Letter #11: Reflection is THE Learning Tool
Looking out at Ko Phangan from the north-eastern tip of Ko Samui
Dear Friend
So I’m now back home from my two-week holiday in Ko Samui in the south of Thailand. It was a wonderful family holiday, spanning three generations and three continents.
However, as I mentioned in last week’s truncated and late (!) Letter, this holiday put me in deep reflective mode. It’s these reflections I’d like to share with you this week, and perhaps in the next couple of Letters too. Because taking time out to reflect upon your life and all the happenings in it is HUGE and HUGELY beneficial to you!
First must come a few words about the process of reflecting. I cannot recommend you put one single change into your life more than making reflective thinking an integral part of your daily life!
Why?
Because everything we do in life comes out of our thinking, whether the thoughts are subconsciously or consciously formed. Reflective thinking is conscious thinking, and by cultivating and regularly practising it we no longer are enslaved to the contents of our subconscious mind.
(My book talks about this in full.)
Reflective thinking is experiential learning
As an unorthodox educator I promote reflective thinking as a major tool for learning about and understanding one’s self and one’s own mind and, more generally, the human condition and the world out there that we all share and depend upon.
Out of understanding arises freedom. We block our own freedom by resisting what is, and resisting what happens. Understanding leads to acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, peace, love. We stop fighting life!
Reflective thinking is self-education, it is experiential learning, it is lifelong learning, and it is finding OUR truth in OUR life. Because your truth is your own lived-out experience of life. Truth is the connection between you and the world around you, and it is the connection between me and the world around me.
THAT is the only truth in our human world. Truth is a subjective thing, and it must be, because you cannot take you out of the equation!
I realise this may be contentious, because our so-called logical western world tells us that truth lies in being objective, but I personally don’t see how that’s possible without the human being.
It’s why I can never tell you what is true, what the truth is, I can only tell you what my own truth is. For me, truth is me living in alignment with the world around me, and sharing my perspectives with those in the world around me.
Now, if you know I’m doing this with integrity, and a perceptive ability to interpret my experiences, then you are in a great position to learn things for yourself from what I’m saying. You can now compare what I experienced, reflected upon and am now reporting to you, with your own experiences in life, and how you interpret them.
That’s how true education works. (Which is my whole point of being: spreading true education.) And it’s why what you do and what I do in life is important, and the more we share the more we learn from each other.
It’s not about whether we agree or disagree, or whether something is good or bad, right or wrong, to be liked or disliked, it’s about seeking intelligent understanding of all that we experience, hear, feel, and see, and we can only do this by reflecting upon all that which we experience, and expressing our thoughts, ideas and understandings to others (and to ourselves).
Only by speaking out can we find out if our interpretations of life are fair, unfair, correct, wide of the mark, or whatever. Unless we can get reactions from others, we are stuck with our own beliefs, thoughts, ideas, and assumptions.
Which is pretty much the way of a human world dominated by media, which in turn happens because we were all (well, a good 99%) badly disempowered during our schooling. It’s why we look out there for facts, truth, what is right, what to do, how to behave and so on. It was drummed into us during 12 years and 14,000 classroom hours of schooling to listen to those who society tells us are the experts.
Reflective thinking is our way of reclaiming the innate intelligence, desire to learn, curiosity and creativity that is our birthright, but which the school system did its level best to steal from us.
Reflective thinking encourages us to take responsibility for our own life. And responsibility is the pathway to all that is brilliant about being human.
How to do reflective thinking
Three main things need to be understood:
Reflective thinking becomes a way of life, and because society trains us to not do it, initially you may have to proactively set aside time and space on a regular basis to reflect upon your life and the world around you.
Reflective thinking makes you conscious; it is you doing conscious thinking, putting yourself into the present moment, to better understand what already happened, or what is happening now, by contemplating upon it rather than being focused on living it. We can differentiate between reflection-on-action (reflecting after the event) and reflection-in-action (reflecting during the event). The latter requires a higher skill level of presence and attentive listening.
To reflect upon something you must first have observed it with awareness. We can only reflect upon something we have noticed. Observing is an activity of the mind, while awareness is a state of mind. Awareness opens the mind up, removing preoccupations or distractions, and now it is able to receive, pay attention, observe, watch, listen, hear, read, notice. Combined, they allow us to process the current moment, to notice the happenings and situations that take place now.
