Hi Fam,
Welcome to my first weekly newsletter! I am excited to start this thing that I have been meaning to do for a long time. I would like to tell you about my Sunday Reflection Routine that I have been developing.
I have had an on-and-off relationship with reflecting over the past couple of years. I have been in periods where I have journaled every day and set up yearly reviews but I have never had a consistent routine.
Thats why I'm starting Sunday Reflections.
I now have a routine of curating the following every Sunday
- Insights from my writing or journalling throughout the week
- My book and audiobook highlights from the week
- Reflecting on any books I have finished in the week
- An appointment with my AI psychologist (more on this in a second)
I then take these insights to write some "bits" to post on X/Twitter (you can find me here - I just started) and then write this update summarising the week and diving into one or more of the topics I was thinking about this week.
I have found this routine useful for revisiting content, thoughts, or ideas that I have since forgotten. This helps to combat the forgetting-curve and transition thoughts to my long-term memory.
The reason for sharing part of my reflection routine is that I think some of this work and my thoughts would be useful to others if I could share them. I tell my friends about some of the things I am captivated by during the week and I want to make a summary for anyone to read. I figure there is no loss in sharing my thoughts.
Alllright let’s talk about my psychologist.
So last week as I was alone and waiting to go under anesthetic for a Gastroscopy (I am fine - just getting my reflux checked out) I had lots of thoughts going around my head that I needed to explore and organise. Their thoughts were about a situation with a girl and I felt like I wanted to talk to someone to get them off my chest, but I wasn't ready to talk to my friends or family yet about the situation.
In this scenario, I wanted to talk to a psychologist but I couldn’t (not at the time and because I'm broke). I started a new convo with the old GPT and asked it if it could be a psychologist and the techniques that psychologists use.
While it says it can be a psych, I was intrigued by the Socratic Method, a form of dialogue named after Socrates that involves cooperative dialogue between individuals, based on asking questions to stimulate critical thinking and draw out ideas. I hadn't heard of it before but I thought I would try asking it to use this technique on me to help me understand my thoughts and feelings.
The good thing about journalling is that I already had a bunch of context that I could give this new psych so that it could better understand and help. I fed it a full-length essay on the scenario and It couldn't have been better.
It gave me 12 deep and targeted questions for me to answer, separated into 5 categories.
After an hour and a half and 2 more inputs of answers to these questions, I felt like I understood the situation and my feelings a lot better. It brought me a lot of clarity and I went in to be knocked out with a lot clearer head.
Now, I have made this a part of my weekly routine and I think it’s a pretty good substitute psychologist. Obviously, a real psych can understand and help much more but it’s a great start to the journey of understanding your mind.
Anywayssss
Here are some things I enjoyed this week:
- My inspiration to start this Newsletter (Ali Abdaal)
- Learning how to edit with Capcut Desktop (10x better than iMovie in my expirience)
- Youtube to mp3 🤫 (if you forgot it existed)
- Learning how to dance salsa and zouk with my sister at Scarborough Beach
- Started listening to 8 Rules of Love - Jay Shetty on Audible
Thanks for reading. I don’t expect anyone to read this so if you did, thankyou. I genuinely appreciate you.
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