THE PRACTICE OF SELF CONTEMPLATION

A REMINDER TO SELF
THE PRACTICE OF SELF CONTEMPLATION

The practice of self-contemplation makes us more self aware. Within each one of us is an astounding capacity to affect change.  Most of us are going around unaware of the impact we have on the people around us. 
As we are not self aware, we continue to react to the creations of others. 
Self contemplation is improving your relationship with  yourself, knowing your own strengths and weaknesses and taking responsibility to interact from the wisdom within to create a more positive outcomes in life. 
Life is sacred and life experiences help us gather wisdom and help us understand who we really are. 
Daily reflection and introspection practices are an important aspect to help us understand what we really want in life. 
These practices help us to analyze, assimilate, acknowledge and apply solutions.
The practice of self contemplation helps when an issue arises, it helps to focus the mind instead of letting it wander aimlessly , to help the mind to prioritize and find the best way to deal with the issue.
 The practice of self-contemplation is effective when one is completely honest with oneself. It requires looking at oneself through the lens of different perspectives. 
Paying attention to your thoughts is the key. The more you get to know  yourself, the more you have a better grasp on appropriate responses to any situation.
 “Know Thyself” is an ancient wisdom concept inscribed in the ancient Greek Temple of Apollo more than 3000 years ago. 

Practice of self contemplation exercises have amazing benefits. They bring improvements in various aspects of life through improved awareness of the self and awareness of one’s environment. 
To have an effective social interaction, to be more empathetic and help improve relationships, self-awareness is crucial.
As self reflection helps you to understand more of yourself, it gives you confidence to tackle matters with a balanced mind. It helps you to consider different options and help discover new solutions. 
The major benefit of self reflection is clarity of mind, and clarity helps you to be a better decision maker of your life.
The benefit of having self awareness brings about increased creative achievements, high self-esteem, brings change in habits, self confidence, and increased happiness.
Self contemplation practice needs to be taken seriously. Set aside a particular time for the practice each day, whether 10 minutes or for an hour, it absolutely requires your full concentration. 

These are a collection of few self-contemplation exercises that work amazingly well. I learnt these from my teachers and also shared with my students. These are some of the dependable techniques:

1.  Before going to bed, sit in a quiet place against the wall. Leaning against a wall creates a safe place experience. It allows you to feel safe instead of on edge. Now close your eyes and do a review of your entire day.  Do it without judgment and do it quickly. Practice this every night till it gets easier.  
Once you are able to do this easily, then go to the next step called negation. Negation is to say “I am not that” It is like saying for example –  “I am not tired” “I am not angry” “I am not sad” I am not these things that drain energy out of me. I am me.
Repeat the process a few times until the tension comes out of the body. The greatest thing is to be  yourself. 
You are an amazing being of immense capability and creativity. Removing the layers of all that is not you is important.

2. Another practice is before going to sleep as you are laying in bed, with your eyes closed, look at your day backwards, like rewinding the tape of your day.
If you have had a difficult encounter with someone, go stand in their shoes .
Look at yourself from that person’s vantage point. When you see yourself from that person’s perspective, return to  your body and continue to reverse  your day’s events. 
The first few days you may probably fall asleep before you finish the review, but keep at it everyday and you will find that you grow amazingly that one day you find yourself reversing during the daytime exactly at a moment where a fierce confrontation was to happen and you had completely skipped away from it. 

3. The “Work of Byron Katie” is a powerful self contemplation inner work.  If you google her “The Work of Byron Katie” you can download the worksheets from her website, there is instruction given on how to ask the simple 4 questions to any given situation and come out of it wiser and peaceful. 

4.  The process of Ho’oponopono of Dr. Hew Len, where there are 4 sentences continuously said to the mind data to erase and cleanse and create clarity is another powerful self-contemplation work.  Dr. Hew Len says that the only enemy is the mind’s data which is like a wall that hides the light of our true self.
This wall hinders our progress and it is important to address the wall and help release it. 
In order to come back to clarity it is important to take responsibility to say the four sentences “I am sorry’ ‘please forgive me’ ‘I thank you’ ‘I love you’. to the mind data so that it has been acknowledged. It receives  your attention and thus it gets erased by your Higher Self. 
You come back to neutrality.
This work is to be done continuously throughout one’s life.  You can google Dr. Hew Len’s work at “zero-wise” and ” self-i-dentity-through-hooponopono”.

5. Stand before a mirror, as you gaze at  your image, become the person in the mirror. Place your location as the image in the mirror and look at the real you outside the mirror for a few minutes. Then shift back into your body. Do this several times everyday. 
 By this exercise you become your other self watching you, your twin self. 

The important work of self contemplation is to remember who or what we are, to access our capacity and creativity. 

Life is a process of continuous interaction with someone. All the mind data or stories of our mind are the filters through which we translate the interactions we have with people. 
Difficulty arises when we translate our interactions through the enormous mind data filters that we have collected unconsciously through our lifetime. 
These mind filters are mostly, “you are not good enough”, “you do not deserve”. 
Translating our interaction through these filters life becomes extremely difficult. Self doubt, lack of self confidence, and stress is the result of this translation. 
These mind memories alter our view on the world, so in order to realize what is really you and what has been programmed into you, it is important to practice self contemplation. 
When we take time to do the self contemplation process, we enter the process of self transformation. 
Blessings!
Premlatha Rajkumar

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