Self-reflection and self reflection journal prompts are often overlooked as a fundamental component of healthy life satisfaction, fulfilling relationships, and success. Plus, attachment and self-reflection are also connected in surprising ways.

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

– Aristotle

Self-reflection is not a new concept, as is evidenced by the above quote from Aristotle in 350 BC. Even then, Aristotle had insight into the importance of self-reflection in acquiring wisdom about our strengths, weaknesses, beliefs, values, and motivators–essentially the complicated web of factors involved in self-discovery and increasing self-awareness.

Through a better understanding of the science of self-reflection and how to implement it in our lives, we can identify our values, set goals based on these values, and live a more authentic, fulfilled life–even with an insecure attachment style. To help you in this process, this article covers:

• What self-reflection is
• Why self-reflection is important
• How attachment affects self-reflection
• How to practice self-reflection

What Is Self-Reflection?

The idea behind self-reflection is relatively straightforward; it’s the act of looking inside yourself to better understand how you think and feel in response to your environment. It’s akin to looking into a mirror and describing what you see as objectively as possible so that we better understand ourselves and develop self-awareness.

The practice of self-reflection is about learning about oneself by contemplating a day or event to analyze behaviors, thoughts, and feelings–without bias or judgment–to come to a conclusion about the consequences of these. Reflection isn’t exactly easy. It requires honesty, courage, and deliberation. But nothing in life that’s worthwhile comes easy, so for people who wish to achieve a specific goal, reflection is often the key. After all, sometimes the answer to how to achieve success in the future is held in our past and how we manage it in the present.

Why Is Self-Reflection Important?

For many years, although self-reflection was highly regarded by professionals in the field of applied mental health, it’s only in more recent times that research has caught up with these beliefs. For example, a study based on the experiences of college students found that those who had the ability to be more self-reflective were more likely to have higher levels of life satisfaction and overall quality of life. This finding is just one of many.

Self-reflection is important for many reasons, one of the main ones being that it is highly beneficial to overall well-being as it is closely linked to the development of emotional intelligence; it helps us become aware of and correctly identify our feelings, moods, and their associated driving beliefs–the core facets of self-awareness. In a nutshell, self-reflection is the foundation of positive change.

For the reasons mentioned, self-reflection can help people achieve many goals in life, whether these be becoming more securely attached, developing healthier self-attitudes, forging stronger relationships, becoming more successful in their career, or just an overall better sense of life satisfaction.

Attachment Theory and Self-Reflection

The field of attachment dedicates itself to the study of our bond with others and how these bonds influence our functioning–including how attachment theory relates to self-reflection. Findings from research strongly indicate that insecure attachment is related to disturbed self-reflection practices and, consequently, lack of self-awareness.

Secure attachment is an essential component of developing effective self-regulation skills; early years in which our needs were met accurately and consistently taught us that we were valuable and that others could be trusted. Therefore, we developed a coherent narrative of who we are. In contrast, an insecure attachment style forms when a child’s needs are not consistently met, teaching them a skewed interpretation of how the world works and who they are within it. As a result of this skewed outlook, people with insecure attachment often struggle to self-reflect.

The dimension of anxious attachment (which includes both anxious and disorganized attachers) has been particularly associated with a lack of self-reflective abilities, but the reasons for why are still relatively unexplored. However, having said as much, it’s likely that people with anxious attachment have difficulty with self-reflection because this dimension of attachment is strongly associated with hypersensitivity, high levels of arousal, and excessive emotional expression–but also an inability to cope with these issues.

Further research on people who experienced suicidal ideation as a result of early traumatic life experiences found that increasing reflective functioning reduced these ideations–therefore further demonstrating the importance of self-reflective practices in attachment disorder interventions. Yet, it’s not just clinical conditions that benefit from increased self-reflection–anyone with an insecure attachment style who wishes to achieve positive change should incorporate self-reflection in their lives.

How to Practice Self-Reflection

On the surface level, the art of self-reflection may seem pretty straightforward. But there are a few common traps that people tend to fall prone to–especially if they have self-esteem issues relating to issues such as insecure attachment. It’s, therefore, good to be mindful of the following points.

