I introduced the concept behind my Reflections x 3 Formula. Now for part two. Let’s put it all together so that you will get a more solid idea of how it all comes together. Using my first bullet journal as a visual guide, you will see both how to practice your own reflections and how affective it is.
(Only names are blacked out in order to protect privacy.)
Just as a recap on the closing of my introductory article:
Tip 1: Don’t be discouraged if you’re unable to find any wins, especially during your first weekly reflections:
Tip 2: Even bad days or bad weeks can be built upon.
This was my first week recording my days. Talk about your bad week! I was so sick that I was forced to cancel my usual Sunday video in my group. It was my first, and to date, only time I had to cancel. Notice the circled area:
I spilled my soup and then hollered, “G—- it!” (which I did NOT write) and followed by, “I’m such a fuck up!” (Hello hijacked amygdala! Trauma Glossary 3: Section 1 under Limbic System) Waste has always been a trigger for me, considering my earliest memory of being “disciplined” was for spilling or dropping anything.
What I also didn’t write was that in between the first explicative and the next one I uttered, I had a microsecond urge to blame my husband for spilling my soup. In the very next beat, shame set in and I responded in classic CPTSD fashion. In other words, I attacked myself. Sure, I didn’t deserve to call myself a fuck up, but at least I was spared the additional shame, had I acted on the urge to blame my husband. This night gave me something to build upon for my first weekly reflections, as you will see later.
One more point needs to be made regarding my first week. Remember in the first article when I said to choose which day of the week to assign for your reflections day? I decided that Sundays would be my end of the week reflection day. Notice that my first week was longer than seven days:
Tip 3: On average, the hippocampus can retain memories for three days before it starts the process of overwriting “old” memories in lieu of fresh ones.
February 2 of 2020 was the first Sunday of the month and two days is certainly not enough time to work on memory retrieval. So I decided to create “long week”, which led to how short a “short week” can run.
Tip 4: Long week: up to 10 days; Short week: as few as 4 days
My very first week with my bullet journal was experiencing long week: 9 days.
Interestingly enough, my very last week of my 90 day bujo, also happened to be my first time experiencing the shortest short week, which was the last week in April:
Tip 4.5: The same “rule” of course, can be applied when reflecting on the end of the month.
What if the end of the month doesn’t fall on a day that’s convenient for reflecting? You’re free to choose “long month” whereas, you tack on the first few days of the following month, or “short month”, which would mean carrying over the last few days of the month into the next one.
Now, let’s look at how reflections work out over time. These are my first weekly reflections. February 9, 2020. As I mentioned earlier, I had no acknowledged wins of the week. But notice the number of insights I got:
*A little backstory, not only was my identity enmeshed with my perfectionist critic, but I had also been diagnosed with alexithymia. So you’ll see how I was attempting to understand my emotions by creating “equations”. Add to it how I was getting hammered by emotional flashbacks (all underlined terms can be found in Trauma Glossary 2) of my worst childhood memory, my “summer of ’86” (EMDR had actually made it worse). So I had begun a quest to find something, anything that would help me manage the flashbacks.
Now let’s look at my weekly reflections for the rest of that month:
This brings us to my first Monthly Reflections, also February 29, 2020. (Monthly Reflections Day = Weekly + Monthly Reflections, or Reflections x 2) Think of your monthly reflections as your three “mile markers” or progress reports. This is where you review only your Weekly Reflections of the month. You’re not copying every single win and insight you got out of your past weeks.
Instead, you’re looking for patterns of Wins that “add up” (confirmation) to declarative memories worthy of taking with you into your next month. The same applies to your Insights. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by the number of Insights you’ve been building upon, purely by developing the habit of recording (remembering) them.
Tip 5: It’s okay to let go of some of your weekly wins in lieu of the bigger ones.
Ditto for some of your insights, which may, in all honesty become outdated over time as you continue to grow and develop new insights that are reframing the old. And it goes without saying that the same applies to your 90 Day Reflections, as you’re basically looking for what’s worthy of taking with you for the next 90 Day Bujo.
Here are my three Monthly Reflections:
*Notice the top Win and the top Insight. See what they have in common? I began to dare accepting other people’s positive feedback instead of dismissing them with my old “doesn’t count” excuses. Not only did this lead to a major rewiring where my childhood programming was concerned, but notice what else happened. I ran out of room for Moving Forward!
As a matter of fact, I was so curious by this change, I needed an extra two pages just to explore it before I proceeded to my Moving Forward. I called it my Matrix:
Now I was ready for my 90 Day Reflections…
The Reflections x 3 (week + month + 90 days) But first:
Tip 6: Your 90 Day Reflections Day also marks the first day of your “Cycle Down Month”
I’ll get more into the cycle down month next week. For now, it’s enough to understand how time consuming it can be once you reach your 90 Day Reflections. After all, you’re reflecting on the last Week of your 90 days; then reflecting on the last month of your 90 days; then again to add everything up for your 90 day reflections. It’s far too draining to tally all this up in one or two days. In fact, giving yourself up to a week or two on this step is encouraged.
Trust me on this one, it took me going through three bullet journals back to back before I learned the value of having a cycle down month. But even then, I was unable to close out my bullet journals in a single day. In fact, when I closed out my first bullet journal, I only had the energy for my Weekly Reflections on April 30. So I made my Monthly Reflections May 1, which was Friday. I then had the weekend (May 2-3, 2020) to tackle my 90 Day Reflections. I certainly needed the full weekend to put that together, because it turned into six total pages!
My 90 Day Wins, Insights and Moving Forward each grew into a two-page tally:
By putting it all together, I not only improved my confidence and self-esteem, but I ended up creating a series of modules (which I will get into more next week) for building my next 90 Day Bullet Journal. This article was introducing you to this tool and why bullet journaling with my Reflections x 3 Formula is so instrumental towards growth and healing. Hopefully, it has peaked your interest, at least.
Next week, I’ll show you what you need on Basic Setup regarding your first bullet journal, from your key page, index pages and tips for compassionate goal setting. This regards bujo setup in the most general sense.
I’ll also introduce you to “Advanced Settings”, which are some suggested tools to include and why they will be useful for maximizing growth through bullet journaling.
And finally, You’ll learn the importance of having a “cycle down” month (the month in between your last 90 day Bujo and your next one). You will learn how to take the growth and self-discovery you received from your last bujo into your next for even more growth.
That’s right! Three articles next week and I’ll be back with my first bullet journal. I will even include excerpts from my second and third bujos to serve as additional visual guides.