Do you ever look in the mirror and be like, "Harpo who dis woman?". As a coach, from time to time, I just take a moment and look at my self and ask "who are you Sheena?". Depending on where I am mentally, I am able to answer the question vulnerably. Over the past twelve years I can say, self reflection has led me to the place I reside within myself right now. Now it was work going from here to here ( ok I'm corny with the present jokes), no but really it was work. And work looked like battling with what I thought that I wanted, and what what I wanted looked like. Stay with me y'all.
When I talk about self reflection I really have to take it all the way back to my Junior year of high school. And this is not a romanticized reflection, but the reality of me starting to take control of me and what I was seeing as an option for me. When I was a Junior, I started the year at a new high school, my third one to be precise. And when I look back at that time, I saw it as a fresh start. Now mind you, at the time if felt more like starting over with friends and social life, but what the time allowed me to have was a brand new start. I saw my possibilities ( what I wanted) in a whole new light ( what it looked like). I felt like I could show up as someone who I had not been in previous spaces, this was focused, confident and energized. And let me tell you I ran with it. It was one of the more difficult things I had done in my 16 years of life (16 damn that was a long time ago), but I did it. At that time I had decided I would go to college and move away, so I was setting myself up to create a whole new start for myself. The catch was, I never thought about it as doing something new, different or as a new start, rather I viewed it as more of me being focused and determined to attain what I saw for myself.
This is the self refection I had, which allowed me to see who I was in a past moment, along with who I am in this moment. The way in which I navigated my life is very much the same. The difference now is, I know how my experiences of new starts have aided me in my journey. The new start for going into a new school, meeting new people and establishing new goals was what the new starts have provided me. And I am currently using that same aspect of my self when I am determined to move forward in the moments I am experiencing now. Currently, as I step into new space I allow my self to set new goals and expectations of me.
In the present looks like a new mindset (or mindset shift). Shifting my perspective on what's happening in this moment, and what & how I feel in these moments. Self reflection has provided me with lessons and information of how to be present and how to create new realities. And it all stimmed from the original new start stepping into an unknow allowing myself to set the tone. Now I'm sure me being reflective started way before that, however it was in that moment, when I was able to looked at myself and wondered who I was, I was able to give myself the answer I was seeking and allow it guide me.
