Embracing Periods of Reflection

Embracing periods of reflection, introspection, and processing is a crucial but often overlooked and devalued aspect of personal and societal growth and change. To create real shifts in the world’s imbalances, we must first engage with the internalized patterns and conditioning that hold us back. This self-work not only deepens the impact of our efforts, but also cultivates more intentional, present, and joyful relationships. However, by undervaluing these periods of reflection and recalibration, society continues to perpetuate oppressive systems. If we aim to truly create change, we must honor these cycles of introspection, building the resilience, creativity, and effectiveness needed to dismantle harmful structures and shape the world we want to live in.

In this episode of Unlimited, I explore and strive to coalesce my thoughts around the importance of embracing periods of reflection.

Some of what I talk about in this episode includes:

• Cycles of life and the value of “winter”
• What we get wrong about routines
• Systems of oppression and dominance
• Building supports to doing something different

LINKS REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE:
Micro-Actions to Manifest Big Change with Taina Brown
The Pressure to Love Your Job with Cristin Downs
Supporting Changes in Your Life
Black Liturgies post on Instagram
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color
This Here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley
Rustin on Netflix
The National SEED Project

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You can tag me on social: @unlimitedcoachval

Want to share your thoughts or have questions? Send me a message! I love to hear from you.
You can email me at valerie@valeriefriedlander.com or DM me on Instagram

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Transcript

Valerie Friedlander: 0:00

Hello, my friends and welcome to another episode of unlimited today. We are talking about embracing periods of reflection. I recorded this episode as a way to try to coalesce thoughts that have been coming up through my coaching work, but also through various aspects of my personal life. There's certain areas of my life that I don't generally share. I don't put into the online public world or bring into my work in a direct way, because it just doesn't feel appropriate to do that in a variety of ways, but also including that, there's a slippery slope into performativeness when you start to put things online. I've talked a little bit before about when you put things online, there is a natural aspect of performing, because you're curating what you're putting forward, not to say that it can't be authentic, and recognizing that it it shifts the quality. And I think that for me, it's important that I not muddy my focus and distract from the reason I do that social justice work, that advocacy work, and keep that where it is. At the same time, a lot of what comes forward in that work I see reflected in my work as a coach and vice versa, the roots and the the patterns that are related to each other come forward, and I think it's important to spend time reflecting on how those intersect, as well as to just spend time reflecting where we don't really value that or give space for that. And so, for me personally, both of these things are very intertwined. They're very much related to each other in terms of like that work is related to why I do the work that I do as a coach, and the work that I do as a coach is informed by that other work, my coaching philosophy. I think I want to pull forward here, and it's on my website, but just to emphasize it here, my philosophy is that to shift the patterns that create imbalances in the world, we must first engage the internalized patterns that limit us in our own lives. This self work not only expands the impact of our work in the world, but also creates more intentional, present and joyful relationships in all areas of our life, which then inform how we show up in the world. There's an interplay together. So while I don't go into details on the more personal engagement sides in this episode, I really thought it was important to observe a common feature of the need for reflection. So I'm reflecting on reflecting. I hope that I've been successful in pulling these ideas together for you. I do think that these reflections belong in a larger conversation than just thoughts from me. So it's another reason why I put a lot of resources for you to look at in the show notes. I would also love to hear your thoughts and what this episode brings up for you. So I invite you to send me an email on my website where I have the episode posted, there are also places where you can put comments. So you're welcome to do that as well. I keep forgetting to mention that or reach out to me through direct messenger. There's lots of ways to reach me, and I invite you to do so. And now, without further ado, let's get started. Hey there. I'm Valerie Friedlander, Certified Life business alignment coach, and this is unlimited. This podcast bridges the individual and the societal, scientific and spiritual, positive and negative, nerdy and no, there's just a lot of nerdy. Come on board. And let's unlock a life that's as badass as you are. In a time that feels so unpredictable and chaotic, most of us want something that feels stable and secure, and