Friday 24 June 2011

Reflective and reflexive

I was talking to a friend today, of a sudden awareness, of how I reflect on my projections- it has become a habitual/ reflexive thing. For a long time, I have wondered what it really means to be reflexive in the context of personal development. This is how I came to the realisation: I was talking to a friend about his friend and how he needs to let go of his daughter to set her free- to be an adult and to carve out a life for herself. As soon as I said that, I though to myself 'What is it that I need to let go of in order to set me and others around me, free?' I have come to agree with my friend and trusted colleague, John, and his saying 'if you spot it, you've got it'. This means pretty much means that everything I pick out, every comment I make is a projection- something I recognise in myself that I have disowned and put it onto someone else. The fact that something stands out for me- that in itself means that it is something that is significant in some way to me- that more likely than not, it is something that I need to pay attention to. The more I am emotional about whatever it is I am picking up, the more this is likely to be true. The reflexivity is doing this self-checking as habit- that I reflect on my thoughts and actions as a matter of course. I do not know exactly when it happened but it is a shock to recognise that it is happening. I suspect that years and months of supervision and unpacking/ processing thoughts and actions in therapeutic training, in consulting and coaching---has, in some way, helped me internalise a process of self-reflection and self-examination. In case it seems like a lot of navel-gazing to you- well, it is and it doesn't have to be. More a case of acute self-awareness.