Brooding
Reflection is action
Why reflect?
Keep a record
Research on reflection
Reflection with Tarot cards
Bibliography
Reflection can be a powerful tool to solve problems, learn from past mistakes, to grow, to plan, and to make sense of confusing emotions and events. Reflection is not only a creative problem-solving activity in itself, but has been shown to make people more creative.
However, researchers [see the bibliography for sources used] have also linked reflection to depression. Depression in turn, whether on its own or as part of bipolar disorder, has been linked to many creative people.
In 2005, researchers found that depression and creativity may not be directly linked, but instead through a third variable that they called 'self-reflective rumination.' In depression, a person often ruminates about their feelings, circumstances, and depressed mood. Creative people, on the other hand, use rumination to come up with novel ideas to cope with a situation. The way we think about ourselves and the world decides whether we are depressed or creative.
How do we discriminate between the type of rumination that leads to depression, and the type that makes us more creative?
Rumination and its variants are called different things in the literature. For convenience's sake, I'm going to call the depressive type of reflection 'brooding,' and the creative type 'reflection.'
Brooding
Brooding is an unconstructive type of rumination, and is defined as "preoccupied with depressing, morbid, or painful memories or thoughts." It also involves
- wallowing in emotions,
- being obsessed with painful events (playing them over and over in the mind),
- believing you have no control over events,
- pessimism about the future (you assume the worst will inevitably happen),
- dwelling on (what you regard as) negative qualities,
- blaming yourself for everything that goes wrong,
- comparing yourself unfavourably with others, and
- expecting others to reject you.
These negative thoughts and emotions evoke other painful memories, beliefs, and expectations, creating a vicious circle that ultimately leads to dysphoria (defined as "a state of dissatisfaction, anxiety, restlessness, or fidgeting," and regarded as a forerunner of depression), depression, various anxiety disorders, and ill-health: in other words, the opposite of creative.
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How does unconstructive reflection affect your physical health?
Dysphoria and depression lead you to neglect your health, ignore symptoms, and not going for regular checkups and preventive screens. Moreover, increased stress leads to decreased immunity, irregular heartbeat, and insomnia.
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Reflection is action
Reflection is a deliberate and purposeful, imaginative and analytical exploration of events, memories, emotions, or concerns. Both positive and negative events and emotions can be the focus.
Reflection is a creative activity in that it encourages a diversity of novel and effective solutions to complex problems.
Reflection is not worrying. Worrying is a passive activity, and can often not be controlled. Reflection does, however, turn worries into problems that can be explored and solved.
Reflection is also not daydreaming. Daydreaming and mind-wandering are often involuntary and unstructured activities. They do not always involve positive events and emotions, and if a positive future is pictured, daydreaming is too passive to lead to such a future.
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Why reflect?
Reflection:
- stops brooding and takes control of runaway emotions and out-of-control events (thinking analytically creates a calm space for reflection),
- decreases negative emotions such as pain or anxiety, and increases positive emotions, such as acceptance or calm,
- explores and overcomes a difficult circumstance and its implications for the future,
- turns a sense of failure into hope and concrete steps for the future,
- minimizes confusion and maximizes understanding,
- finds potential, something good, or a reason for hope in the direst of circumstances,
- solves the problem,
- learns and transfers lessons learned to other contexts,
- identifies and challenges false assumptions and beliefs,
- increases self-knowledge and self-awareness,
- sets goals for growth and plans how to achieve them, and abandons unattainable goals,
- ponders consequences and likely outcomes,
- replaces self-blame and self-criticism with plans for growth, and ponders your positive qualities,
- captures moments of joy and fixes them in your memory so they are accessible when you need them,
- steps back to see the big picture, gain perspective, and
- finds meaning in seemingly meaningless events.
Research suggests that reflection, done constructively, leads to personal growth, faster healing from trauma, faster recovery from depression, improved memory and concentration, and better physical health.
