The Power of Reflection

EP205: Have you ever considered the power of reflection?

Reflection can truly transform your homeschooling journey. In this episode, you'll hear how reflection uncovers new possibilities and cultivates gratitude, leading to significant breakthroughs and increased compassion in your homeschool. 

Listen in as Jean shares practical tips and insightful questions to guide your reflective practice. This is the very same practice Jean leads homeschoolers through every month within the Inspired at Home community.

Find the Show Notes Here  https://artofhomeschooling.com/episode205/

Chapters

• 1:06 The Power of Reflection in Homeschooling
• 1:53 3 reflection questions
• 3:28 Creating a weekly rhythm for reflecting
• 5:25 Reflecting in community
• 6:54 Abundance mindset

Transcript

Jean: 0:09

You're listening to the Art of Homeschooling podcast, where we help parents cultivate creativity and connection at home. I'm your host, jean Miller, and here on this podcast you'll find stories and inspiration to bring you the confidence you need to make homeschooling work for your family. Let's begin. Amid the busy days of homeschooling, reflection is often the most powerful tool that we overlook. What if the key to making every homeschool day smoother wasn't found in more resources, but in simply taking a moment to look back and think about what went well and what was challenging? The gold is, then, in taking those reflections and setting some intentions going forward based on your insights, and that's what we're talking about today here on the Art of Homeschooling podcast. Welcome to episode 205, the Power of Reflection. Are you ready to unlock breakthroughs by slowing down and taking a little time to reflect? Reflection is really just sitting in quiet contemplation and taking some time for consideration. It can help us calm our nervous systems and really look at situations and things that have happened circumstances in our lives from a more neutral place. Here are some thoughts about reflection questions, because it helps to have a few questions to ask yourself. This is what we do inside the Inspired at Home community at the beginning of every month. We have a reflections guide that we use on the reflections call that we gather on Zoom for at the beginning of each month, and the guide has a section for looking back and then one for looking ahead, with questions like what went well, what challenges did we encounter, what unexpected learning happened. These questions can support you in your transition from one week to the next or one month to the next for the whole homeschool year. So I want to encourage you to give yourself time to check in, take stock and then make adjustments as needed.

Jean: 2:52

Recently, one of the members of the Inspired at Home community made this comment on a reflections call. She said before this call, I felt like everything was a mess. Then, while reflecting, I realized that there are some things that are working and I can just make little tweaks rather than throwing it all out the window. What an incredible insight to have. It's such a simple process to reflect, but it can have profound effects on us and our homeschooling. You start by taking a look at how things went for your previous week or even month, and then look at what your intentions are for the upcoming week or month. It's a simple framework, really, and these reflections can help you grow week to week on your homeschooling journey, I often suggest, with these questions, thinking about sitting with them sometime between Thursday through Sunday each week to see what comes up from this time of reflection. Maybe it's at the end of the week, on Friday afternoons, or perhaps it's on Sunday mornings, anytime over the weekend.

Jean: 4:12

You get to choose. Whatever you do, keep it simple and light, but be sure to do it. I think you'll be amazed at the insights you gain. You can even create a journaling ritual or practice and make it part of your inner work activities. However you do it, it's always helpful to reflect back and then look ahead.

Jean: 4:37

Writing or journaling our reflections can really add to their potency. But here's a tip for you when journaling about any of the questions that you come up with, you don't even have to write in full sentences. You might challenge yourself to write down 10 things that went right as fast as you can, just mining for the little things, the tiny little golden nuggets. Rather than focusing on all the details at once, you can zero in on your feelings, because it's really the feelings that are evoked when you do these exercises that matter, not necessarily the resulting words, and that's where a fixed set of questions can really help you. I'm going to share a resource at the end that you might be interested in. This is definitely a process that you can do on your own, but I think it's more amazing and powerful to do in community, because articulating and then sharing your reflections helps you look at your circumstances with more compassion for yourself, and I feel so incredibly grateful that I get to witness the surprising results of doing this reflecting in community.

Jean: 5:53

Every single month On our reflection calls inside the Inspired at Home community, everyone who shows up live feels better by the end of the call than they did when they arrived 100% of the time. But we can easily forget to set aside the time for reflection or just let it go. Here are a few more comments from recent Reflections calls inside Inspired at Home, in case you're wondering what it's like to spend time reflecting in a group. Thanks for reminding me that all those special moments with our children count, because if I hadn't shown up today for this Reflection call, I wouldn't have thought of my conversations with my son in this way. And another member said I want to thank you, jean, for the past four years of inner work and reflection because it's helping me so much with my 13-year-old now.

Jean: 6:54

Another way reflection can help us is by shifting our mindset is by shifting our mindset. So often as homeschooling parents we can linger on what went wrong and not even see all the things that went well. Reflecting gives us an opportunity to look at the bigger picture, to see all the things that did go well, so that we can remind ourselves they're there to focus on the good for a moment. Practicing that abundance mindset can lead to big shifts in how you show up for your kids each and every day. When we reflect, we can really get into those juicy feelings, really feeling into the gratitude and abundance with your whole heart and being, rather than focusing on the thoughts or the words or the judgment that sometimes comes up. The chemical shifts in your body when you really get juicy, into these feelings of gratitude in particular can last for hours.

Jean: 7:58

And here's a great quote from an enlightening article in Forbes magazine about how we can shift to an abundance mindset. The article is called Five Ways to Go from a Scarcity to Abundance Mindset. I'll pop a link in the show notes for the article in case you want to read the whole thing, but it starts off with this quote the mind is everything. What you think you become. Okay, an abundance mindset refers to the paradigm that there is plenty out there for everybody and that there is even abundance in existence, which I know we can sometimes forget. I sure did as a homeschooling parent. The next question is how can we make that shift from a scarcity to an abundance mindset? The article suggests focusing on what you have, your gratitude, and training your mind to recognize possibilities, and that's exactly what I suggest you do for yourself and your homeschooling Find a time to reflect back on how things have been going so that you can set possibility intentions going forward.

Jean: 9:11

I have two resources that can help. The first is an invitation to come join the Inspired at Home community, where we have live reflection calls as a community. At the beginning of every month, we have a set of guided questions, as I mentioned, that we ask ourselves and then we share our discoveries. These reflection calls are just one of three group coaching calls we have every month in the community. We also have a conversations call about our focus for the month, as well as a planning call when we have time to get some of our planning done. Each of these calls is 90 minutes on Zoom with me and other heart-centered homeschoolers from all over the world One of our members shared recently. Thank you so much for creating this amazing community and for facilitating the calls to be focused and helpful and encouraging. They are soul nourishing.

Jean: 10:13

If you're not ready to join the Inspired at Home community yet, I have a resource for you with a set of questions to ask yourself each week. This is a printable resource. You can find these weekly reflections inside our holistic planning pack, because reflecting is great to do. Every time you sit down to do some planning. Here's what I want you to take away from this episode Taking the time for reflection each week or month will pay dividends beyond what you can imagine, beyond the time it takes for the reflection, start with a set of reflection questions.

Jean: 10:57

Choose a regular time to reflect and consider reflecting in community to deepen your practice and results. I promise this will begin to help you see more and more possibilities in your homeschool and find things to be grateful for on your journey. Thanks for listening and be sure to check out the show notes. For the resources I mentioned today. You can go to artofhomeschoolingcom, slash episode 205. Talk soon. That's all for today, my friend, but here's what I want you to remember Rather than perfection, let's focus on connection. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you on the next episode of the Art of Homeschooling podcast.