Coaching by Spanish Bruja

Marta: [00:00:00] Hello, hello, and welcome to Spiritcraft. This is a podcast to help you nurture your soul and unleash the magic within. And today we’re going to be diving into the transformative practice of self reflection. We’re going to be exploring how we can enhance our personal growth journey. I’m Marta. I’m your host.

And I am very thrilled to explore this topic with you. So to start with, we need to understand how important self reflection is. In a nutshell, self reflection is thinking about your own thoughts and behaviours in order to understand why you do the things you do. It’s a bit like a mirror of our deepest thoughts, our deepest feelings, our experiences.

And it’s a deliberate process of introspection. It allows us to

[00:01:00] gain insight into ourselves and into our lives. So essentially, by taking some time to pause and step back, we can examine our thoughts, our emotions, our behaviors, and that gives us some clarity on our values and our Priorities, essentially.

So self reflection is very important because it fosters self awareness, which is the foundation of personal growth and of personal development. Self reflection empowers us to make conscious choices, to be able to Cultivate resilience to navigate life’s challenges and all of these, uh, make becomes a little bit easier.

Essentially, we cannot change what we don’t know about. And so when we analyze ourselves and look deep into the motivations behind our behavior and how we react to certain situations, we are able to become more aware of ourselves and improve whatever might need improving. So you might be thinking, okay, that’s all great, but

[00:02:00] how do I do this self reflection?

Um, As you can imagine, there are many, many ways to engage in this practice, and, you know, it is essential to find techniques that actually resonate with you. So, the first thing that I would say, obviously, is to explore, to try things, and to see what sticks, but here are a few examples of techniques that can help with self reflection.

Journaling is a very popular method. It allows you to capture your thoughts, your feelings and your insights on paper. I am a writer myself, so of course I love journaling. Although yeah, I understand that some people might find it a bit difficult when we journal, we are able to open up in a way that we might not feel comfortable.

Otherwise, sometimes looking into our behaviors can feel a bit scary or even unsettling. And so writing things down can allow us to put our thoughts to paper without actually needing to analyze them in the moment. We can, we can just let everything flow onto the

[00:03:00] page. Another technique that you probably have heard about is meditation.

Meditation and mindfulness are practices that can also facilitate our reflection. What they do is they help you quiet your mind and they bring attention to the present moment. And again, this is something that might not be easy for everyone. I understand that. When we think about meditation, we might think about, you know, people sitting in silence and maybe hours on end, repeating mantras or something similar.

You know, if you’re not able to meditate yet, that can feel very overwhelming. So if that is you, then just simply pausing and taking a couple of deep breaths before performing actions, it can help already bring mindfulness into your life. In future episodes, we’re going to be exploring together some of these techniques in a bit more depth.

Uh, today, basically, I just want to give you a bit of an overview of the most common ones. One of the things that helps quite a lot is engaging with nature.

[00:04:00] Taking regular walks outdoors can really help, uh, to, to provide that reflective space for processing thoughts and emotions. Things as well like engaging in creative activities, anything where we can sort of relax that critical analyzing mind is going to allow us to, to sort of peek inside ourselves without, you know, certain judgment.

A very powerful technique as well that I want to mention, uh, the last one, is asking yourself, what we call reflective questions. So these questions are things like, what am I grateful for today? Or what lessons have I learned from, from recent challenges? Prompts like that can stimulate a little bit deeper introspection and self discovery.

Of course, you can, you can also mix these sort of questions or prompts with journaling or with meditation, and you can, you can start your session, you know, by Writing about a prompt rather than just doing free flow, whatever

[00:05:00] comes, as you can imagine, self reflection is not a one time event. It’s not quick fix, but is an ongoing practice that we have to integrate into our daily lives.

It’s very important to carve out some dedicated time each day for reflection, even if it’s just a few minutes, and this can have a profound impact on our well being. Setting aside a quiet space, free from distractions, this can enhance the quality of our self reflection practice. Whether it is very early in the morning or during a lunch break, or even before bed, just try to find a time that works for you.

Because in an ideal world, you will have plenty of time to sit down, get into the mood. Spend half an hour or even longer doing self reflection. Maybe, you know, put some incense or candles, but in reality that might actually not happen regularly or ever, so Instead of waiting for that perfect moment to occur,

[00:06:00] just work with whatever availability you currently have, and then you can start building up from there.

So, for example, to get started, maybe you can play some relaxing music on your commute to work and use that time for self reflection. Obviously, if you take public transport, you can’t really zone out. If you drive, focus on your driving. Or maybe you, you can start by being present whenever you’re doing daily activities.

So, for example, if you’re brewing a cup of coffee or taking a shower, you can simply start by asking yourself why. Why do you need a coffee before you do anything else? Why do you shower in the morning instead of the evening or vice versa? Why do you enjoy listening to music or podcast or why are you listening to this podcast?

You might be surprised by some of the answers that you come up with. Remember, self reflection is a journey and it’s okay to embrace moments of discomfort or uncertainty. Sometimes we might not like the thoughts that pop

[00:07:00] into our heads or the answers we give to different questions. And sometimes these thoughts and answers might trigger uncomfortable emotions, while the That is normal and is to be expected always be aware of how certain topics might make you feel and if at any time you feel like it’s become too much or you’re deeply uncomfortable or you know, you’re even not feeling safe You can always stop and of course, you know, seek help if needed, talk to a therapist or a counselor.

The most important thing is to be accepting of what you might find. Through self compassion and curiosity, we can explore our inner landscape with openness and kindness. So, I want you to think about this self reflection, basically it’s not, it’s not a way of allowing ourselves to be as nasty as we want or to just embrace all our negative traits or anything like that.