so many of the things that we've been taught are supposed to be stable and secure. Aren't yet we still go to them like they're going to be like jobs, for example, like working for a company. I just had a friend whose spouse got laid off, and part of what's being grappled with is the story that she knows is a story, and it's not really true anymore, but yet, there's this embedded belief that that creates stability, and having a regular paycheck certainly does create a certain amount of stability. And does that make it secure? In this day and age, there's a lot that isn't secure, and there's a lot of uncertainty, and that uses more energy. I'm running a program right now called reclaim your routine. And one of the things that people struggle with when it comes to routines, and part of the reason I actually thought about not calling it this, because people are going to hear this and go, I can't have a routine, and it's because life is so busy and chaotic and things happen, especially for parents, but for anybody right now, there's so many curveballs that get thrown, so many surprises, so many unknowns We're coming into, well, we're really in the middle of an election cycle, and that creates a lot of instability and uncertainty. And so there's this desire to have stability and certainty and have things that are routine. Routines simplify things. They allow our brains to relax a little bit, because the more we have to actively think about things, the more energy we spend, whereas if you have something that you can just count on, that just happens, and this is what we do. It's easier. I've mentioned in a previous episode that idea of simplifying things, if you can have like a capsule wardrobe, and you don't have to make as many decisions about what to wear, The simpler you can make it, the more you can reduce decision making, the less energy you have to spend. And there's value in fluctuation. There's value in cycles and in change, and allowing ourselves to embrace those cycles and embrace change and step into unknowns. So many of the problems in our world right now have to do with a lack of creativity and this fear of the unknown and of change, and we're kept in a place of instability in a lot of ways, in some basic ways, because then we're more manipulatable and we're taught to rely on certain things. Just a lot of our conditioning has to do with structures that are inherently rotten. So I'm going to talk a little bit about embracing cycles and recognizing cycles, and I'm also going to explore some of the rotten foundations that lead us to struggling with cycles and sinking into these spaces that are inhibiting us, that are limiting us. And as you know, this podcast is called unlimited because we're talking about ways that we have internalized limits versus chosen limits, our society has very much upheld this mechanical kind of value system, this idea of constantly being In production and being predictable and consistent and again, this is not to say that consistency is a bad thing, but it's also recognizing that there's time frames for consistency, like consistency isn't always consistent, or what is consistent doesn't Stay consistent at all periods of time. Natural rhythms take place in a living context, and so they're not as predictable as the mechanical world, but there are patterns and rhythms in those cycles, so they're not completely off balance. It's when we divorce ourselves from a connection to those rhythms. When we sever our ability to lean into the rhythms and cycles that are natural, that we block a sense of stability within those cycles, within that flow. When I talk about natural cycles, I am talking about Earth cycles as well as our bodies cycles, because we're part of nature. And this, I think, is a fundamental component to where we disconnect is in our connection to our bodies and our ability to trust ourselves and hear ourselves, or, I should say, hear ourselves and to trust ourselves. I've done some explorations around cycles and looking at lunar cycles, menstrual cycles, seasonal cycles, cycles of change and the different wheels of life. And when I look at those, there's a lot of alignment between them. There's phases, and I'll use seasonal phases as an example. I've talked about this before, but we're going to dive just a little bit deeper into that of the winter, spring, summer, fall. There are certain seasons that are more valued than other seasons, and you can even see it in stages of life, as another example, from baby to child to parent to senior. Or if we're looking at the feminine cycle right, there's the baby girl, mother, crone cycle. And those also would line up. And we tend to value these spaces of the spring, the idea the doing summer, where we're engaged and we have lots of energy and we're getting things done, even the autumn, where we're harvesting and reaping the value of what we've planted. It's the winter the Crone, the luteal cycle, the Earth, the physical connection that gets super devalued. And I don't know if it's because of its devaluation that it stands out to me as so important and valuable, or if it is because of its actual importance. I mean, I think that it is actually important, but it stands out dramatically to me, and I do think that it has to do with its devaluation, that we really need to bring in an embracing of that time period, that phase of life, that part of the