An Introvert's Return to Reflection

Losing, finding and making space for a life of introspection

It’s 10pm and the sky is still a pale shade of light blue. The sun has set, and shadows are falling around me, but it’s like the sky hasn’t quite got the memo yet. I sit outside, the house still too warm from the sunny day. I light a candle, put my laptop on my lap.

The past couple of weeks have been interesting. I’m still trying to make sense of it, and I start organising the jumbled sentences, the half-finished thoughts sprawled over the once-white page.

What I lost

I’ve been listening to upbeat songs for months.

Dopamine songs. The ones I climb onto the back of, that I use to propel me into energy, forward, onward.

In past years, the songs playing most frequently on my Spotify were the moody, quiet ones. The songs of journaling, of deep-thinking, of reflection and introspection. The folklores, the cardigans.

And then, dopamine songs. A shift in my attention, in my state of being.

My journal has long blanks. Weeks and weeks between new entries.

Candles are left with white wicks, unburned. My at home desk has been deserted. I’ve felt disconnected from my tarot cards. I’ve not known what to write here.

It’s time to order a new journal, but I can’t make a decision on which one to get. Can’t decide what I want. Which direction to go in.

I’ve not been in conversation with myself the way I used to.

I wonder if it’s because of the trauma of being hospitalised. Or the tiredness of winter, a cold cloudy spring, my body still healing. Or hormones. Or maybe just falling out of the habit of checking in with myself on a deeper level.

Honestly, I don’t know. That’s the thing. I haven’t really been reflecting about it.

The return

But then, in the light of late spring, I slip back. Not really knowing how or why, I’m suddenly thinking about it. About what this creative life so heavy with self-reflection actually means to me. How it’s like an axis that my life has revolved around; the steering wheel of the ship; the stars I navigate from.

I’ve been busy living. And there’s beauty in that. I think maybe this is how I should be. That I should go on living, without thinking so much.

But then I sit there, in the dark, one late Sunday evening with a candle fluttering beside me, burning down quickly, and my fingers fly over the keyboard, my reflective playlist sings and it’s like a shudder goes through me. A shudder of recognition, and the thing I’m recognising is myself. My life. My axis, my stars, my heart.

And I don’t care.

I don’t care if being busy living is the more alive alternative.

Because I feel exceptionally alive in this moment. And these are the moments I’m missing.

Making space for reflection

In the following week, I walk through life with the sense of having rediscovered a part of myself that I didn’t realise I had lost. I’m desperate not to lose it again.

But I’m out of practice. I’ve forgotten how to open this part of my mind.

I realise how much there is that I used to do that I don’t. The capturing of little moments in my photos. The long walks. The seasons in my videos. Life shifted, I stopped making them, because I stopped doing the things I made them for. The Youtube channel, the business.

But was that really why I made them?

Didn’t I make them for me? For my attention. For the little moments.

All of these things I did and created made room for reflection. They were built on reflection.

Yet, it’s not really about doing them. It’s not just about putting them in my calendar and making to do lists.

It’s about entering the mindset. Slowing down. Listening inwards. Making space for reflection. For sinking down into myself.

When I do, creating is like a by-product. My thoughts, my life intertwines with creativity.

I make a vow to journal more regularly. To go on quiet walks. To not stuff every moment with podcasts or books or Netflix.

Make space for the slow thoughts.
Remember that it’s a state of mind I’m seeking.

Ace of Swords

Maybe this is the pendulum swinging. A long one outwards. And, now back. Inwards.

I draw a tarot card. Ace of Swords. A new mental beginning. An unlocking of my thoughts. And that’s exactly how it feels.

I remember that this is the role of my own creative projects. This is why I need them, even when I spend my work weeks writing.

It’s not about productivity. It’s not about completing projects. Not about achieving dreams, reaching superficial goals.

No, it’s a room of my own. A space to meet myself.

I make an inspiration board on Pinterest.
I bring my journal to the nearby lake at sunset.
I sit one evening in late May with my laptop on my lap, as the pale sky goes from light to dark blue.

I’m back on the ship. I’m gazing at my stars, navigating from my axis, wind in my hair, salt on my cheeks.

Suddenly, I know exactly which journal I want.
Suddenly, I know what to write.
Suddenly, I’m home in myself again.