On Introspection
Well, hello. This is The Daily 5 with Aurooba. That's me. Where we reflect on creating our best lives a little bit every day. Here we go.
Aurooba:Okay. I have tried to record this episode 4 times and ScreenFlow has literally quit on me and I don't know what's going on. So let's hope this take will actually take.
Aurooba:I've been thinking about how we're always on the go, always doing something, always trying to achieve this or that. The errand list that never seems to end.
Aurooba:And in all of that, in the rush of life, how often do we take time to just check-in with ourselves? I mean, really check-in, not just huh, I feel a little tired right now. Or, I'm a little annoyed right now. But something a little bit more thorough, Something that might be called a self evaluation almost. I recently noticed that some of my friends really only do this when someone asks them how they're doing.
Aurooba:When someone they trust and someone they're close to asks them, Hey, what's up? How's it going? They sometimes will look away for a second and you can watch them looking inward, trying to figure out what is it that I actually feel? How is it that I am actually doing? And it got me thinking, you know, why is that?
Aurooba:How come this happens more often when we are prompted and not something that we do unprompted? Why isn't it part of our regular process? It doesn't have to be very deep introspection. You know, you don't have to actually think very hard or for very long in order to analyze and evaluate where you're at. You know, how you're actually doing.
Aurooba:It's just maybe, I don't know, 2 minutes out of your day, 5 minutes at most and asking yourself, how am I doing? What's going well? What could be better? What am I feeling? Where's my mind at?
Aurooba:I am reminded of The Artist's Way book by Julia Cameron. In this book, she popularized the concept of morning pages and it's a pretty interesting concept. I did them for a while when I was younger. The idea is that you wake up in the morning and you write out roughly 3 pages of just stream of consciousness stuff. You know, longhand, whatever comes to mind, unrefined, unedited, you just throw it on there.
Aurooba:And while I like writing by hand quite a bit myself, doing this every day for 3 days, 3 pages or so just sounded like a lot. And I found this website called 750 words.com, which still exists by the way. And it still has my stuff on it and reading it back was quite the journey. Anyway, it's based on this idea because 3 pages long hand is roughly 750 words, and you could just go on there and write 750 words verbatim and keep up a streak, you know, of how many days in a row you were able to do this. And you know, some of the things I found myself writing sometimes I was like, Oh, I guess that was bugging me more than I realized?
Aurooba:Or, Oh, that's what I did there. Oh, okay. That's a good connection. You find yourself making connections and thinking things and writing things down that you didn't even realize. And I think it was those activities that really made me understand how important it is to regularly check-in with yourself, regularly look inward.
Aurooba:I think taking 5 minutes, you know, you don't have to do the 3 pages like Julia Cameron recommends, but just taking a few minutes to check-in with yourself on a regular basis, and when I say regular, I really do mean every day and doing it purposefully with intention. I think you might be surprised at what you might discover if you were to keep doing it. And I would also say that on the days when I don't do this, I almost find myself unable to regulate my emotions as well as I should be able to. I don't know. There's something really great about looking inward on a regular basis.
Aurooba:You should try it. You might be surprised by what you discover. Thanks for listening. Same time tomorrow.