cycle. And I think some of the reason why it's devalued is because it's a shuffling period. It's not a doing period, it's a processing period. It's a reflection period where we're listening, we're turning inward. If you think of winter, it's going into a hibernation, going into the cave, listening, slowing down, realigning, meditating, processing. This is that period of the shadow where we are learning, we're not creating, we're not doing, we're not producing, we're processing. And over and over and over again I see with clients, there's a step that we miss that makes a huge difference. So if we even just go to the routines, and we think about work routines, okay, something that keeps coming up is, Oh, I'm so much more focused. I'm so much more productive when I'm clear on the task that I'm doing, and there's frustration and tension around well, I should just be doing it. I need to be doing more things, and part of the tension has to do with not being clear, but we miss that step, the time period of reflecting, of processing, of deciding, of preparing. The fact of the fact of the matter is that this period doesn't always feel good, because it means digesting information. It means being realistic with where we are. It means looking and listening and engaging the information in our emotions, in our bodies, what we have, the capacity for and it doesn't feel good all the time because, one, we haven't been conditioned to feel good about it doesn't feel like accomplishing anything. It doesn't feel like doing anything. It's the preparing to do something or to not do something based on what information comes through, and sometimes, for some of us, we need more time with that. It takes longer and when that's not something that gets rewarded, that's not something gets acknowledged or supported, it can be hard to make room for it, and it's just it's been standing out to me as this piece that so often is missing. And when we engage my client will be like, of course. Well, that makes sense. Like, I need that time. And yet it doesn't occur until we call it forward and say, Oh, we're missing a step. It doesn't get acknowledged as valuable effort. And then, of course, there's the other side of it, as resting, preparing can be resting, and we think of that as being lazy. And there's so many stories around that. Yet, one of the things that was coming to mind for me is I, I'm a multi passionate I have lots of things that I want to do, lots of ideas, and sometimes I feel like I'm the rope in a tug of war of interests, where I'm feeling pulled in all the directions so I'm standing still. It's not because I'm procrastinating, it's because so many things are pulling in different directions that I'm not moving right. When you have tug of war, and there are equal parts on both sides, and they're both pulling the rope just stays there in the middle, that little knot that's supposed to go over the line, it just stays there in the middle. Maybe it pulls a little way one way and a little way another way, but it doesn't go anywhere. It's not that nothing's happening. But then we learn to beat ourselves up. And that teaches us and affirms to us this story about who we are and what is valuable. So I put forward this idea of what if we actually embraced that time. One of the other things that I talk about in the Reclaim your routine workshop is the importance of a recalibration time. So often, when we do something different or life happens, we think, Well, now I should just jump right back into what I was doing. I am back from a vacation or from something that happened, and I'm able to get back to my routine. Why am I not just doing what I'm supposed to be doing? And it's because the step of recalibrating is missing the step of processing what just happened, whether we liked it or not, processing what happened before we just start doing the same old thing again. Sometimes processing what happened informs a shift that needs to happen, and when we don't take the time to process that, we don't incorporate the shift that needs to happen, the new information that needs to filter into the way we do things. Again, this idea of cycles holds value for us in terms of our ability to learn and grow. I think it can be apparent why this is important to each of us as individuals. Like when you think about it, it's like, oh yeah, I need that space. I need that time to rest, to recover, to recalibrate, to engage. Okay, well, why is this so devalued, and what makes it so hard to engage? Because even when you know this is valuable, it is hard to make room for it. And I work with so many people who end up running into guilt around taking the time that's actually needed, and I believe there is some very fundamental reasons why that is and I mentioned before because we're more. Manipulatable when we're in survival mode, when we are constantly in the doings and the running and the rushing, and it's at a very fundamental level. I want to share a few quotes with you, because I think that it pulls forward the deep reasonings and they tie to some understandings that have helped me find the motivation to make room to combat the guilt that can come up over not making space for myself. I'm going to start by sharing a series of quotes that an account I follow on Instagram called Black liturgies shared recently, and I'll link to that post in the show notes. The first quote is by