I was just looking back through previous posts and remembering how I felt at this time last year – everything was still new, exciting, fresh, and busy. I was optimistic about my future and had a pretty good grasp of reality. I was out with some friends last night after rehearsal – they don’t know me very well but they know me enough that I’m comfortable talking about my personal life with them and vise versa. They remember meeting the … what do I even put here? the ex boyfriend? I can’t think of him like that just yet… anyway – they remembering meeting him once and they didn’t like him. Then I have other friends who liked him right away. Then I think – it’s not their opinion that matters but mine.. isn’t it?
My students have a lot of assignments that require reflection activities. Their presentations are video taped and they review their tape and write a reflection based upon what they see. Immediately after their presentation they receive my observations and those from their classmates but we also begin with their personal immediate reactions following their presentation. Often their perceptions are negative as I find only those truly comfortable with themselves (or those that have a very high opinion of themselves) can be positive about even the slightest things. But we’re taught that in all aspects of our lives. We must fix things… even if there is nothing to be fixed. Why do you think “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” came about? We’re taught to look for things to fix and have a hard time believing that there isn’t a problem.
So now I wonder, does conflict come about because we are looking for things to fix even if there isn’t anything or are we so skilled at searching for something that even the slightest wrong is reason spring into handy man mode? I’m looking at the past few weeks here and am thinking I was blind sided by something I didn’t know was happening but that’s my perspective – maybe there was something happening that I just couldn’t see. I have to accept that my perception was accurate given the information I had to work with and that his perception was accurate based on his information. Hmm…tough pill to swallow.
Reflecting is a challenge. Being insightful takes courage and a strong sense of self and for a while, I didn’t mind looking at myself in the mirror – I could actually stomach it and thought okay things… now my perception of my reflection has totally changed and not just regarding physical aspects. I see what this mess is doing to me emotionally, socially, physically and it makes me angry but not with him, which is where some say I should be directing my anger, but with me for allowing my brain to stay in this state. It’s doubling difficult when the evidence I have doesn’t match the outcome – is the reflection then warped or accurate?
Or does it even matter anymore…
