FOMO phenomenon in several ways. It provides a situation in which you are comparing your regular life to the highlights of others’ lives. Therefore, your sense of “normal” becomes skewed and you seem to be doing worse than your peers. You might see detailed photos of your friends enjoying fun times without you, which is something that people may not have been so readily aware of in past generations. Social media creates a platform for bragging; it is where things, events, and even happiness itself seems to be in competition at times. People are comparing their best, picture-perfect experiences, which may lead you to wonder what you are lacking.

The roots: FOMO Comes from Unhappiness

Those with low levels of satisfaction of the fundamental needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness tend towards higher levels of fear of missing out as do those with lower levels of general mood and overall life satisfaction. So you’re not feeling so great — whether you realize it or not — and you turn to social media to make you feel better. Only one problem there: it actually makes you feel worse.

The Attention Deficit

The problem with FOMO is the individuals it impacts are looking outward instead of inward. When you’re so tuned in to the ‘other,’ or the ‘better’ (in your mind), you lose your authentic sense of self. This constant fear of missing out means you are not participating as a real person in your own world. And the key to happiness really comes down to one word – Attention. Your happiness is determined by how you allocate your attention. What you attend to this, it drives your behaviour and it determines your happiness. The scarcity of attentional resources means that you must consider how you can make and facilitate better decisions about what to pay attention to and in what ways. If you are not as happy as you could be, then you must be misallocating your attention. So changing behaviour and enhancing happiness is as much about withdrawing attention from the negative as it is about attending to the positive. People with FOMO stop paying attention to life and turn to social media for their happiness cure.

The Social Media Illusion

We all know that Social Media doesn’t provide a very well-rounded picture of people’s lives. Often it seems like if bragging and showing off were banned, some people wouldn’t post anything at all. But despite knowing this, studies say we can’t help but compare our lives to others. If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.

As Erica Jong once said: “Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.” Even if we logically know Social Media isn’t an accurate depiction of people’s lives, well, confronting your seeming inadequacy 24/7 against an unachievable false reality can hammer your already vulnerable self-esteem. But engaging to alleviate your discomfort also has an important secondary effect: by presenting your carefully edited version of life awesomeness, you just made anyone who sees it feel worse. You’re spreading the virus.

1. Social networking sites are both a cause and an effect of FOMO, acting as a mechanism that triggers higher social networking usage. It appears that FOMO is linked to both feeling a need to engage in social media and increasing that engagement, thereby contributing to a negative, self-perpetuating cycle.
2. You may find yourself seeking a greater connection when you are feeling depressed or anxious, and this is healthy. Feelings of loneliness or exclusion are actually our brain’s way of telling us that we want to seek out greater connections with others and increase our sense of belonging.
3. FOMO can be experienced by people of all ages. Smartphone usage was related to fears of negative and even positive evaluations by others as well as linked to negative effects on mood.
4. FOMO is linked to lower life satisfaction.  Fear of missing out was found to be associated with a lower sense of having one’s needs met as well as a lower feeling of life satisfaction in general.
5. Aside from increased feelings of unhappiness, fear of missing out can lead to greater involvement in unhealthy behaviours. FOMO has been linked to distracted driving, which in some cases can be deadly.

Minimizing FOMO

Change your focus.: Rather than focusing on what you lack, try noticing what you have. Add more positive people to your feed; hide people who tend to brag too much or who are not supportive of you. You can change your feed to show you less of what triggers your FOMO and more of what makes you feel good about yourself. Work on identifying what may be sapping your joy online and  minimize these as you add more to your feed (and life) that makes you happy.

Keep a journal. : It is common to post on social media to keep a record of the fun things you do. However, you may find yourself noticing a little too much about whether people are validating your experiences online. If this is the case, you may want to take some of your photos and memories offline and keep a personal journal of your best memories, either online or on paper. This can help you to shift your focus from public approval to private appreciation of the things that make your life great. This shift can sometimes help you to get out of the cycle of social media and FOMO.

Seek out real connections. : Rather than trying to connect more with people on social media, why not arrange to meet up with someone in person? Making plans with a good friend, creating a group outing, or doing anything social that gets you out with friends can be a nice change of pace, and it can help you to shake that feeling that you are missing out. Even a direct message on social media to a friend can foster a greater and more intimate connection than posting to all of your friends.