1. Make self-reflection a daily practice

For self-reflection to be most beneficial, it has to become a part of our everyday lives. This way, the process becomes an ingrained, automatic habit rather than something we have to consciously put a lot of effort into. Choose your method of self-reflection. This could be self-reflection journal prompts, a period of meditation, or free-writing about an event. Dedicate a specific time to this practice, preferably at the end of the day as this is when we can think back about recent events. However, it’s important that our method and process of self-reflection practice is meaningful rather than shallow, which brings us to our next point.

2. Make self-reflection meaningful

Self-reflection will likely not be effective if we’re too vague regarding what we’re reflecting about, or if we just ask ourselves generic questions. One model that has shown to be helpful during reflection is Gibbs Reflective Cycle (1988) as it offers a structure for learning from our experiences. Given that the model is a cycle, it allows us to use it with repeating situations in our lives to facilitate learning and future planning. There are 6 stages to the model:

• Describe the experience
• Reflect on your feelings and thoughts about the experience
• Evaluate the experience–both the positive and negative aspects
• Analyze the situation to make sense of it
• Come to a conclusion about what you learned and can do differently next time
• Make an action plan for similar situations that may arise

3. Reflect on Yourself With Integrity

It’s important to come to conclusions about our thoughts, feelings, and actions–but it’s equally as important to be honest with ourselves when we’re reflecting. Otherwise, we may not come to accurate conclusions, which can be damaging to our goals. It’s natural for our minds to want to protect ourselves from hurt, but we have to push through this defense mechanism and ask ourselves important, tough questions. Don’t be afraid to ask yourself how you contributed to a situation and answer as honestly as you can. For example, ask yourself questions such as “How did I contribute to this situation?” “Did my beliefs about myself and others affect my reactions?” Or, “Am I interpreting other people’s actions based on my previous experiences?”

You can even create self-reflection journal prompts for yourself that address these points.

4. Avoid rumination

There’s a fine line between reflection and rumination, but it’s there–and being mindful of it is essential to the practice of effective self-reflection. Too much of a good thing can become a negative, especially when the “thing” in question is focusing on the negatives of our actions. If you find that you’re unable to move past focusing on your negatives or “failures” it’s time to practice self-compassion and remind yourself that we’re all human, which means we’re fallible. No one’s perfect–however, remember your strengths and the courage it took to start these first steps towards positive change.

Another factor to consider is that self-reflection can be done through a range of mediums: Therapy, self-reflection prompts, journaling, and meditation are just a few ways to incorporate self-reflection into your life, but the method we are currently most excited about is explained below–The Attachment Project’s Reflection Cards

How The Attachment Project Can Help You Self-Reflect

There are many ways of fostering more self-reflective activities in our lives, however, it’s important that we remain consistent with self-reflection. Therefore, the more inspirational the self-reflection activity, the more likely we are to continue it. It’s for this reason that we have developed a meaningful, motivational, and provocative product; The Attachment Project’s Self Reflection Cards. Designed by a multi-international-award winning illustrator and written by a mental health professional and qualified creative writer, each card represents an important area of life, health, and relationships. Each card also has a paragraph on self-reflection journal prompts to help you interpret and apply the meaning of the card to your life. Plus, you can use the cards as self-reflection writing prompts.

Final Words on the Importance of Self-Reflection

Self-reflection is an act that involves looking inward to consider our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors–it’s a metaphorical mirror for our inner functioning. Practicing it on a regular basis helps us to achieve goals, foster healthier relationships, and feel more fulfilled. However, self-reflection isn’t necessarily easy; it’s an honest and challenging process that takes practice, and our ability to engage in self-reflection is affected by factors such as our attachment style.

Although it may feel daunting, especially if you’ve never really tried to take a deeper look into your cycle of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, making self-reflection part of your daily routine is a promise to yourself. It’s essentially telling yourself that your future is worth the investment of time and effort.