Reflection is a creative activity that finds original, but doable, solutions to complex problems, creates meaning, evokes a better mood and a hopeful outlook, and uses the imagination constructively to picture the ideal future or to mentally rehearse next actions.
Not surprisingly, all the steps involved in creative problem solving can include reflection: finding problems, defining the problem, looking for pertinent information, idea generation, evaluating and selecting ideas, and presenting those ideas to people concerned.
The only two requirements for reflection are time set aside and a belief that you are creative enough to find a solution.
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What does 'finding meaning' mean? Possibilities include:
● a major shift in values and priorities,
● new goals,
● an enhanced sense of living in the present, and
● new perspectives, such as 'life is precious.'
Finding benefit leads to better psychological adjustment and more adaptive responses to negative life events than does simply trying to understand and make sense of the event. Finding meaning includes seeing the bigger picture; the ability to see the context in which the event occurred, and the ability to evaluate the seriousness and impact of the event.
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Keep a record
To achieve the advantages of reflection, the first thing you should do is to keep some kind of record of your thoughts. That includes any actions planned to attain goals.
Recording your thoughts during a reflection is the gateway to expressive writing--a form of reflection. Research suggest that expressive writing has many advantages, particularly when the writer expresses their deepest thoughts and emotions.
In one study, students who kept journals for a month about a traumatic event--with particular emphasis on thoughts and feelings--experienced more post-traumatic growth than those who wrote only about emotions or facts.
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Research on reflection
What is the most constructive way to reflect to achieve these benefits? Watkins (2008) summarizes the results of research done on reflection:
Positive and negative
Reflecting on your positive qualities increases positive emotions. So does a reflection with positive content--what you are grateful for, for example, or a joyful event that you intend to fix in your memory. That is no surprise. On the other hand, reflecting on your less desirable characteristics can lead to anxiety, pessimism, and dysphoria.
The trouble is, when you reflect on yourself, it is usually on traumatic memories, painful emotions, and unmet goals. Or aspects of yourself that you don't like.
Research suggests that you should concentrate on the minimum self-blame, but without denying your responsibility. You should mainly focus on actions, plans, and intentions, and how to execute them. The trick not to fall into depression is to concentrate on 'what' and 'how' questions instead of 'why.' Reflection should be focused on concrete, practical plans to meet specific goals.
To increase positive emotions while reflecting on negative content, cultivate a searching, exploring mindset in which you express confusion, but look for possibilities and answers. Set goals, and practical steps to achieve them.
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Abstract and concrete
Reflection can concern abstract or concrete content. Abstract content would include meanings, implications, causes, consequences, feelings, and symptoms. Such content tends to heighten anxiety.
Concrete content, on the other hand, are goals and specific actions to achieve the goals. It is practical. Research indicates that a focus on practicalities results in better problem solving, faster emotional recovery, fewer upsetting images, decreased depression, fewer negative self-judgements and, importantly for journaling, more specific autobiographical memory.
Practical, concrete goals are always good, but the actual goals may be abstract, as long as they give an alternate path to the same goal. If your goal is to be creative, writing a poem is not the only way. You could write a novel or compose a song. An abstract goal, however, must have practical, concrete steps leading to it, and the goal must be achievable.
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General and specific
Reflection may be about something general, such as relationships, or specific, such as planning the next date with your honey. Being specific tends to lead to concrete, practical actions, but it is impossible to avoid generalization completely. Eventually, you will want to explore how you approach relationships in general. The danger of generalization is that you might over-generalize something negative as applicable to all contexts. Fudging some aspect of the date might make you feel you always mess up when you go out on a date. This is depressive thinking: with negative content, it is always better to keep the focus on something specific.
With positive content, however, the reverse applies. If the date went well, you might reflect on the strengths that you displayed--organizing and preparing a meal, for example--and reflect that these are true of you in general. If you have learned something useful during this reflection, the learning might translate to all romantic relationships.
