For me, the Reflected Best Self exercise was by far the hardest and also the most informative self reflection assignment to date. It was difficult because we were asked to identify 20 people to email and ask them to respond directly to us answering the following:
One of your greatest strengths is… For example, I think of the time that…
What I value most in my relationships is… For example, I think of the time that…
One thing that I think is unique about you (in a good way) is… For example, I think of that…
So basically I had to email friends, family, co-workers and ask them to say nice things about me. I was nervous that no one would respond. But, of course, I have amazing friends and coworkers, and I had 13 respondents of the 20 invited.
Ultimately, I could not be more glad that I was forced to do this. It turns out that it was a really fun exercise. I loved reliving the moments that my friends thought I was at my best! I, of course, cried tears of joy while reading each and every email as it came in. In reading the responses, I got to take a trip down memory lane with some of my favorite people as a guide. One friend reminded me of an amazing hike in Joshua Tree where we got a little lost and saw a great horned owl, and one friend reminded me of a time when we were a bit lost in Cusco, Peru (hmmmm…I’m sensing a theme here…) Several friends talked about less fond memories, particularly about my Mother’s and my Mother in Law’s illness and death. While those memories are always hard to revisit, it was living through those tortuous challenges that I, and apparently others recognized my ability to be strong in the face of adversity. Two examples that were stated repetitively in all three categories, included my completion of a the John Muir Trail last summer and my service as a dog foster.
I attempted to group all the comments into a few core common themes:
- Caring & Supportive of others
- Strength/Determination/Self discipline
- Positive attitude
- Open minded
- Adventurous/Try new things/Tackle new challenges
- Unique personality
The PSEL program instructions suggest that we write a story with the information the respondents provided. I was uncomfortable with that, so I got permission to do a word cloud with the information instead. I found a free word cloud program, and then entered the phrases from each response and this tree shaped word cloud is the result.
While there’s nothing earth shattering in any of this information, it’s great to have a better understanding of others’ perceptions. I’ll elaborate more on this entire Self Reflection process in my next blog post.