Show Notes:

This episode talks about three essential components I’ve put together: “Rest, “Reflect”, “Release”- which collectively forms another approach towards navigating the “self” in our everyday lives.

It discusses how this approach had been useful in helping me to live a healthier and more mindful present as well as dealing with unkind criticisms and intrusive thoughts from within. You will also be able to learn how each step personally helped brought me a step closer to self-alignment. As we examine the details of each step, I will share my unique first-hand experiences on how each step feels and looks like for me. Through this sharing, I hope it motivates us to take time to slow down in our busy lives so we don’t miss out on beautiful ideas, inspirations and most importantly, life itself. Chill in now!

Full Transcript of Episode:

(Intro)

I hoped that the previous episode had allowed you to move a step closer towards finding your self, your inner desires, or maybe it had gave you that little bit of courage to finally start aligning your actions to what you had always wanted. Whatever it is, I do hope it did give you something to think about in one way or another.

REST, REFLECT, RELEASE [3R] APPROACH

In today’s episode, I’m going to be introducing another framework, or rather, an additional approach I’ve devised to help us in the journey of finding ourselves. It’s called the [3R] which stands for Rest, Reflect & Release Approach. I found it to be a super useful approach for me. It’s especially useful in helping us find out who we are and know ourselves better. Especially if we have been feeling lost, feeling unhappy, or somewhat feeling disconnected from the self after all these years of living. Or maybe we have never ever been really connected to the self before and we want to start feeling connected to the self. Knowing ourselves better will allow us to see what that is driving us internally. This will give us some answers as to how we can create lives more meaningful and fulfilling to ourselves. 

The best thing about this [3R] approach to finding the self is that, it is all within our control to perform- at anywhere and anytime, from the moment we wake up from bed. It is also simple enough for us to repeatedly perform and do throughout the day especially when we are feeling overwhelmed at any instance. By the way, I just to also wanted to highlight that the name to this approach (the “3R” approach) came to me one day when I was resting and doing nothing (i.e I was just staring into at the super full moon a few weeks ago) My friends have been asking me what’s my obsession with moons lately. I don’t know to be honest. I think there’s just something so magical about the moon that sometimes they just give you inspiration when you need it. Or maybe, there’s just something so magical about resting that it gives you that space to get inspired! (Ok, now I’m not kidding about this one) Resting does give us the space to be more creative and more productive.

Step #1: Rest

This brings me to my first step of the process here which is: to rest.

Initially, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to call this step a retreat step or a rest step but I guess you could call it either. I decided to name it rest (maybe because it seems to have a bit less negative connotation to it.)  But really, it also means retreating. More specifically, it’s about retreating of the mind.  Resting here means consciously choosing and seeking to give your mind a break (that mental break) even if it doesn’t clearly tell you that you need to do so. And really that’s the main point: To do it (to rest) even if you don’t feel like you need to. Like I find that people usually only rest because they feel tired but then for some of us sometimes we don’t even know we are feeling tired and usually when we are finally feeling tired we are already somewhat at the verge of a mental break down. I have friends who tell me they work seven days a week and they don’t feel tired at all. That could be maybe also because they are too used to over-working themselves (or it could be their passion towards their work). Regardless, the key here is to rest because we want to create the time to rest and we want to set aside time deliberate to perform “rest” even when there are no obvious signs for us to do so.

Resting here, again, refers a mental rest but you can still be doing something physical. For eg.  treating yourself to something you desire be it you know a good massage, good meal, or a good alone time just to read a book. For my case, my rest time often looks like going for a walk and recently, and  if I’m lucky enough, I see full moons in the sky and then get inspired. I’ve been quite obsessed with moons lately and maybe that could be one of the reasons why.

You can rest as may times as you want throughout the day. There’s no fix guideline on how long it should be- it can be as short as 5 minutes or as long as 5 hours. There’s absolutely nothing guilty to feel about resting, and I’m only saying this because often times I find that our society tend to normalise over-working but instead, what I really feel is that our society should start normalising resting and stop normalising over-working ourselves. Not to also mention, some of our best ideas, and our most creative ideas also come when we are doing nothing. This is when we allow our mind to wander as it wishes, instead of constantly feeling anxious and worried about doing “nothing”. For instance, the inspiration behind this episode came from the moon (haha), or from resting itself. As we rest, we need to learn to let our minds rest fully. It is a skill to actually know how to rest. It can be quite challenging to do especially if you are not used to doing it. And that includes not judging ourselves for resting. You will probably take a few practices before you can really rest your mind. Definitely, it will improve with practice.

The most important point of this step is that- it prepares us for quality reflection time. It creates that mental space for us to look within ourselves. As we are resting and doing nothing, we are actually not really doing nothing. In fact, we are preparing ourselves for a very important thing called “reflection”, which is the next step of the process.

Step #2: Reflection

Step 2 is reflection. Reflection here refers to quality reflection. In the context of emotional wellness, it is really about looking within ourselves. It is about looking into our thought processes and emotions (both the pleasant ones and those difficult and challenging ones we are having) Quality reflection can only happen when our minds are fully rested. It can sometimes also happen while we are resting as well. If our minds are not rested enough, we probably won’t have the capacity to perform this step well. 