Focus on gratitude. : Studies show that engaging in gratitude-enhancing activities like gratitude journaling or simply telling others what you appreciate about them can lift your spirits as well as those of everyone around you. This is partially because it is harder to feel as if you lack the things you need in life when you are focused on the abundance you already have. The more a person is inclined to gratitude, the less likely he or she is to be depressed, anxious, lonely, envious, or neurotic. And feeling gratitude doesn’t just make you happier. It’s correlated with an objectively better life. Gratitude, controlling for materialism, uniquely predicts all outcomes considered, like a higher grade point average, life satisfaction, social integration, and absorption, as well as lower envy and depression.

Use social media in moderation.: The negative effects of social media often occur when social media is used very frequently, or at the expense of maintaining relationships offline. Social media can be a great tool for connecting with other people. Although we can experience FOMO when we learn about fun events after-the-fact, social media can also be a great way to find out about events we are able to attend. Social media can complement a healthy, fulfilling social life when used in moderation. To reduce your social media use, try using Moment or another activity-tracking smartphone app to monitor the time you spend on social media and set realistic goals for reducing your social media time and replacing it with more fulfilling activities.

Focus on your friends more than your acquaintances.: We can use social media to keep in touch with people who live far away and to see what our friends are doing. Viewing close friends’ posts is less likely to provoke the upward social comparison that harms our well-being than viewing acquaintances’ or strangers’ posts.

Share updates from your own life in a mindful way.: Although we know our own lives aren’t perfect, it’s often tempting to portray them that way on social media. It’s natural to want to present ourselves positively, and updating our own social media accounts can boost our self-esteem. However, occasionally discussing the less-than-perfect aspects of our lives can help others feel connected to us and give them the opportunity to support us. Honesty on social media may also help mitigate the negative consequences of social media use for others.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

SELF-ACCEPTANCE: SIGNIFICANCE AND WAYS TO ENRICH IT

Do you accept yourself? It might sound like an odd question; after all, what does it even mean to accept yourself? Don’t we all accept ourselves as a regular part of living our day-to-day lives? As it turns out, self-acceptance is not an automatic or default state. Many of us have trouble accepting ourselves exactly as we are. Personality stays the same, and yet it changes over a lifespan. The ebb and flow of human experience come with social challenges and the development of a confident level of self-worth. Self-acceptance is a contributing factor in improved overall psychological wellbeing.

What is the Meaning of Self-Acceptance?

Self-acceptance is exactly what its name suggests: the state of complete acceptance of oneself. True self-acceptance is embracing who you are, without any qualifications, conditions, or exceptions. For an academic definition:

“[Self-acceptance is] an individual’s acceptance of all of his/her attributes, positive or negative.”

This definition emphasizes the importance of accepting all facets of the self. It’s not enough to simply embrace the good, valuable, or positive about yourself; to embody true self-acceptance, you must also embrace the less desirable, the negative, and the ugly parts of yourself.

It’s not easy to accept the things that we desperately want to change about ourselves; however—counterintuitively—it is only by truly accepting ourselves that we can even begin the process of meaningful self-improvement. In other words, we must first acknowledge that we have undesirable traits and habits before we start off on our journey to improvement.

Unconditional Self-Acceptance

To begin working on ourselves, the first step is not just self-acceptance, but unconditional self-acceptance. It’s relatively easy to accept ourselves when we just did something great—won an award, fell in love, or started a fantastic new job—but accepting ourselves at our lowest and with our faults and flaws in stark relief is the real mark of unconditional self-acceptance.

Unconditional self-acceptance is understanding that you are separate from your actions and your qualities. We accept that we have made mistakes and that we have flaws, but we do not let them define us. We accept that, as a fallible human being, we are less than perfect. We will often perform well, but we will also err at times… We always and unconditionally accept ourselves without judgment.

Self-Acceptance vs. Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is more closely associated with psychological affect than self-acceptance. While it is an important piece in the global understanding of an individual, it does not alone create a psychological well human being. Self-esteem refers to how we feel about ourselves—whether we feel we are generally good, worthwhile, and valuable—while self-acceptance is simply acknowledging and accepting that we are who we are. Full self-acceptance can lay the foundations for positive Self-esteem, and the two frequently go hand-in-hand, but they concern two different aspects of how we think and feel about ourselves.

What does self-acceptance look like? Examples (Situations)

How do we know when we have “reached” self-acceptance? “Can you look in the mirror and truly accept the unique, wonderful work-in-progress person staring back at you?”