Audre Lorde, and it's the true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us. The next quote is by Cole Arthur Riley, to be truly liberated, we must confront the parts of ourselves that are in a hidden alliance with the systems that seek to destroy us. And the third quote is by Bayard Rustin, the only way to reduce ugliness in the world is to reduce it in yourself. These highlight the value of doing the work to reflect and to connect and to shift some of these patterns. And it is a constant work, because we are constantly being infused with the ideas, the cultural, societal ideas of what's valuable and what's not. So it takes some constant work, which does take more energy. So also holding space for I'm going to have to use more energy to swim upstream, to be a salmon, to reduce that in ourselves. It's like when you're a fish in water that's polluted, you're going to take on some of that pollution and need systems for filtration within yourself, and that takes energy to do that filtration, but to really lean into the change that we need in the world, To honor ourselves and to create the space and culture shifting to allow liberation, to liberate ourselves from oppression societally, and to ensure that we don't perpetuate it upon others, we have to do that work and allow that space, and that takes energy, which means that we need those spaces of introspection, those spaces where we are looking within ourselves and seeing how we are complicit in the systems that seek to destroy us. There's a quote by bell hooks that is, the house of oppression has many rooms, but only one foundation, the idea of superior to or better than. And if you're someone who hears that and goes, Well, I never think that I'm superior, I if anything, I feel inferior or I struggle with this idea of not being good enough, you know, imposter syndrome and all of that. That's the same foundation. It's rooted in the same idea of hierarchy. It plays into these spaces of oppression and dominance, and it has to do with how we've internalized those things, and that foundation, that root, is how we uphold the systems, whether we feel oppressed by them or whether we are feeling empowered by them, we will perpetuate them because we bought into the stories of oppression and dominance in a internalized way, rather than a, oh, this is a system that I can consciously engage. It's an internalization which you don't have conscious engagement with. So we have to take a look at it. I'm going to share writing that was given to me through the National seed project. It was developed by Hugo mahabir for the seed project, and it speaks to the idea of internalized oppression and internalized DOM. Defines internalized oppression as habits, attitudes and patterns of behavior, often unconscious or unbeknownst to oneself, yet active in relation to others that reflect the effects of oppression, such as feelings of inadequacy, a sense of inferiority and the expression of self hatred. Internalized oppression results in the acceptance of projections, assumptions and stereotypes, often leading to self doubt, dislike of one's own group, self criticism, self mockery, feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness, embarrassment, shame, self destructiveness, cynicism, impatience with others, mistakes violence against those less powerful and collusion with the oppression. There's a quote by Ellie brown that is, it's when we don't trust our thinking that we start buying into the oppressive messages, and it's when we feel powerless to change things that we pass the oppression on to others. We buy into racism, sexism and other isms. We buy into the oppression of young people, even as we are still being crushed by it ourselves and are intimately familiar with its cruelty. A lot of the people that I work with are probably more intimately familiar or conscious of the internalized oppression, but not necessarily its context as such, recognizing that it ties to these same dynamics, these same foundations, we may feel more resistance to the idea of internalized dominance. But I would invite you to explore this as well, because this is the other piece that we need to look at, is our proximity to power. So this document refers to internalized dominance as habits, attitudes and patterns of behavior, often unconscious or unbeknownst to oneself, yet active in relation to others that reflect the effects of dominance, such as feelings of entitlement, a sense of superiority and the expression of arrogance. Internalized dominance results in the assumption and expectation that one is deserving a privilege always in the right and meant to have authority, often leading to misplaced pride, moral righteousness, mockery of others, being insensitive to the suffering of others, violence against those seen as inferior, and denial of information or experience that does not fit with one's own point of view. I want to highlight that last bit because a lot of times, again, people that I know and work with would think of this idea of mocking others and being insensitive as appalling and not something that they would do, and certainly not the violence part and this idea of being in the right has to do with control and the places where we try and exert control over our own lives in ways that are really about controlling other people, thinking about denial of information or denial of others experience