The main goal of this step is to find our more about yourself. For instance, what stresses you, what makes you happy, what excites you, what makes you sad. All these emotions we are feeling will only point us one step closer towards what we value and what we don’t. When this step is done repeatedly, I think what truly truly matters to us will become more apparent and clear to us over time.

To be honest, I feel this step is freaking hard because it’s sometimes hard to just be honest with yourself and see the truth. Either that, or people just don’t dedicate time to do it. For me, I am a person with a lot of emotions (felt strongly) within me. Within a day, I could open up my digital notepad for more than ten times easily (at least), just to record down my thoughts and feelings. Yet, I do see it as a wonderful thing because this also means that I am a lot more in touch with myself. That is also when I know I’m well rested enough (mentally and physically) to look within my own thoughts and my own emotions. 

So back to the point on reflection. The most important thing to do is to re-visit your thoughts from a third party’s perspective probably some time later, and analyse to check for emerging patterns. Pay attention to certain commonalities and messages in the things that we write down. Are there any signs telling you about who you are? And what you value?

So to give you an example. For instance,  the reason why I decided to start a podcast was really because for me, I feel a super high need for self-expression (probably more than the average person). I mean we are all different and we have different underlying and motivations desires which are ingrained in our DNA etc. For me. I think what I truly value is to be able to self- express in my own unique way. And I only know this through this reflection step. It’s not a one-time off reflection definitely. It was a collection of everyday signs that I picked up over time before I was able to notice and see that in me.

I looked back at what often makes me happy and excites me. I would find:

When I am able to share a piece of advice or an authentic thought based on my own unique experience and revelations etc. That gives me joy and excitement. Or even when I am able to choose my outfit to the point it can very perfectly represent my current mood. I feel happy about because that is a chance for me to self-express myself.

All these makes me feel excited and they are only picked up through my daily reflections and looking from within. It is the daily stuff and daily signs that eventually emerge into a bigger overall picture and conclusion that “I need to do something where I can constantly self- express to feel excited! ” That is where this idea of starting a blog/ starting a podcast came about. 

I am also someone who personally prefer physically jotting thoughts down so that I can easily refer back to them from time to time. Sometimes, it also serves another purpose of looking at how far we’ve have come on this journey. Often times when we feel really discouraged by what is happening around us, we can go into this step of reflection too. Especially even more so when we are on our path to being unconventional, we can get discourage easily by people around us. When we have this piece of reflection jot down somewhere, we can always reflect on our past successes and what makes us happy. Know that we are doing this for a reason and we feel happy doing this. Sometimes it’s also about looking at how far we have overcome till this very day, to give ourselves the extra boost of motivation to move forward. 

I am always a firm believer of “self- motivation is the best motivation”. Sometimes you don’t need people to tell you that you can do it, you do not need people to validate your choices. All you need is YOU to give that encouragement for yourself. 

However, the main goal of this “reflection” step is to put yourself in a better position to know your ”self” from a third party’s perspective and desires which are connected to the self.  That is the goal of this step, which is somewhat similar to step 1 of the 3 step framework in [EP 6: The Journey of Unbecoming (Part 2)-Nette’s 3-Step Framework]. Well, that just probably means that this step is extra essential to finding the self, no matter how we look at it.

Step #3: Release

Now, this bring me to the final step here which is the most powerful step as well. That is, to release. Once we have clarity in what serves our heart and soul (i.e what excites us, what makes us happy, what makes us anxious or worried), we can then take the conscious effort to do the last step, which is to let go of things. But what kind of things do we exactly want to let go of? So we shall let go of things which are constantly stressing us out constantly. Some stresses are good of course but if you see a vicious cycle or re-occurring patterns and you return to the same states of stress based on an external stimuli you can’t get rid of or break out of, then that’s when you need to let them go. It could be ideas, people, relationships that are not in alignment with what you value at this instance, and are not serving you in the direction of who you want to be even after you try to work things out, and things just don’t work. Let them go. Release them. Because sometimes we need to recognise that we outgrow people and we out grow relationships. Letting go is the way to make peace with ourselves.

For instance, in the past, I realised that I would get (angry and) offended when people criticise my outfit. For example, when people say that my outfit is ugly or why am I dressing in a certain way. I get slightly offended. That (anger) itself tells me that people’s opinions mattered to me. It also tells me that I value people’s ideas and opinions a lot. At the same time, I can choose if I want to let all these thoughts stress me out. Whether I want to let people’s views and opinions stress me out. More often than not, why we get stressed out and dissapointed is because we let others opinion define the absolute truth. Or we try to make our own associations. For instance, “outfit” is a way for me to self-express myself. When they deny my outfit, I would naturally think they are denying me as a person, which is usually not the case. (This is a self- belief which may not be rationalised.)

