Rare reflection
Photo credit; Bessi on Pixabay
I saw this post and the writer's insight on the topic of reflection impressed me. (Prakhyat Rai, the author, gave permission to share the link.)
This post drew me to one of the most important concepts of reflection: peace and calmness.
Fasten your seatbelts and relax, for now we are on our journey to a peaceful self. There might be incidences of stormy lashes; do not worry; these winds have no power over us anymore, for we will learn how to shield these storms with the power of reflection and a shower of forgiveness.
Have you ever tried to see your image in running river water or rippling ocean water? The view fades. Image breaks because of interruptions. Whereas a clear image is visualised on calm sea water. Calmness carves while disturbance distorts.
Let us visit our childhood days to understand this. When we wanted to disturb others, we made a lot of noise so that they would get distracted and troubled. The same holds true in our daily lives. When we are too stressed out, we are unable to focus on our goal. For example, in anxiety, even the known answers get wrong. While we were calm in the morning hours, the same problems were solved with ease. Or let me say that when we went to the exam hall, every question seemed tough, whereas when we came out and gave it a second look, we knew most of the answers, but in fear, we made everything wrong. Did you ever question why this happened?
I still sit back and reflect on the mistakes I made during my class X exams that made me lose many marks. I was very anxious when I was taking my board exams, and when question papers were given, they were so easy. Even though I knew every answer, my anxiety made me make mistakes. Had I been calm, I could have answered those problems much better. These timely reflections on one's own deeds help us to improve ourselves a lot.
Further, this reminded me of my mother's saying, "Studying in the morning hours is always fruitful." She used to wake us up at five in the morning to study, and that has helped us a lot in improving our knowledge.
When the mind is tired, our vision of clarity also goes down. It's something like the efficiency scale of a motor car. When a motor car is new, it runs faster and has good endurance and stamina. As it ages, the life of the machine falls. Then we frequently encounter breakdowns, poor performances, etc. The same thing happens with our minds as well. We are energetic after a good night's sleep, and we happen to perform with good zeal and enthusiasm. As the day goes by and we get involved in various activities, our energy level is getting drained. This exhaustion blurs our visibility and performance too.
Our physical body could be likened to a machine. We all know machines can work nonstop, but if we do not care, the machine's life becomes short. Yes, we had taken a lot of the work from it, and then we had to invest a lot to repair it to get more work or lose our work. That means an extra expense to carry out our work on time. Had we given the machine adequate rest and oiled it well, the machine would not have broken down, and we could have been able to finish our work without added expense. Something similar happens with our bodies too. We need a good amount of 7-8 hours of sleep for our body and brain to clear their baggage and rejuvinate every cell for a new course of work. Cutting down on our sleep means not taking good care of ourselves. Over time, this unattended need sores, and we start developing many physical, mental, and family issues and illnesses, calling on a big investment to cure them. Now, half of your earnings are going to take care of you so that you can continue to work and earn. The scene would have been different, i.e., 100% of your income would have been available to you had you taken care of a small thing in your life—your good sleep.
The point of showing these things to you is that the solutions are quite simple and within your reach if you act on time; otherwise, all is lost. So, it is high time that we start reflecting on everything we do on a daily basis with mindfulness.
Since I am writing on forgiveness these days, I would like to link this topic to forgiveness.
In my previous post on forgiveness, I mentioned that we human beings are social beings. We don't live in isolation. Had we been in isolation, there would have been no collisions and no destruction. But we live in a society, in a community, and in a family surrounded by people who constantly interact and work. There is always a possibility that someone or another could inflict hurt on us. As Smedes (1984) says in his book, "Forgive and Forget," there are three kinds of hurt: personal, unjust, and deep. These three hurts will be dealt with in my later posts. Why I mentioned these things here is because these are the points on which we should reflect on a daily basis as a cleansing event, making our hurt most relevant to us right at the beginning, even before it is beginning to cause us more trouble. These reflective episodes introduce you to the real troubling agents of your life that are stealing all the joy from your life. These reflections also call for a remedial measure to heal and feel good. We all know the right investment at the right time yields the best. We keep checking for market interest rates so that we can make good investments and earn a good income. That holds true for our bodies too. Attending to her needs on time saves us from the crippling grips of disease and death.
So, our journey of forgiveness begins with reflecting on ourselves. This reflection calms the storm rumbling within me because of hurt, anxiety, or anything else. It introduces me to my peaceful self—the true source of my energy.
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