You can remember this brilliant and liberating cognitive tool with the acronym OAR: observe with awareness and then reflect upon what it means to you.
The last thought on reflection for now is that to become skilled in it, and to make it second nature, you will need to become comfortable with what I call doing alone-time.
This is nothing to do with being lonely, rather it is giving yourself time to yourself, to breathe, to take a breather, to slow down, to go within, to contemplate, to reflect, to question, to explore, to inquire, to learn.
On a separate, but related matter…
Consider this about all the tasks that I have been setting each week in each Letter: all of them are asking you to stop what you’re doing, and to take time to think on things, to consider what you already know, to recall past happenings and to think about them again, and to raise awareness of things in your own mind.
If you’ve been doing all the tasks you will have been practising reflective thinking and insightful learning; if you’ve been skipping them (perceived lack of value in doing them; kidding yourself you will return later to do them!), then you’re missing out on your own evolution, because learning, as an integral feature of our life, definitively leads to our greater health and wellbeing.
It’s never too late to start doing something, including the tasks in our Letters! And speaking of which, some tasks for you now…
Pre-Reading Task
Take a few minutes to think on these things:
Have you got a favourite spot of nature that you love going to?
How often do you get there? Could you get there more often? Do you go alone or with others? What do you do there?
How does it make you feel? Visualise yourself there and see how this makes you feel.
Ko Samui and Ko Phangan in 1991-2000
Reading Task
In today’s Letter I’m writing about the island experience I used to have in the 1990s in Thailand. I will then write about my experience in the last couple of weeks in the next Letter. I believe a lot can be understood about our whole modern world—and all its troubles and pains—from my tales of these two islands 33 years apart.
Firstly some ‘educated guesswork’ on your part. Write down in your notebook what you think I used to do on a typical day on my holidays on these islands back in those days. As you read, see how well you guessed.
As you read the following passage, notice your reactions to what I have written. What emotions do you feel? How much would you like to experience what I’m writing about? Does it inspire you to do something, or to want to make some changes to your lifestyle?
I first went to Ko Samui in 1991 when I was in Thailand for my big travel adventure (after which I ended up living here). We arrived at night time, so while we had a big fun night at the well-known Reggae Pub, it was in the morning when I opened up my beachside bungalow door, to lay my eyes on the island for the first time, that my true excitement instantly hit stratospheric levels.
I was agog at what I was looking at. The colours were mesmerising, the beach scene spectacular. Nothing in my life had prepared me for this! It was better than any picture perfect postcard I had seen, and it was for real.
As a nature-lover and somebody who had had holidays in a few countries already, I was looking out on a scene that filled my whole being with awe and wonder. I was immediately head over heels in love with this tropical island!
As I stepped out of my wooden bungalow onto the white sand beach, I saw lots of palm trees spread around the resort garden area and along the shore, bulging with coconuts, with colourful flowering bushes everywhere, and I looked out at the sea which was totally flat, mirror-like, and with 2 millimetre waves gently lapping into the shore. Early morning sunlight bathed the whole scene, flickering and dancing with the shady parts on the white sand all around the bungalow resort. The sea water was super clear, and shallow, and as I looked from shoreline to horizon line right there in front of me, I saw various shades of greens and blues, from a yellowy green to a deep sea green to an impressive dark blue.
(I looked at other bungalows and saw hammocks strung up in their verandas, and later that day I bought my own. Hammock time had entered my life, and hammock time taught me how to do reflective thinking!)
The only noises were the mynah birds, a gentle breeze, and whatever insect activity was going on. There was no road in sight, no cars, and not many people to be seen. When I took a walk along the beach, there’d just be a few others, and sometimes nobody! I saw no buildings more than one storey in height, and nearly all were made with local timber and natural materials. Palm trees dominated.
My friend back in England had told me of his tales on Ko Samui, and I knew it sounded like my kind of heaven, but the reality was just incredible to behold.
During our travel adventure, my friend and I were to spend about two months in Samui and her smaller northern neighbour, Ko Phangan, and my recollections now are of living in permanent bliss and joy and fun, and I have to imagine I felt totally connected with our world and life itself.
It’s clear to me now that this time in Samui and Phangan stirred my soul into action big time, and was the beginning of my spiritual explorations into life.