Hence, we can learn to let all these associations go as well. We can let go of the thought that people’s opinion is the absolute truth and we also want to let go of the associations we make around it. Sometimes people don’t even mean what they say. They say something bad and nasty because they are having a bad day and they are having a lot of negative emotions. They need to release it out in some way and you happen to be their target at that instance.

There are a lot of things which are not in our control. However, what we can control is we can choose to release what doesn’t serve us, and what is making us stressed. We can choose release the thought that we need external validation. That is how we make peace with ourselves.

That was me in the past, but I would say that I am at a state where I am a lot more at peace with myself now. People’s opinions seldom get to me. I can tell you this right now, but in fact, I am also still learning. They still get to me sometimes, and I think it is a continuous learning journey for me as well to practice this act of release- to release what isn’t serving us.

Over time, I have learnt to tell myself that “I do me” and people can have their opinions but it does not mean I have to change because I feel happy wearing that outfit and that is what matters. I am just using the outfit as an example, of course there are other things in our lives which are a lot more tricky. For instance, when our parents tell us to get married by a certain age, but internally we feel that we are not ready yet and it’s not the right time based on our own understanding, or we have other priorities in life. Probably that type of situation may be a bit more tricky but the same principle still applies. That people can have their own opinion, but it our responsibility to choose if we want to confirm to it and whether we want to let that change us and change who we are.

It can be really really stressful. There is nothing we can do (and it is also not our job) to change what people say because these are other people’s opinions but they do affect us in some ways right. People can think that certain things should be a certain way, but it doesn’t mean that we have to internalise (or abide by it). If we find ourselves feeling pressurised by these thoughts that people are injecting into us, I think it is important for us to learn how to let go and not internalise these thoughts. Because if we do not let these thoughts go, sometimes they can become expectations that we put onto ourselves over time. If we find ourselves getting pressurised by others’ thoughts and opinions, let them go, we don’t have to keep them within us. Because these might also the thoughts and expectations that we eventually put on ourselves if we internalise them, and it can become our reality which is the dangerous part.

 I do recognise that there are times where we need constructive advices and so it’s also key to know which advices are  helping you to find out what you truly want and which are the advices that are just trying to impose their ideals of how certain things should be on you. Constructive advices always aim to find you what truly matters to you first, your priorities, your context etc and then try to help you to be a step closer towards what you want. If people don’t even bother doing that, I think you can really just take advices from them with a pinch of salt haha. If they don’t take into your considerations your context, then it can somewhat be a generalisation.

So I’ve learnt to release what is no longer working based on the patterns I’ve picked up from my own reflection, and what is no longer aligned to the self and consciously shed anything that doesn’t feel right to me. I can promise that the act of release will always make us feel more liberated and more powerful. The powerful feeling does not come from the fact that it makes us feel like we’re more in control of things which are happening around us. Because the truth is, we can’t. we can’t control what people say, what people think of us, what people want, but it comes from the fact that we feel powerful enough to choose and release things which does not adding any perceived value to us at a particular instance, be it at our workplace or in our social relationships. That “release” is where our power comes from. It is not from dictating certain things to be a certain way. It is not from trying to control everything and make things towards the way we want it to be, because that’s just not possible. We would be crazy by trying to do that. 

Sometimes this can look like trying to prove a point or getting into an argument etc. which really drain us and stress us out. Because we have no control over what is happening around us. But as part of releasing, we are moving towards the way we want things to be in the best possible way without inflicting self-harm to ourselves and onto others. The key is starting from releasing what isn’t serving you at the present moment.

Here is a recap:

Step #1: Rest– Give ourselves the mental break to set our minds free. That includes not judgement ourselves for resting.

Step #2: Reflection– Look within ourselves and look hard into our emotions. Try and see what are our emotions telling us- (Eg. What is it that we value, what is it that we want in life?)

Step #3: Release– Take conscious effort to let go of things which are not serving us in the direction of who we want to become.

If I may add a Step #4 here, it would be to “Repeat”. That is to repeat step #1 to step #3, which is the entire process: “Rest”, “ Reflect” and “Release”. Repeat this process infinitely.

[3R] VS [NETTE’S 3-STEP]

So we have covered a 3 Step-Framework in the last episode and today we also talked about the [Rest, Reflect & Release] Approach. You might be wondering now: so which one do I prioritise and use?

For the 3-step framework, you can see it as as a more suitable approach in finding that overall bigger picture and greater life direction. It tells you how to take steps towards that overall bigger life direction.

However, the [3R] approach I’ve just introduced, it speaks more towards taking steps to find yourself in your everyday. Because let’s be honest, it is not everyday that we are going to be thinking about life questions/big life goals and go into scary conversations. I mean, it can be quite tiring or even draining for some.

LAST WORDS

Hence, I have decided to reformulate another simpler and smaller process for us to consider which I thought would be helpful for us to approach our day-to-day lives. After all, big things are often made up of small conscious steps. The [3R] approach is what I would call small conscious steps towards the bigger picture of “finding the self”.

[But First, Let’s Chill] 
Chill By Nette: Health & Wellness Podcast 
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