Helpful Hygiene to Strengthen Your Inner Self: One Simple Practice
By Karin Stawarky
Helpful Hygiene to Strengthen Your Inner Self: One Simple Practice
I recently watched an old video of the late Jimmy Valvano, the renowned coach of the North Carolina State men’s national championship winning basketball team as he received the Arthur Ashe Courage award at the ESPYs. In this memorable speech given two months before he passed away from cancer, Jimmy encouraged all in the audience to do three things each day: think, laugh, and cry. In his words, if you do all three, you have had one heck of a day.
Wise words indeed. For in doing those three things, we are allowing ourselves to feel the range of human emotion. We then live into all of our humanity rather than operate as a shell of who we are. When we engage all parts of us, we can then bring the best of who we are to any situation -- and what a goldmine that represents.
In the time and space that this crisis has opened up for us as individuals, I realize exactly how important it is to be able to tap into all I am. That represents a lot of horsepower. Drawing upon the full extent of that inner self enables me to be who I want to be to those around me.
I created a simple personal ‘weekly round-up’ practice as one way to tend to my inner self and raise my consciousness about aspects of me that will serve me now and into the future. The round-up has 5 categories (I call them “bases” in my video blog available on the Spark website), and I have a specific focus in each category.
The five categories are:
Reflect. Reflect is about looking back on our journey in life to this moment and see everything that appears in that rear-view mirror. The terrain behind us is abundant with learning, perspective, and wisdom gained through both the peaks and valleys we have lived through. When we deliberately consider where we have come from, it is like tapping into an abundant fountain of confidence and courage.
Proflect. Proflect -- yes, this is a word I invented -- is about looking ahead out the windshield into the future. I find that playing with two different time horizons – 1 year from now, and 5 years from now, to be most useful. Visioning the future that we most want provides us with hope and inspiration. Even more, defining what you want to be true about your life and about who you are in the future provide us with a more concrete destination to orient towards. It gives us something to reach out and grab onto. With more clarity on the destination, we are then better able to define the next first step to make that our reality. We have more agency than we think in creating our future.
Disconnect. Disconnect is about consciously and intentionally releasing what no longer serves us. It could be a belief, assumption, thought pattern, or a mindset that we have been holding on to (consciously or not) that we can let go of. Deciding what you are complete with frees up space – mentally and otherwise – to bring in things you want instead. There are some beliefs that you can just let go of; others, you may want to “turn around” and replace with a new belief that serves you better now.
Connect. Connect is about celebrating an aspect of who you are at this moment. It may be an aspect of your state of being (your character or personality, your presence) or it may be an aspect of your state of doing (your actions, experiences, accomplishments). Why is this important? It is a way to increase your capacity for joy. Joy is an inner state of being that we cultivate for ourselves. While happiness is dynamic and driven by external factors in our physical context (e.g. people, events, places), joy is a more consistent state that we nurture for ourselves. Joy is present and available when we see ourselves for all we are, our light and our shadows. By consciously ‘holding’ all that we are when we look at ourselves in the proverbial mirror, we connect into and remind ourselves of our unique presence and voice.
Respect. Respect is about recognizing the individuals who have shaped us in our journey to get us to this moment – some deliberately and supportively, others in ways that forced us to look in the mirror or learn painful lessons. It may have been what they did or said, or what they didn’t do or say. Their impression may be significant. It may be fleeting – a passing interaction that served to remind you of something or illuminate something. All provided learning and insight, shaping our way of being. These may be individuals from long ago, or last week. It may be an individual who is living or dead. It may be an individual who knows you well, who does not know you at all, or anything in between.
I ask myself one question in each of these categories. My questions are:
Reflect: What is one thing I have learned from an experience in my life journey to date that will support me now?
Proflect: What is one thing I can do, one step I can take, to move closer to the future I most want or the person I want to be?
Disconnect: What is one thing that I can let go of or shed that no longer serves me?
Connect: What is one thing about who I am, how I act, or what I have done that I can celebrate?
Respect: Who is one person who has helped me in one way in becoming the person I am today?
It takes me about 15 minutes to do this round-up, which I do on an early weekend morning.
Some additional tips to maximize the impact of this practice:
Write out your responses, don’t just think them. Handwrite them in a notebook or type on your device of choice. A physical record matters, as it is a treasure you can come back to.
Re-read what you have written during the week. These reflections can help to re-ground you if you feel off-center, offering evidence, acknowledgement, and inspiration.
Share with others. Talk with people in your life about one or more of your weekly observations. Doing so gives our thoughts more weight and meaning. (And you may find out something expected in how someone else sees you!)
Try the round-up for at least a month. Doing this four times will start to provide you with a minimum amount of insight for you to see value – and help to create the conditions for growth and positive change.
Say thank you to the person you identified. If possible and appropriate, give specific gratitude to the person who came to mind for you through a call, an actual letter, or an email about how they influenced you.
If you are interested in the worksheet on this practice to support your own growth, go to the Contact Us tab on the Spark Leadership Partners website and submit your information with a request for the “Helpful Hygiene to Strengthen the Inner Self” worksheet.