By Bhavana Gundeti

Today I read a short story on self reflection which included the Demartini method. It really reminded me how important self-reflection is in our daily lives. I’m sure everyone reflects about their actions and behaviour at some point. Self-reflection not only helps us be aware of ourselves more but also our environment.

We self-reflect to know what our actions reveal about us and how we can apply this in other situations in life. It is crucial that we take a moment every day to process certain situations and understand why we or others acted the way we or they did. Sometimes we reflect and laugh at what happened and other times we take it more seriously. Both ways, it helps us improve ourselves and learn more about people. Instead of being impulsive, self-reflecting allows us to deal with people or situations in a more mature way. Self-reflection does not need to take a lot of time; it can be a few minutes every day. People who self-reflect are more likely to not regret their actions or words than people who do not practice self-reflection.

Self-reflection makes us feel better and more relaxed as we know that we have taken the time to go through what happened earlier in the day or before. If we realize that we made a mistake sometimes or said something unacceptable, we would be cautious next time if such a situation repeats. Now you see why self-reflection is important. Imagine if everyone on the planet does that. Wouldn’t everything be more peaceful? While resolving a solvable issue, both of the people can reflect on the issue and their behaviour and actions.

Through this, people can learn from their mistakes and understand the other person in a better way. This can work from a young age while resolving some friendship issues. We see self-reflection in movies and books, wherein the character has their alone time while they think about something that happened earlier. Then you see how the character solves that issue in the only way they can. We can learn from these characters, even though our situations are not exactly like our situations. These reasons are some of the important reasons why self-reflection is necessary for everyone’s life.

The author is interning with Sakshi Post and is a student of Suchitra Academy, Hyderabad.