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Goals
Reflecting on unmet goals is usually painful. Just think of your New Year's resolutions, and how depressing it is to remember those you have not reached. You might feel you are hopeless in general. To counter such negative feelings, reflect on your positive qualities that could also apply to the same goal. If you want to lose weight, don't decide that you are simply too greedy to eat healthy. Maybe you enjoy well-prepared food, and are getting better at finding and following healthy recipes.
It is also important to consider if the goal is attainable. Losing 10 kg in five months is achievable; losing 50 kg is not. If your goal is not achievable, decide consciously whether you want to adjust the goal, or abandon it. The most unconstructive attitude is perfectionism, setting standards impossible to meet. Cutting consumption by 40 per cent and doing that every day might be too much to ask. Failing at this goal might make you feel hopeless.
If your goal is achievable, add concrete, specific action steps in your plan. For example, instead of having the goal of exercising more, plan to run five kilometres on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and do strength exercises on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
Research also suggests focusing on outcomes that are closer rather than far into the future. Deciding to lose 25 kg by the end of the year is a difficult target. Setting a goal to lose half a kilogram a week for the next 12 months sounds doable.
Research also suggests adopting an attitude of 'defensive pessimism.' A defensive pessimist reflects on what might go wrong, and then makes plans for actions for when it does go wrong. Think of worst-case scenarios: your wife spoiled you on your birthday with all the dishes that you particularly love. Of course you ate too much. Planning will make it easier to decide to give away left-over food so you do not indulge again. Advance reflection will reassure you that one day's indulgence does not mean you’re abandoning the goal.
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Reflection with Tarot cards
A Tarot reading is a reflective exercise. Choosing or designing a spread determines what you reflect on.
Think about the Celtic Cross spread: when you do a reading with this spread, you reflect on the causes and likely consequences of an event, obstacles to overcome, your role in the events, influences from your environment, the impact of your hopes and fears, and a possible outcome. You can of course create your own spread, including the aspects of a situation or problem that you want to explore.
The subjects of many Tarot readings are the same as those of reflection: painful or joyful events and circumstances, your good and bad qualities, how to attain certain goals, coping with and understanding negative emotions, and solving problems.
One of the advantages of reflecting with Tarot cards is that you work with images that stimulate the mind and the imagination, resulting in a rich experience from which to learn. Working with Tarot cards is fun and creative, and triggers both imaginative and analytical thinking. The relationships between the cards help you build a story from confusing and painful events or emotions, and add to the richness of a reflection. With Tarot archetypal content, you can explore the depths of your unconscious or, if you prefer, keep things lighter. You decide how deep you go.
A Tarot reading is dynamic. Instead of brooding on one aspect of the problem, the cards urge you to move forward, to study the next card.
Here are guidelines on reflection with Tarot cards, based on the principles suggested by research:
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Preparation
Set aside at least 30 minutes for reflection.
Record your thoughts during reflection.
The reading will lead you to reflect on thoughts and emotions around an event, but will also force you to consider emotional and confusing issues from an analytical perspective. This will help you be more objective, which is necessary if you want to resolve the problem.
A Tarot reading creates a psychological distance between you and the situation. Your focus shifts to the cards, instead of dwelling on painful emotions and thoughts.
The reading will affirm that you have at least some control over events if you concentrate on choices you make.
With reflection, any of or all the cards in a spread can suggest solutions, or at least a deeper understanding of the problem. You don't have to wait for the 'solution' card.
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Don't linger
Don't linger over cards that describe the situation; spend enough time to set the scene, but then move on to the next card.
Don't linger over emotions or causes, and leave out an 'outcome' card from your spread unless you are prepared to (also) consider positive consequences. A 'what is the worst thing that could happen?' card should be followed by a 'best thing that could happen' card.
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You in the reading
Although it is important to consider your role, your personal qualities, your motivation for, and the consequences of your actions and choices, you should also consider causes outside of your control. Alternatively, add cards for positive actions that you can carry out to resolve the issue.
Don't compare yourself to others.
If you have to consider negative aspects of yourself, follow up with a card for positive attributes.
