I think I finally understand what this idiom truly means – self-reflection.

As I’ve stated in the past I’m not a religious person. I don’t believe in an omnipotent deity, unless it’s Mother Earth or the Universe. But I do believe everything happens for a reason and sometimes we may not know why something happened until some years after. Take for instance my divorce. That relationship in total lasted just shy of 10 years. During that time I encountered a lot of pain and potential for personal growth. My former partner also learned a lot about herself as well during this time. If anything we came in to each other’s lives to free ourselves from the shells that were made for us. Like me, there was a lot of pressure on her to succeed and have that “storybook” life that every parent wants for their child/children.

What I’m trying to get at here is that over time we become more wise to our past. We see our history in a different light. Our past doesn’t define us, it builds us into who we are to become. The key to all this however is to slow down, which can be tough in today’s society. We are always on the go, need to do the next big thing, buy that cup of coffee, post the perfect selfie on the ‘gram, swipe through Tinder looking for the next match, and maintain that social media facade. At the end of the day, none of that matters.

The main hold up I see with self-reflection is it takes a great deal of self-awareness to fully achieve the ability to heal. The reason I say this is because it wasn’t until recently that I was able to fully make this connection. And the only way I was able to unlock my own self-awareness was through the help of therapy. Through therapy I was able to fully discover who Tony really was/is, what drove my past, what I wanted, and above all I was able to open my third eye. Now that last one didn’t come easy, though the practice of yoga and breathing exercises I am able to clear my mind and only see myself. When you look back at your past with this mindset, you don’t see failures, pain, or regrets, you simply see the wisdom you’ve gain during that time. There is no way to live without experiencing some kind of pain, that what it means to be human (another reason to watch Neon Genesis Evangelion and End of Evangelion). Our pain will teach us what is most important in life.

The crux of all is modern day society that puts a value of the material over that of the immaterial (e.g.: your time, family, mental health, etc…) because most of us have to work in order to live. I do think we are heading towards a tipping point in which we may see our society start to evolve due to the challenges we are facing and citizens no longer accepting status quo as the “normal.” COVID-19 has starting pushing us to a new normal and peaceful protests are finally making the impact that is sorely needed to make change.

I know you may be thinking to yourself “I don’t have time for this right now…” but in reality you likely do. If you are someone who likes going to the gym, look for a yoga class to join (or if you are like me and are immunocompromised YouTube has plenty of videos you can follow along with). Instead of looking at Facebook before going to bed, go to Chilled Cow’s YouTube channel and listen to one of their lofi hip hop live streams and close your eyes. Allow yourself to be drawn into the music and escape to a new realm within your mind.

One more thing I would like to touch on is self-awareness versus consciousness. Being self-aware is being able to view yourself as an observer (think you are looking at yourself in the third person), whereas consciousness is more or less knowing where you are at in time (present moment kinda stuff). Self-awareness comes from the ability to understand what makes you tick and really living with your emotions. For a good read on self-awareness please check out this link.

Change doesn’t come quick and it shouldn’t. Like I said in the conclusion to Volume 1 of my story, learn from the past to better the future. The main “tools” that I’ve used along my journey into a better understanding of my mental health have simply been becoming more self-aware and self-reflection. I learned what my triggers are and how to better cope with my fluctuations of my emotion.