because of a threat to our own sense of security, our own sense of stability, if it is not in alignment with our own experience, or our own point of view, or that feels incriminating to a way that we've lived our life. It is a way that we block receiving new information, because, again, it can look like control and feeling the need to control. It's one of the reasons why I emphasize care over control, because care allows us to receive, allows us to process new information. I'm going to come back a little bit to that, but I want to share this quote as well by Beverly Daniel Tatum, which is, it may be useful to attend to your experience of dominance when you may find it as a white person, as a heterosexual, as an able bodied person, as a Christian, as a man, and consider what systems of privilege you may be overlooking. The task of resisting our own oppression does not relieve us of the responsibility of acknowledging our complicity in the oppression of others. How do we receive information? How do we process information? How do we give ourselves room to navigate the grief, the pain, the discomfort of processing new information, reconciling, integrating and realigning to that new information. If we can't do it in a simple area, and I say simple, I mean it varies in level of simplicity, but in a less emotionally charged, potentially area as our routines, how can we show up to that in a space when we're talking about systemic oppression and it's rooted in the same thing. Can we be flexible and receive new information? Do we allow space for that processing to change the rules, to do something differently? Again, that means going against the flow of our society, the things that are rewarded in our structures. There's no system that will ever reward you for disrupting it. So when you engage this when you work to make room for a liberatory practice such as reflecting and engaging new information and digesting it, metabolizing it being in connection with your body and its vibration being in connection with others in the processing, there's going to be resistance, and it's going to require more energy. And again, when you only have so much energy, it's very hard to make room to have more, to use more, and that means requiring more room for that work, as well as connecting with others, almost like with a pulley system. It takes less energy when you have a process, when you have a system, when you have supports, including other people, two people pulling together are going to be able to lift more so finding community, finding other people doing the work, and recognizing that there's a draw that's going To pull you away, and having accountability and being mindful of the tools that you're using, because the tools of oppression are seductive. I'm going to share one more quote from Audre Lorde that you may have heard before. I know I had, but I hadn't heard the whole quote or as much of it, as I'm going to share with you, it goes for the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here see whose face it wears then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices. Choices, illuminating choices really stands out to me there, being able to receive perspectives that are different from us. It's not just about different social identities and the differences that go with those. It's different lived experiences, different perspectives, different understandings of problems, different approaches, different solutions. It's why we need more people, not just to pull together to do something different, but also to think outside of the box that we've been conditioned to think in, to be able to step away from the hierarchical thinking. One of the things that stood out to me is also really being mindful of how we rely on those spaces of stability and security that we've been conditioned to look to such as our job, particularly because a lot of times those are embedded in institutions that reward you for playing the game that upholds the system it plays into exploit. You and using the love of your work, especially in those helping professions, and taking any difference as a personal threat to how well you're doing your job, because if it's counter to the rewards that the system will give you, then you can't receive it, because then it becomes dangerous, and that's part of the conditioning. It becomes a reinforced fragility that we then shut down voices gatekeep and try and do things all by ourselves, to create a silo of other people who agree with us, to create a sense of stability and security. And in doing so, then we shut down curiosity. We shut down knowledge and power sharing and collective action under this guise that we have to be unified about all things, instead of knowing how to engage each other in conflict and engage each other in growth, and when we start to shut things down around us and can't receive those conversations and New information because we don't give ourselves room to digest and metabolize new information. We don't allow ourselves to go into the cave and process because of urgency and perfectionism and all of these things that tell us we have to be good, good enough. Then once again, we're picking up the master's tools and guarding the master's house, even when we claim and sometimes believe that we want it dismantled. So going back to those earlier quotes about reflection inside, looking at how we're