We will know that we have achieved our goal of self-acceptance when we can look at ourselves in the mirror and accept every last bit of what makes us who we are, and when we no longer try to mitigate, ignore, or explain away any perceived faults or flaws—physical or otherwise. Self-acceptance can look different for each of us, depending on what we have struggled with and which pieces of ourselves we’d rather not think about. Here are some examples of what self-acceptance might look like for a variety of people:

1. A man going through a divorce who feels like a failure because of it might experience self-acceptance as acknowledging that he made some mistakes and that his marriage failed, but that does not make him a failure.
2. A woman struggling with anorexia may accept herself as a human being with an imperfect body, acknowledge that she approaches her imperfection from a harmful perspective, and commit to working on this perspective.
3. A student who works hard only to receive Cs and the occasional B in college could reach a point of self-acceptance in which he realizes that studying and taking tests is not his strong suit and that this is okay because he has other strengths.
4. A girl with low self-esteem who actively ignores facing her self-doubt and self-defeating beliefs might experience self-acceptance through acknowledging and confronting her negative beliefs and cognitive distortions, and realizing that not everything she thinks is true.
5. An employee who struggles to meet the goals set by a demanding boss may accept herself by accepting that sometimes she will fail to deliver, but that she can still be a good person even when she fails.

 Techniques to enhance self-acceptance:

1. Practice relaxed awareness:

As opposed to constant distraction, or concentrated focus, relaxed awareness is a soft consciousness of our thoughts, feelings, pain, self-rating, and judgment, etc. It’s an awareness of our existence.

To practice: close your eyes for a minute, and instead of pushing thoughts away or trying to focus on your breath, just softly notice your thoughts and feelings and body. You might see negative thoughts or emotions — that’s OK. Just notice them, watch them. Don’t try to turn them into positive thoughts or push them away. You can do this practice for 5 minutes a day, or up to 30 minutes if you find it useful.

When we practice relaxed awareness, you’ll notice things — negative thoughts, fears, happy thoughts, self-judgments, etc. We tend to want to stop the negative thoughts and feelings, but this is just a suppression, an avoidance, a negating of the negative. Instead, welcome these phenomena, they are a part of our life, and they are OK. Hug the bad feeling, comfort it, let it hang around for a while. They are not bad but are opportunities to learn things about ourselves. When we run from these “bad” feelings, we create more pain. Instead, see the good in them, and find the opportunity.

• Let go of rating yourself:

Another thing you’ll notice, once you start to pay attention, is self-rating. Individuals are far too complex to be given a global rating. It has been found that humans who don’t rate themselves either with good or bad have a higher level of psychological wellbeing and move into lives that are flourishing. Those seeking approval in a variety of areas may find discomfort when allowing feedback to fuel a self-rating. We rate ourselves compared to others, or rate ourselves as “good” or “bad” at different things, or rate ourselves as flabby or too skinny or ugly. That doesn’t mean to let it go, but just to notice it, and see what results from it. After realizing that self-rating repeatedly causes soreness, you’ll be happy to let it go, in time.

• Compassion & forgiveness for yourself:

As you notice judgments and self-rating, see if you can turn them into forgiveness and compassion. If you judge yourself for not doing well at something, or not being good enough at something, can you forgive yourself for this, just as you might forgive someone else? In some cases, we don’t need to forgive, but instead to understand what was not within our control. Think about what you’re grateful for. Include things about yourself. If you aren’t perfect, what about your imperfection can you be grateful for? Feel free to journal about these things each day, or once a week.

• Learn from all parts and emotions:

We tend to try to see our successes as good, and the failures as bad, but what if we see that everything is something to learn from? Even the dark parts — they are parts of us, and we can find interesting and useful things in them too. When you are feeling negative emotions, see them as a separate event, not a part of you, and watch them. Remove their power over you by thinking of them, not as commandments you must follow or believe in, but rather like passing objects.

• Talk to someone:

Sometimes we get so in our heads that it’s difficult to separate our thoughts and emotions, to see things clearly. Talking through these issues with another person — a friend, spouse, co-worker — can help you to understand yourself better. Use the talking technique together with one of the above techniques.

• Laugh at it:

How do you stop judging yourself? Laugh at it. A big laugh helps you look deep, notice your self-judgments, and push through the steps to accepting part of yourself. This might help when the voice inside your head wants to make you miserable. Giving yourself the full and unconditional permission to be human opens you up to thoughts and feelings as adventures, rather than self-punishing patterns. Irrational thoughts and cognitive distortions are limiting to personal development and achievement of the good life.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.