The practice of reflection and
reflexivity is very critical in mentoring and tutoring, especially when
coaching those in their youth and prime stages of developmental growth. Being able to step back, outside of yourself
and see the situation as a whole, allows the mentor to precisely determine what
needs to be taught, strengthened, and grasped more thoroughly.
For those who do not have a solid
understanding of what reflection is, here is a small description from the book
titled “Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development” Some of my own words have been added:
Reflection: Reflection is an in depth consideration of events and
situations; the people involved, what they experienced and how they felt about
it. This involves reviewing and or reliving
the situation, viewing it from all points of view. Small inconspicuous details
may be the key to some of your locks and larger more “critical” details may be
entirely irrelevant to the issue at hand.
See, reflection is a state of
mind. It is not something you do every once in a while. It should be done
continually and ongoing in order to benefit your life and those you are in
contact with in any kind of relationship. It has been scientifically proven
that reflection can increase one’s ability to critically think, maintain
homeostasis and lower stress. This said homeostasis is best achieved when our
brain is in theta wave mode. Here, brain waves are more subdued and emotional
processing can occur. (Human Anatomy and Physiology by Hoehn)
Why is this important? Because all
humans have this marvelous way of demonstrating self defeating behavior and
limiting beliefs. Being able to reflect back allows us to re-evaluate our
actions, behaviors and tendencies that can limit us. Now, sometimes, we cant
see the forest through the trees so it may take someone else who has had
practice with reflection to help you see something you haven’t seen before.
This is why it is vital to have associates that have had similar training as
you. A lot of our beliefs and values come from training we received when we
were a child. Usually between the ages of 2-8 is where most visual training is
learned. This can either work for you or against you. However, reflection is a
great way to undo said training and move forward into action.
Reflection also puts us into a
state of being. Notice, we are called human BEINGS not human DOINGS. We need to
be able to be look into ourselves and be grateful, enthusiastic, happy and
cheerful about who we are at that very moment, but society would say otherwise.
Granted, these last few paragraphs my not have been completely in the assigned
reading but, as my title says, this is a reflection of my thoughts based upon
the knowledge I have received and insights I have gained from the reading.
Continuing…
What we believe is what creates
our reality and life. In physics, you learn that everything is made up of
energy. We have so much electromagnetic energy floating around us every day
from radio, cell phones, tv’s, internet, microwaves, ovens and most if not all,
electronic devices. If the above is true, then what are our thoughts made of?
The clear answer to that is energy! Thoughts(values ,beliefs etc etc)then lead
into emotions, emotions then flow into actions and actions take off to results.
Based off of a person’s results in life, you can get a feel for what type of
thoughts they started out with. It’s a very interesting concept. That tells us
that we are in more control of our dreams and reality than we give ourselves
credit for. Some food for thought for the starving intellectual.
After one has done some reflecting
and seen some key details they would like to improve, they can start another
practice that is very therapeutic and produces results right away. This method
or strategy is named “Through The Mirror Writing”. This allows the practitioner
to be fully responsible for their thoughts, feelings, actions and results in
their life. A through the mirror writing session is achieved by writing all
your thoughts and feelings for self illumination and awareness. To put this
into perspective, our brain is like an iceburg. We are only aware of roughly
10% of our thoughts and ideas. The other 90% is under “water” and is constantly
running in the background which includes our negative thoughts and beliefs of
life. We are more aware than we think we are and this style of writing helps
unlock our sub-conscientious mind so that we can break down barriers, limiting
beliefs and build our self worth.
As we gain practice with these
tools, we can store them in the forefront of our mind as needs be, so, when the
time comes up, we have a ready repertoire of methods proven to help mentor and
tutor others. It is the practitioner’s responsibility to keep said tools sharp
and honed. We must continue to “write to learn” so that we can improve the
learning conditions of those around us. These tools will only make mentoring
better and more productive if we choose to bring them into play. If we don’t,
great learning opportunities can be missed by the mentor and the person receiving
the mentoring.
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