Reflect.. It's time to connect the dots.

With the Fall season pictures and articles popping up in the internet, I was left with the thought of how autumn leaves have a close connection to remembrance, memories and may be something about the season makes it enticing to sit on a park bench and watch the world pass by. From that emerged the thought for this article on 'Reflecting' - To me reflecting is a therapeutic process that helps to connect the dots and see the big picture.

I got introduced to 'Yoga and Meditation' right during my school days, I attribute my ability to keep calm and being able to maintain cool even in tough situations to this practice. Though I have been off track and not following yoga or meditation many years in-between I always felt the induction to this system early on in my life helped me to have a balanced approach towards life and the effect of that has continued till date. Even today when ever I get into a phase of unmanageable stress I go back to my yoga and just getting back to breath helps me.

Having said that I have heard many say Yoga, meditation is not for me.. For those of you here is my another go to tool - 'Journaling'. I realized journaling could be a good alternative and is as meditative, calming and helps increase focus. Finding three things to say thank you, creating a habit tracker I have found more benefits than I can say through these practices. Journaling as a mechanism of recap at the end of the day is a great way to gather thoughts, may be tie some loose ends and close with a positive outlook of what to look forward the next day.

Initially I started with bullet journaling - a good reference I use for bullet journaling is a simplified version that I found it easy to follow https://youtu.be/ZK5VUuxGYr0?si=y5AhkOiS1FgJuH4B . Of course I have my highs and lows, my habit tracker had lot of blanks most months but still at the end of the year when looking back what I could see is I am trying and that is all that mattered.

The third tool that I have found efficient is 'Walking'. They say you take a problem for a walk and 100% of the time you will come back with a solution. I am 200% agreeing to this as I have found it working all the time. When am maxed out of ideas for a problem - walking had come as a savior. Some of the interesting ideas that I am still working on have come to me during walking. While there are so many articles on this I found the following one simple yet right on dot - https://entm.ag/Nzlw4v .

So what are your tools ? May be gardening, May be cooking, May be a cup of your favorite coffee/tea.. Whatever it is make sure to add it to your daily routine. Sometimes we forget why we are running behind something and why we started at the first place. Planning a scheduled time on calendar to reflect can ensure - we step back, reprioritize, see the big picture and most importantly connect the dots which we miss to do in the daily hustle and bustle of life.

So here is a exercise for you to try, whatever your reflection tool is - incorporate this in to that ..

Make your next reflection exercise a celebration of yourself and how far you have come

Cheers to the path taken and the path ahead .. !