participatory, and those deep seeds are embedded in there that we need to be mindful of and engage again. No system is going to reward you for dismantling it. And any structure that has a hierarchy to it, this idea of climbing a ladder. To climb a ladder, you have to buy into the idea that there's a ladder to climb, and we're fed this idea that, well, once I get to the top of the ladder, I'll have more impact. I'll be able to do more. And who did you have to stand on to get to that point? To dismantle the ladder, the hierarchy, the culture of supremacy, we have to release the illusion that we can win by climbing a ladder, the ladder is a lie. Difference doesn't mean one is good or the other is bad. We have to let go of the attachment to being the good one, to proving ourselves, to getting it right, and instead focus on being someone who listens, who learns, who takes action, who stays accountable and grows. And we have to be able to go into the cave and do that reflection, to be able to come out and seed and plant and grow and harvest and go into the cave and reflect and extract and learn. I know this can feel big. I just I went from small to big, so let's bring it back to small again. Let's return to where the power lies for you, because it can feel overwhelming, this pressure of responsibility in this larger context. And the invitation here really is looking at, where is this playing in your life? Where are you blocking rest? Where are you blocking reflection? Where could you expand and allow room for that period of processing? That preparation period, that realignment period, that stepping into the unknown experience, that recalibration, where there's deep listening and awareness, inner wisdom, listening, outer wisdom, listening slowing down so that you can engage in a way that aligns with who you want to be in the world and the impact that you. Want to make. So where can you create room? Or where are you feeling a push and tension, and what supports can you create to allow yourself that room? One of the exercises that I invite clients in the Reclaim your routine workshop to do is creating three rituals of support. And sometimes we get really fixed, and it has to look a particular way. So I'll give you an example. If one of the supports is that you meditate in the morning, setting up layers to that. So if it's a really rushed morning, that meditation can look like standing, feeling your feet on the ground, taking a breath, that's good, that's something that's connecting, that's allowing support for yourself. If you have more time, then it's a five minute meditation, five minutes of breathing, five minutes of looking out the window at nature, going for a walk around the block, and if you have a lot more time, or you had a really exhausting period, or You're in a period of shift, then building in more time, like half an hour to go for a walk, going out into a natural area, and taking a concerted amount of time. That be the best. But this way you have a spectrum whereby you can tap into an aspect of that support that meets you where you're at, and honors what you need to create room. And as you start to create room, you'll be able to create more room, because your attention goes to this is important. This is valuable. You can start to notice the difference that it makes, and noticing that helps make more room for it, as well as helps you connect with other people who are interested and willing to do the same. Because that's something that you're focused on, you're putting energy into it. Goes back to the interview that I did with Taina Brown, which I referenced last time as well, that micro actions to create big change, those things pour into doing it differently, making room for that winter, for that cave period, for that shadow time, to look at our shadow self and integrate so that we can continuously grow and lean Into the Unknown spaces that allow us to creatively build the world that we want to live in, rather than reactively perpetuating our oppressive systems. I will have a number of resources linked in the show notes if you want to go deeper and really lean into a period of unlearning around oppressive systems. Check those links out if you are in a period of I need to do some work of unlearning how those are playing in my own life in a very personal way. I invite you to get on a call with me, I'm happy to chat with you and explore what are some patterns of imposter syndrome, perfectionism, stress management, all these places where we want to create more control so that you can learn to have more resiliency and implement more care in your life, so that you're building in a way that isn't perpetuating harm in your life and thus into the world. I will also link some books and resources from the people that I reference the quotes that I referenced. So check those out, and I will talk to you all next time. Thanks for listening. I so appreciate you being here. If you got something out of today's episode, please share it, leave me a review, take a screenshot and post it on social with a shout out to me. Send it to a friend or, you know, all of the above. Want to hang out more, join me on Instagram, or better yet, get on my mailing list to make sure you don't miss out on anything, and remember your possibilities are as unlimited as you are. Allow yourself to shine, my friend, the world needs your light. See you next time you.