We spent time in Chaweng Beach, Big Buddha Beach and most of all in Lamai Beach. For two weeks we were in Had Rin Beach over on Ko Phangan. This is the beach where the famous/infamous Full Moon Party takes place every month. We found ourselves at the party for that month, and it was an incredible night, starting with watching a huge full moon simply rise up out of the sea, on a beach which would be hard to better anywhere in the world, with about 12 bungalow resorts and hundreds of palm trees all along it, and hardly anything else.
I was lucky enough to experience this party as it used to be, before the commercial monster took over.
Life was super slow on these islands, everything was beautiful, and every day I could not wait for the next meal time because the coconut curries, fruit shakes, and banana fritters and pancakes were serious pleasures.
Prices were ridiculously cheap compared to back in Britain, and to make my budget go much further for our travels, I drank zero beer. We made friends with various other travellers who, too, were staying put for as long as possible in this tropical nirvana.
I found that meeting other travellers was always lots of fun and it was a feature of our itinerant life to swap tales of our travels. In Lamai Beach in Ko Samui we became a bit of a community. The local, beautifully laid back, Lamai village was set back from the beach, and had various eating places and a few shops. It also had cafe style places which listed on a whiteboard what movies or other TV fare they would be showing that evening. I could not imagine at the time why people would want to watch a western movie when they were on a tropical island!
I think it’s fair to say that Samui had such a profound effect on me that, more than anything else on our travels, it led to me accidentally emigrating to Thailand. I had found a rhythm of life, a nature, and a cuisine, which 100% suited me. I also loved all my interactions with Thai people.
Fun, joy and a deep pleasure in being alive filled my every moment of every day during those beautiful island days. And I also realised what freedom was to me for the first time in my life: waking up each day with nothing that I have got to do, only things I may choose to do or not, and only to be decided here and now. It was real time living, present moment living, the past mattered only when recalling exciting travel adventures, and the future was nowhere to be seen, nor of any concern.
The money did of course run out shortly before Christmas, and no doubt because of my love of tropical Thailand white sand beach island life, I really busted through my natural impatience, my British expectation for things to go wrong, and what is today called our ‘comfort zone’ to land a job teaching English in Bangkok.
The ecstatic feeling I had leaving the airconditioned private language school which had just given me my job (working abroad, off the cuff, never taught before… wow!) stays with me, etched in stone in my memory bank. I was not going home, I could stay in this wonderful land Thailand, the new life I had glimpsed was now reality, etc etc.
Heady times.
I then lived the decade of my life during the entire 1990s. I loved my teaching work in Bangkok, but already addicted to island life, I managed to make three to four trips down to the islands each and every year.
Most of my visits were just me, because I had found part of the whole island experience was doing hammock time on the veranda of my beachside bungalow, and being fully tuned into all the nature around me. Being with other people (I was single, but my job teaching Thai adults put lots of incredibly beautiful women my way - one day I’ll write the book of these times!) would detract from my experience. Plus, by being on my own, I would meet more travellers in evening times and this meant lots of tales and stories and adventures to share, and new ones to create.
And we humans are storytellers at heart, and these were real stories from real people, not the media world.
So what I’ll do now is describe two processes which became a huge part of my life, shaped it, and undoubtedly led to so much of my learning about our human condition, our behaviour and our potential - from observing, being fully aware, and from contemplating and reflecting upon things in my hammock.
I will talk about what I reflected upon in the next Letter.
My typical journey down to the islands
So I lived in a one-room apartment in Bangkok. I had three different employers during the 1990s, and would change my apartment with each new job to make sure I did not waste any of my life in the horrendous Bangkok traffic jams of those days.
This was nice simple living: one room, paid twice monthly, one monthly bill, one ATM card, one key and that was it. No mobile phone, no TV, no internet.
My excitement each time would begin two weeks before each trip to the islands. I would spot a quiet period in my timetable where most classes would naturally come to their end (if a group wanted to study another course, they would delay signing up for two weeks and wait for me to return!), and then get on the canal boat to the middle of town.
Arriving at the downtown pier, I then got myself onto a motorbike taxi and off we sped, weaving through the gridlocked streets to the grand Hualamphong train station, the main one in Bangkok in those days.
Excitedly I’d head straight for the ‘advance booking’ ticket office, and proud of how my Thai language was progressing, would navigate the buying of my train ticket all in Thai. It would always be second class fan. Not air-con: too cold and it hermetically sealed you inside, whereas a huge excitement of these tremendous train journeys was looking out of the open window and watching and smelling rural Thailand as we trundled on down the tracks.
I would get a lower berth if possible, but sometimes was too late and had to settle for upper berth.
