Self-reflection: What's missing?

Self-reflection, self-awareness, self-inquiry.

Time and time again, we are told that such processes, of getting to know ourselves intimately, can “help” us.

I’m a sucker for all this kind of stuff and I’ll push the same message too. I’ve always loved self-reflection and it’s enabled me to work through experiences like internalised racism (read about this in depth HERE) to be able to feel complete, safe and well. To take it even further, if I could wish one thing for this world, it would be for all beings to have a deep sense of self-awareness so that we would not hurt each other unknowingly.

However, I’ve never really liked how self-reflection has been presented in the wellness sector and in the mental health sector and it’s taken me a long time to kind of understand why.

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My grandfather was a typical post-war Japanese man; proud, stoic, conservative and highly driven to create wealth and stability for his family. As his only grandchild, my mother was consistently reminded that she’d raised me badly because I’d become this strange Westernised person with a nose ring “like a cow”.

I remember one lunch in vivid clarity, sitting in a private dining room overlooking a huge park in Tokyo, fumbling my way through a description of my music therapy job to my grandfather.

“…I think that music can help us to notice how we’re feeling and express our emotions...” I said.

The air in the room changed suddenly and my grandfather glared at me across the large table and said, “If I had sat around like you thinking about “my feelings” everyday do you think you’d be sitting here now, in this room, eating this wagyu? Do you?!”

I was like “uhhhhh… no?”

“Exactly. Useless, just useless.”

 End of conversation.

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What is missing from the current conversation about the importance of being mindful and self-aware? Why do such practices create such pushback in people like my grandfather, even though he used to practice Kikou (Chi Gong in Japanese) every day?

I would say that it’s because self-reflection has become a self-indulgent activity. When meditative practices were taken from the East, everything became about “living our truth” and “being the best version of ourselves”. What was left out of the equation is the fact that self-reflection actually helps us to be of greater service to our families and our communities.

The healthier, happier, more emotionally intelligent we become through the process of learning about ourselves, the less we burden those around us and the more we can be self-sustaining, contributing members of our communities. What we do, always affects those around us, however this important point always seems to get left out of the conversation around mindfulness and self-awareness. 

And I know this will sound dramatic but I think that it is the subtle white-washing of Eastern practices that actually excludes many Asian diaspora from engaging in things like meditation, mindfulness and self-reflection. Although these practices originated from collectivist cultures, it seems like the emphasis on turning inwards to serve outwards, has been forgotten. And it’s taken me a long time to realise that perhaps it’s because of this that I’ve never really enjoyed or felt right joining in on yoga classes, meditation workshops etc.

Well, it is in this context that I would like to introduce Shapes and Sounds’ first product:

I’ve created a video mindfulness series, which draws upon my knowledge of yoga, meditation, trauma therapy, shinrinyoku (forest bathing) with the visual and sound expertise from my friend, Yeo. There’s nothing specifically for “Asians” in this product but I wanted to create something where we, the Asian diaspora community, are the “target audience” because we’re often unseen by both of the cultures that we belong to.

I also wanted to share this story of my grandfather with you because it’s stories like this that have shaped my engagement of things like “mindfulness” throughout my 15 or so years of working in the wellness and mental health worlds. From what many of you have told me, I know that something doesn’t quite feel right about the mindfulness, meditation, self-improvement products/services out there and I wonder if you also have an ancestry that colours your experiences like mine.