Happier Habits

Programme

Mattering more in your own midlife

Week Five -

Reflection

Hello and welcome to Week Five of your Happier Habits programme!

Below is a short video to explain this week's theme, the download for the PlaySheet and the guidance for this week. Any questions just get in touch on the WhatsApp group or by email. Cheers!

_^“Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful."

Margaret J. Wheatley, author and teacher

Download PlaySheet here

Week 5 -Reflection

Bookend your day

We are often living mile-a-minute lives, lurching from one drama to another, reacting constantly to all those external demands and expectations, or else we can be aimlessly wandering through our days without direction or reflection.

In the last few weeks you’ve started to cultivate habits that give you that direction, that GPS for your day, that ability to start feeling you are running your days rather than be run down by them.

Reflection then is where you start to make sense of your day. It’s where you start to see the impact of cultivating that attitude of gratitude; start to understand the power of the active choices you’ve been making in response not reaction to your day; understand what happens when you check in with your mood and plan accordingly, being intentional about the glimmers in your life; when you act and think with intention to get in front of your day, not constantly running around with your hair on fire and your knickers in a twist.

Like the check-in at the beginning of the day, the end of day reflection bookends all the emotions and reactions and triggers and demands thrown at you, and allows you to take a deep breath and realise you‘re still standing, to laugh at some of them, to let others go, or to take note of something so you can process it properly.

Taking stock

Reflection is the chance to review on what’s working and what’s not, to keep your level of awareness up and to be far more intentional about your GPS so you know when and how to course correct if needs be.

You can do this in minutes or you can take your time… when I’m using the Journal Prompt I gave you in Week 2, some nights it takes me two minutes and other times I let it all pour out. You are just taking a beat to look back on your day and remind yourself of the moments that mattered, and think about how it impacted you and where you might have made a different choice. It’s not about reporting the drama of the day or a review of everything that happened, but a reflection on how you are, a chance to process moments and experiences, and build a strong connection to yourself. Reflecting just means taking a beat to be here while you’re here, to go back over your day, to remember that lovely moment that was immediately swept away by a phonecall or an email. To remember the kind moments, the ones you want more of, to appreciate that walk and acknowledge the amount you got done today. To pat yourself on the back for not killing anyone, to reward yourself for growing a little today because you responded to a higher aim rather than reacted at base level. What went well? What do you want more of? What made you feel alive? What would you do differently?

Daily Reflection

In the PlaySheet, reflect back on your day… just the process of stopping to check in with how you are and how the day’s events have impacted you allows you to make sense of it before Primal Pam gets hysterical behind the scenes. It’s another chance for you to respond rather than react by taking a beat and thinking, ‘actually it wasn’t that bad’, or, ‘she was just in a bad mood and it had nothing to do with me’. It doesn’t have to be done last thing at night, although it’s in the journal guide for then. It could be being intentional about taking a few minutes to go over your day in a walk after dinner, or while you make the dinner, or while you clean your teeth. The key is to pause and reflect on this one day that you’ll never get again so why not give it its due?

Lifetime reflection

In the PlaySheet, pick a time in your past. Maybe a time when you were much younger, and life wasn’t necessarily going to plan. Or it was going to plan but it felt really scary and you didn’t have the confidence to enjoy it. Now I want you to write to her from your present day self. What advice would you give her? What wisdom, on reflection, would you share with her to make her life just that little bit easier. What are you proud of her for already, and what awaits her… yes including the wrecking balls that might have come along.. but what resilience will she show, what bravery does she already have inside her? Reflect on where you are now to her and what have been the highlights and the unexpected gifts.