I now had two weeks of anticipation, which was marvellous!
Incidentally, we were only paid for the hours we taught, so taking holidays was no big problem, so long as I had saved up my spending money. By not drinking any beer (and being a popular teacher, so I was always getting new classes given me), I was easily able to save.
On the day, the train would depart late afternoon early evening time. Here’s how smooth Thailand works: I would walk from my apartment to the main road, immediately flag down a passing taxi, be taken to the train station near where I lived, have a tasty and fiery curry and get in the mood and mode of travel while waiting, get on the train when it came and find my seat and sleeping berth. Great times, great way to travel!
12 hours later it would arrive in Surat Thani train station about 6am, whereupon a bus would be waiting to transport those of us going to the island to the mainland pier on a half-hour crazy fast ride.
There would be about an hour to kill until the boat departure, and this gave me a chance to have a top breakfast and further build up my excitement at arriving in my personal heaven. Then the boat left and two hours later or so the boat would arrive at Ko Samui or Ko Phangan, whichever island I was starting at.
Back in heaven.
Upon getting off the boat a songthaew would be waiting (a sort of pick-up truck converted into a taxi) and this would then take me straight to my bungalow resort. I would typically get there late morning.
So my journey would take me from door to door via taxi, train, bus, boat, taxi, all seamlessly integrating, and it would be about 18-20 hours in total. I loved the whole trip every time, never got bored with it.
And then I would get my beachside bungalow, settle in, tie up my trusty hammock, and start living island life and island pace of life.
Travel in Thailand really is so organised, so much fun, and you can meet lots of people along the way.
My typical island experience in the 1990s
So I’m now ensconced in my beachside wooden bungalow, spartan but clean, and, most importantly, right on the white sand beach. One of the truly special things about these two islands was that you had sea, white sand beach, bungalow resort, sandy or red earth tracks leading back to the village road in that order. It means you had no noise from roads or traffic, you had a real sense of being at one with nature, and away from the busy mad world.
I would spend a lot of time in my hammock. I could look out at the greens and blues of the ocean right in front of me, the deep blue sky above it, and this huge vast space of glorious greens and blues was mesmerising. I think the huge space really puts the soul into gear.
Around my bungalow were coconut trees, other palms, tropical pants and flowering bushes of various colours, other bungalows dotted about, and white sand everywhere. All was peaceful and quiet, and the only manmade noise would be the odd longtail boat that came around the headland at one end of the bay, chugging its way into sight and sound.
I would watch this boat slowly cross the whole bay, loving the chug chug sound of the engine and this would be the main action sequence of my own movie each day. It would pass round the other headland, and it was back to me and my hammock with all the nature around me.
I would see and hear huge bumblebees buzzing into my space, I would watch crimson red dragonflies zooming around and hovering, I would suddenly spot a foot-long red-headed green-bodied lizard scurrying along the sand or stock still in a tree. I would marvel at all the huge butterflies that fluttered around at tremendous speeds, belying their almost non-existent weight. The mynah birds would usually be making their incredible variety of noises, and if it was hot then the cicadas would break out into their loud chorus which filled the airwaves, and when they just as suddenly stop, silent peace would flood the mind!
Aside from being in, being connected to, and enjoying the delights of, the tropical island sights and nature around my bungalow, I had a variety of activities to choose from each day when I would feel the urge:
I could reflect and ponder on the ways of humans (brutal, yet beautiful: how could this be?)
I could reflect and ponder on the meaning of life, who I was, how my mind worked
I would write lots of my thoughts and observations into my notebook
I could dream up new and motivating learning activities for my students when I got back to Bangkok, putting them down in my notebook
I could read whatever book I had with me for the trip
I could put my Walkman on and listen to all my reggae music
I could get up off my hammock and go swimming, collect shells, walk down the beach, or get on my hired motorbike and explore the stunningly beautiful and palm-tree covered island, along roads mostly empty of other vehicles
and three times a day I had to solve a problem: what to choose for my breakfast, lunch and dinner: the foods were tasty beyond any language to describe!
And that was my typical day, which I would repeat for my whole trip. In the evenings, often, I would meet other people on their own travels. I used to be a bit envious of them, just travelling, but they would be envious of me when hearing how I was now living in Thailand! I grew to absolutely love swapping travel tales, and the chance to talk about our human world to people from various countries.
And after the holiday? Post-holiday blues? No, not one bit, back to my fun-filled Bangkok and teaching life!