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Positive and negative
If you don't want to add cards to the spread, and your reading is negative, force yourself to also consider the positive aspects of each card. Remember, the aim is to help you deal with situations, not to drag out all your less-positive qualities and berate yourself for them.
When reflecting on the outcome and consequences of an event or a concern, although negative predictions can serve as warnings, deliberately also focus on positive results, and follow up with 'action' cards (actions to take to resolve the worry or problem).
Find the benefit: what is good about the situation, or may be improved? What meaning does the event have beyond the traumatic?
In your reflection, consider positive emotions and events to build on, and negative ones to understand and grow from.
In divinatory Tarot readings, it is less common to reflect on a joyful event. In reflection, considering joyful and positive events will lift your mood and your self-esteem. As part of a journaling exercise, or to fix a joyful memory in your mind, your reflection should include cards on what you learned, what you did to achieve positive results, and how you can apply these lessons in future.
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Abstract and concrete
Make sure you have 'what' and 'how' cards in your spread, not just 'why' ones. 'Why' is important, but so are the actions you can take.
Don't add many cards that focus on abstracts such as meanings, implications, causes, consequences, feelings or symptoms. Concentrate on the impact on your life, and especially concrete, practical issues and actions.
Add cards for advice, guidance, and next actions.
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General and specific
The spread could focus on a specific issue or event, or look at something general, such as romantic relationships. With the general, however, the danger is that you will berate yourself for your failings, and so generate a negative mood. With such negative content, you need cards for specific, positive actions. You should reflect not only why you are such a klutz with romance, but also on specific, positive aspects and next actions. Find solutions that will benefit you in all romantic relationships.
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Goals
Don't dwell on why a goal has not been met. Although 'why' is important, it is more fruitful to focus on plans, actions, and intentions.
Spend time reflecting on personal qualities and environmental aspects that can help you meet the goal.
Make sure your goal is attainable, otherwise you will get stuck in negative feelings and not consider action plans.
Consider what could go wrong. Then make plans on how you will meet such events.
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Outcomes
Consider the ideal future: what would it be, and what steps do you need to take to achieve it? You need concrete, practical plans to meet specific goals.
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Transfer what you learned to other situations
Once you have answers, reflect on other problems to which the same answers could apply.
Think of other situations to which the solution or a slightly modified solution could apply.
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Bibliography
Much of the research is summarized in:
Watkins, E. R. (2008). Constructive and unconstructive repetitive thought. Psychological Bulletin, 134(2), 163-206.
Other sources:
Cohen, J. R., & Ferrari, J. R. (2010). Take some time to think this over: The relation between rumination, indecision, and creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 22(1), 68–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400410903579601
Guillaumier, C. (2016). Reflection as creative process: Perspectives, challenges and practice. Arts & Humanities in Higher Education, 15(3–4), 353–363.
Hao, N., Ku, Y., Liu, M., Bodner, M., Grabner, R. H., & Fink, A. (2016). Reflection enhances creativity: Beneficial effects of idea evaluation. Brain and Cognition, 103, 30–37.
Lyubomirsky, S., Tucker, K. L., Caldwell, N. D., & Berg, K. (1999). Why ruminators are poor problem solvers: Clues from the phenomenology of dysphoric rumination. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1041–1060
Pennebaker, J. W. (May 1997). Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process. Psychological Science, 8(3): 162–166. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00403.x
Trapnell, P. D., & Campbell, J. D. (1999). Private self-consciousness and the five-factor model of personality: Distinguishing rumination from reflection. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(2), 284–304.
Treynor, W., Gonzalez, R., & Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (2003). Rumination reconsidered: A psychometric analysis. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 27, 247–259.
Verhaeghen, P., Joormann, J., & Aikman, S. N. (2014). Creativity, mood, and the examined life: Self-reflective rumination boosts creativity, brooding breeds dysphoria. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 8(2), 211–218. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035594
Verhaeghen, P., Joorman, J., and Khan, R. (2005). Why we sing the blues: The relation between self-reflective rumination, mood, and creativity. Emotion, 5(2). 226-232. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.5.2.226
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