Meditation is looking back at myself.
It is calmly pondering back at the life I have lived
Objectively looking at the self, through introspection
Freeing yourself from the minds tied to the past.
It is a method to truly understand and empathize with others.
It is a priceless experience to find the true me that I have forgotten.
10 Things That I Learned by Reflecting Back
1. I sincerely wanted to find myself
When life is plenty and busy, you tend live forgetting who you really are.
However, when you achieve milestones, experience failures, or take a long break away from your busy life, there are times where find yourself hit by a wave of loneliness and a sense of lost identity to who ‘I’ actually am. Looking back at when I felt despair, when I didn’t feel happiness in my life, I realized that they were times that I was longing for the true me who truly felt happiness. When you truly find yourself, you realize that thing you’ve been longing and aching to find was nothing other than your very ‘self’.
2. The reason why I am happy now is from the help of others
I thought the reason why I was happy was thanks to my own hard work.
Without remembering the people around me that patiently cheered me on along my life.
You get to find a lonely self when you live a life forgetting that gratitude.
When you picture them one by one, you feel more gratitude for your happiness.
3. I thought I lived a good life, but to some I lived hurting them.
I thought I had lived a pretty good life.
I did what suited me, what benefited me and had my own ways of doing things in life.
However, as I carefully looked back at my past, I realized I lived a life for myself without any consideration to how people around me felt, without even trying to understand their minds. I realized that I lived ignoring the faces around me that darkened because of me. I was a selfish person who didn’t even know to how much pain I was causing.
4. My wife is as beautiful as ever.
I used to think very lowly of my wife. She was a stranger to my eyes.
One day though, as I reflected one by one at the times we spent together, I got to know how grateful I am towards her for sticking by me. Through all my ugly sides.
When I saw her again, she was lovely like the first time I saw her.
5. My boy is doing pretty well.
I use to nag my son day and night. It was a pointless struggle without change.
When I think back at my youth, I used to despise listening to someone nag at me.
It was when I started have faith in my son that I could see his merits and talents.
He in return puts faith in me and started to listen to me.
6. I did not cherish my own self.
I thought I was important. Thus, I believed I worked hard for myself.
However, I was only being deceived by my own mind.
As I pondered deeply into my mind, I always felt that I lacked.
That was why I worked so hard wishing to be recognized by the people around me.
It was only when I escaped from my deep rooted sense of inferiority that I truly felt free and could truly cherish my existence.
7. He was right.
There are times when I have immovable absolution to what I think is right. Sometimes I would use logic to persuade the other. When time goes by and I realize that my colleague was right, I try to hide the discussion to protect my pride. However, now I know. I know that swallowing your pride and accepting you are wrong is true courage. I know that the other person’s quiet voice carries so much importance.
8. As I accept my mistakes, I approach happiness.
It is easy to find 10 things you don’t like about that other person. However, it is hard to accept just one mistake about yourself. Self-reflection is about you finding the causes of your problems within you. The more things you find about yourself that others’ don’t like, the closer you get to happiness.
9. What I say I know isn’t actually knowing
When people talk about me, there were many times I avoided the conversation by saying “Yes, I know.”
Strangely, I had to listen to things that ‘I already knew’ in classes.
When I understood it in my head, I thought I knew it.
However, as I understood with the mind, through the meditation, then my behaviours changed, and no longer did people say things to me that ‘I already knew’.
10. I am happier seeing someone smile than when I smile.
When you reflect back on your life, you get to realize that moving your body, though tired, to help someone else, being their help and bringing a smile to their face brings you happiness incomparable to when you move for your own self. It teaches you how to live a truly happy life.