Now, I hope this has given you a sense of the islands, how they were, and what impact they had on me (and many others) and how I approach life. If I try to calculate it I must have done thousands of hours of hammock time, and I truly feel that any other westerner living the usual busy life would have learned all that I’ve learned if they had had the time and space and beauty that I would get from my trips to the islands. I got a good roll of the dice when I decided to travel to Thailand back in 91!
Going back to the start of this Letter, it was on my hammock that I perfected the art of reflecting and thinking on life, without ever trying to. Reflective thinking simply came to me in that particular environment.
It’s why I say one is best off creating a regular slot of time, and a favourite (or convenient) space, to practise and master one’s own thinking, mindfulness, meditation, contemplation and so on. These are the ways of getting into our conscious mind, and this is essential practice for those who desire health and wellbeing in their life.
Nowadays, with me being a language teacher, and with so much observation and reflection practice under my belt over 30 years or so, I can reflect, live, think, observe, experience, all at the same time.
~~~~~
Next week I will paint a different picture of these two islands, the 2024 version, and I will then raise various important issues for your consideration and reflection.
Because, undoubtedly in our times our human world is faced with a dichotomy:
There is a real, tangible, omnipresent sickness in people—physical, psychological, spiritual—all over the world, but perhaps most keenly felt in the more developed, usually Western, nations.
Yet, simultaneously and for sure uncoincidentally, never before have we had such an opportunity to learn how to live without conflict, and in peace.
The old world is giving way to the new world, and pursuing wellness in our life puts us firmly in the rebuilding world, which I think is the only place to be! It also protects us from the nonsense going on in the old world as it releases its last toxic fumes.
Post-Reading Task
Consider mass tourism, which began in the 1980s with the advent of cheap plane travel, and consider the internet, which effectively became a part of our lives at the end of the 1990s.
How do you think these two aspects of the modern world have changed us and our lifestyle, and the world itself? In what ways have they led to progress, and is such progress a double-edged sword? How so?
If you are on your own, write down your thoughts in your notebook. If you can have a discussion with a friend or two, all the better.
Weekly Health Tip
Get yourself some epsom salts (magnesium sulphate) and put them in your next bath, and then allow them to soak into you. Magnesium is a super important micro-nutrient that our bodies need, and due to poor diet based on processed and refined foods, many people are lacking magnesium, leading to many symptoms and ailments.
If you don’t have a bath (like me, I’ve never had a bath in Thailand… luckily I’ve been known to have a shower from time to time…), then do a foot soak instead.
Weekly Task
Each evening before bed, or upon waking up and after your morning ablutions, or any other time to suit, sit down with your notebook (writing in it is optional, see if it works for you in this task) in a comfortable place without distractions, and just replay events of the day just gone in your head. Recall if you had any strong emotions, and how you acted, whether positive or negative. Try and think about the causes or triggers for your emotions. Ask yourself any questions about the world that you don’t really understand, but would like to learn more about. Often we know more than we think, but unless we ask ourselves pertinent questions we will be unaware of what we do know.
(In fact, it’s a really important skill to master, asking questions of oneself and of others. Yet, be aware we were all discouraged from doing this during our schooling. Crazy education.)
Do this every day for the week, and then see if you wish to continue. Both reflecting, and taking some alone-time for yourself, are really beneficial for all humans who wish to evolve, develop themselves, and live with greater health and wellbeing. Knowing you are going to do regular reflections means you will have to become more aware and observe more in your life. Perfect!
Word of the Week
forgiveness
When we hold grudges, resentments, hurt and desires for revenge, we are holding a tremendously powerful force of negative energy that puts strain on our whole body and mind, whether we can notice it or not.
I call ‘resentment’ the emotional cancer that never stops eating away at our ability to feel content and peaceful.
You might like to ask yourself if you hold any resentments or grudges, or if you still blame somebody for being unjust, unfair or nasty towards you. Can you find it within you to just simply forgive that person in your own heart? If you can, so much stored up pain and strain will drop away. Don’t need to forget, but forgiving is really always self-forgiving and releasing toxic energy from our body and mind.
Sentence of the Week
Not everybody who is alone is lonely; not everybody who is lonely is alone.
Put that in your pipe and smoke reflect on it!
~~~~~
Meanwhile, I shall see you next week with the updated version of my favourite two islands, and then we shall reflect upon ‘progress’.
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