There are days that the difficult situations we must deal with cloud our broader image of life. This week a colleague encountered a serious and even life threatening issue at their place of employment. Handling it the best way they could for the staff and company was perceived by some as irresponsible, who took to social media to express their opinion. As you might imagine, the pressure that short-sighted action put on my colleague was tremendously stressful. They took it very personally and began questioning their own response to the situation.
When we have difficult issues to deal with we can often lose sight of our own bigger life picture. We can become myopic in our view of ourselves particularly. We might replay the story or circumstances again and again in our heads as if there were some hidden door to the past, that if found, we could go back and try a different approach… even if our original approach may well have been the very best one. We look to improve our present feelings by replaying that which can not be undone.
And, in this spiral of story-telling we become so narrowly focused that everything else that makes up who we are seems to slip into the backseat. We let doom and gloom become the drivers.
Reflexivity can help us break this downward spiral. By examining our own thoughts, motives and actions we can see how they are influencing how we feel about the present. This gives us the opportunity to consider more carefully the relationships that are helpful and life-giving and those that are not. New framing can certainly help us think through the challenges we face but sometimes our focus is so narrow that we miss the opportunity to situate our present troubles in the grander context of our lives.
Without broad context we run the risk of giving our challenges more influence than they should have. It’s important to remember our past successes, our good nature, and our desire for improvement. All that we have accomplished so far, and the direction that we are headed are so important to add texture to our present situation, no matter how dire. Ignoring life context doesn’t help us navigate our current challenges with grace and sure-footedness.
Reflexivity applied broadly on a whole life and all of its hiccups raises our confidence to handle today’s challenges, respect and appreciate yesterday’s learnings and successes, and helps us keep our eyes on the horizon for better times ahead.
When my colleague was able to step back from the negativity that weighed them down and place it in the context with entirety of their impressive life, their good heart, and well-meaning actions, they were better able to navigate the horror of situation and determine the best way to proceed.