Reflecting with Self-love and kindness makes all the difference. As the year draws to a close, we often look back and reflect on the plans we made at the beginning of the year, how they unfolded, and where to from here.
In this episode, hosts Liz and Candice explore reflection. They discuss:
- The power of reflection
- Why you should reflect from a place of self-love
- Simple tips to support you as you reflect
TIMESTAMPS
00:49 Liz and Candice talk about reflection
- Candice: It’s so powerful when we pause and reflect. It lets us integrate what’s happened, it lets us put things down, it lets us not ignore things that are worth taking with us.
- Liz: For me, reflection is always a process of seeing the dots and then finding what joins them. The picture that emerges, the clarity that emerges allows us to be an observer in our own life and in our own space.
- Candice: You need to make sure you’ve got your glasses on that are self loving. It’s not an intention to nitpick your life apart — where you failed and how you didn’t do that. It’s really about being that kind, motherly or fatherly teacher that comes in and goes, “Let’s see where we’re at. What’s working? Where do we need to put some effort in? What don’t we need to pay attention to and can just let go?”
04:07 Pause is a key part of reflection
- Candice: “It doesn’t matter if you’re doing it on a train on your way home or if you’re doing it wherever, to just take a pause allows an aspect of gentleness to come into it.”
05:50 Experience a still moment with Liz and Candice
- Find a comfortable place just for a moment.
- Feel your feet on the earth. If you’re standing, sense your whole foot. Rock a little bit from side to side. If you’re sitting on a chair, you can just gently rock your body from side to side.
- Connect with that feeling of being rooted and grounded and present on the earth in this moment.
- Then, place your hand on your heart and your other hand just below your belly button.
- And now breathe. Be aware of breathing in through your nose, filling your hand and filling your heart, filling the hand on your stomach so that you feel that breath really connecting deep into your being.
- As you breathe out, just gently sigh the air out of your mouth. Imagine that breath rooting into the earth.
- Then breathe in again, in your own time and at your own pace.
- Become aware of taking your insight to a point between your eyes, between your eyebrows so there’s a sense of connection between all the parts of intelligence in our being – the brain in our head, the brain in our heart, and the brain in our gut.
- So that we are fully present with the intention of lovingly observing and reflecting on our story.
10:06 Liz and Candice reflect on emotions around the year using Nature of Emotions cards
- Liz: Even though one of the cards I drew was “tired”, in just acknowledging that from a place of care, it feels like it’s lifted.
- Candice: We can be swimming along with our blinkers on, feeling like the world is chaotic, like everything is dumping on top of us. And when we pause and we actually validate where we are, that awareness expands, the blinkers fall off.
- Candice: When we get caught in emotions at one place, we very often store energy trying to push that emotion away. So that acknowledgement of it, in some sense, allows us to empty a cupboard or empty a part of ourselves. That energy becomes available as a resource to go through our day as opposed to a part of us that’s trying to keep a suitcase of emotions we don’t want to look at locked away.
17:14 Learning to surrender and find the flow instead of keeping emotions under lock and key
- Candice: Allowing surrendering, becoming present no matter what’s coming up for you requires a courageous showing up.
- Candice: I’ve been at this for 10 years. Only this year the surrendering’s become more of a natural go-to as opposed to, “Let me grab what I need to take control and deal with this.”
- Liz: With that “finding the flow”, there’s also been a huge awareness of self-forgiveness, just loving the intelligence of a whole life’s experience.
“Being generous with ourselves
allows us to be kinder to ourselves and others.”
23:09 Understanding the nature of emotions
- Liz: If everything we are working towards in living emotional intelligence is to live more consciously, our emotions are the vehicle that gives us a direct reading on what our being as our heart and soul is trying to communicate to us.
- Liz: Where words and thoughts are the language of the brain and emotions and feelings are the language of the heart, energy is the language of the soul.
24:40 When we connect to the calm, we are empowered and we stop being a victim of where we are.
28:22 What are the things you do to support yourself as you reflect?
- Liz: “Probably the most important one for me is to just consciously breathe into my being. And that immediately creates a pause and an awareness. Once the breath happens, then, for me, it’s connect with the body. Get out of the head and connect with sensation in the body. Feel my feet on the ground.”
- Candice: In a mental space, I often reach for phrases that I find comforting and holding. “Come to me all you who are weary, and I will give you rest” — I just repeat that phrase. I’m sure people have lots of different ones. It doesn’t matter what it is. The powerful thing is finding what resonates with you.
- Candice: Notice where’s your go-to that sparks joy in you. Where’s that place that’s restorative for you? Then use that to start to tap into it more and more. It could be a mental space. It could be sound. “It could be smell.”
QUOTES
- “The transformation in us impacts how we act. It’s not that we become more surrendered means we don’t act. It’s often that we act with more clarity and boldness. There’s just a humility in that, an ownership of the impact and the brokenness and wholeness of all of us.” Candice
- “Where words and thoughts are the language of the brain and emotions and feelings are the language of the heart, energy is the language of the soul.” Liz
- “When you’re looking to feel energized, when you’re looking to feel a spark of life, look at the ocean if you can and look at the sun sparkling on the water. And if you’re looking for calm and wanting to feel that peace, look deep into the leaves of a tree.” Liz’ friend.
- “Research your own experience. Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is essentially your own.” Bruce Lee
Check out these other episodes
Episode 69 – Finding Stillness in the Chaos and Busyness
Episode 3 – What are Your Emotions Saying?
Resources Mentioned
The EQ Evolution Emotion List Free Download + Episode 3 explains how to use it to grow EQ.
Join the launch team for The Nature of Emotions or buy a set of The Nature of Emotions.
Check out the Exploring the Heart mini-course
Books Mentioned:
Charge and the Energy Body by Anodea Judith
Contact us:
EQ Evolution on Facebook | EQ Evolution on Instagram
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