It’s not about becoming the villain in the story or, you know, just saying up. You know, I’m like this because I just

[00:08:00] did self reflection and I have to accept myself. Essentially, the point of this is to understand that we are human and therefore we are not perfect. And because we are not perfect, we will have some virtues and we will have some flaws as well.

And that is okay. This is not to say you should start, you know, go out and punch people or anything like that, because obviously we live in society and there are certain things that are are not allowed or they’re not the right thing to do. That’s okay. But it’s about realizing why some situation make us feel like we want to punch someone.

It’s about understanding where, where does this feeling come from? Or as I said earlier, why do you prefer to shower in the mornings instead of the evenings or the other way around? It’s about being present in that moment. So when you’re brewing your cup of coffee, for example. We normally are thinking about 20 different things and, and we don’t even realize why we’re doing what we’re doing, which at the end of the

[00:09:00] day, brewing a cup of coffee is a daily ritual or a cup of tea.

And so what I want you to try with self reflection is essentially to understand, just understand the things that are happening and why are you doing the things that you’re doing. And it might just be that at the moment you don’t have an answer, and that’s okay, because we can only change what we know about.

So the first stage for this would be discovery, would be trying to be curious about Ourselves and our personalities. As we wrap up today’s episode, I encourage you to embrace the power of self reflection in your own life. Take your time and pause, breathe, connect with yourself on a deeper level. You can get started with journaling and it can be as simple as typing a short answer to a prompt on your phone’s notes app or writing a couple of pages in a journal by hand.

Some people enjoy doing audio notes and others mix writing with drawing and collage. However you express

[00:10:00] yourself, use those tools for journaling. Last week I asked you what it is that you wanted to change. I would like you to list five things that you are grateful for, no matter how small. If you can, write down why you’re grateful for them.

As I said, it doesn’t have to be complicated. You can grab the notes app on your phone while waiting for the train, or while in line at the coffee shop. You can allocate a block of time to this exercise, or just write here and there during the day whenever you can. You know, have a couple of minutes. Next week, we’ll talk about journaling more in depth, but for now, just get started.

There is no wrong way to journal. If you’re not sure if journaling is your thing just yet, but you are interested in meditation and mindfulness, there are a couple of things that you can do. So, the first one that I just want you to do is to try to find stillness in your, in your day to day life. And this can be as simple as just sitting down and being in the moment.

It could be just watching your kids play

[00:11:00] without trying to interact or without trying to analyze or anything, just watching them, how they enjoy, how they play. Or it could also be looking out the window and seeing the world passing by. One of the things that can help us to become a little bit more calmed and still in these situations is to practice slow breathing or deep breathing.

There are plenty of exercises out there on the internet with breathing techniques, but today I want to share with you a very simple one that you can do anytime. So at the end of the episode today, I’m gonna share with you a brief breathing exercise. So if that’s not your thing, well, thank you very much for listening today, and you are free to log off, disconnect, switch off, whatever.

And otherwise, just stay for this breathing exercise, which I hope will help. And just before I leave, I wanted to

[00:12:00] ask you if you don’t mind, uh, liking, sharing the podcast, giving some writings or some reviews, if you enjoyed it, obviously, so that more people can find it. If you want to send in any comments, Or suggestions for topics that you would like to hear about them.

Please do so. Everything will be in the show notes, all the places where you can find me and get in touch with me. Okay. This is it. So have a great week and talk to you soon. When we focused on our breathing, sometimes If you’ve never done this before, you might feel like you suddenly forget how to breathe.

So usually you’re going to start by breathing normally and just not thinking about it. Okay. I’m just going to explain very briefly what the exercise entails and then I’m going to I’ll just guide you through a bit of a session. So the exercise will start with you just breathing normally and then, uh, we’re going to start paying attention to that normal breathing

[00:13:00] without trying to change it.

And afterwards I will guide you through some slower breathing. So, uh, don’t worry, I will be guiding you through the whole thing and, um, If you don’t get it quite right today, that’s no problem. Just give it a try. Sometimes, you know, if you feel like the tempo is too slow or you need to breathe a little bit faster at the beginning, that’s all good.

Just do what you can. Listen to the instructions if you need first and then follow along.

Marta: Okay, let’s begin. For

now, I just want you to notice your breath. We’re not trying to change anything yet. So breathe normally. Don’t overthink it.

Just feel the air coming in through your nose and out through your nose or your mouth. Whichever feels comfortable.

[00:14:00] 

As you pay more attention to your breath, I want you to slow it down just a little bit.

When you breathe in, focus on how the air feels when it enters your body. Feel it fill your lungs.

When you breathe out, feel how the muscles in your chest relax.

Don’t worry about following my words exactly. Don’t force yourself to my rhythm. I want you to just listen to my words and follow them as they feel comfortable.

Take a deep breath in

and let the air out.

[00:15:00] 

Again, deep breath in and

breathe out.

On your next deep breath in, I want you to send that oxygen all the way to your belly. Really fill your body up with it.

When you breathe out, feel your body relax. Just a little bit more focus on the rhythm of the air going in and out of your body.

I want you to take a really deep breath in and hold it and

[00:16:00] 

breathe out.

Take another deep breath in and hold it

and breathe out.

We are going to do this just a couple more times.

Take a deep breath in and hold it. Take

another deep breath in and hold it,

and slowly breathe out,

[00:17:00] 

take a moment to sense how your body feels while your breath returns to normal,

feel if you’re comfortable or whether anything aches, we are not judging, not changing anything, we are simply noticing. to sense

As you breathe normally, scan your body for a few more moments.

[00:18:00] 

And whenever you feel ready, gently move or stretch and return to your surroundings.