Those who don’t listen, can’t question.
Only when ‘the cup is empty’ can we receive,
hear what is being said, perceive what is happening
and begin to question critically. (Chuang Tsu)

Reflective Practice consists of two main elements: Reflection and Reflexivity.

Reflection is the in-depth review of events, either alone or with support from a coach, trusted peers or a group. The reflector attempts to work out what happened, what they thought or felt about it, who was involved, when and where, and what these others might have experienced and thought and felt about it from their own perspectives.

Its aim is to bring experiences into focus from as many angles as possible: people, place, relationships, timing, chronology, causality, connections, the social and political context, and so on. Reflection might prove something thought to be vital to be insignificant, or lead to insight about something unnoticed at the time, pinpointing perhaps when a seemingly innocent detail was missed.

Reflexivity is finding strategies to question our own attitudes, theories-in-use, values, assumptions, prejudices and habitual actions; to understand our complex roles in relation to others (Bager-Charleson, 2010). To be reflexive is to examine, for example, the limits of our knowledge, of how our own behaviour plays into organizational structures that are counter to our own personal and professional values, and why such practices might marginalize groups or exclude individuals. It is the process of questioning how congruent our actions are with our espoused values and theories (Bolton, 2014). Reflexivity is the adventure of standing back from belief and value systems and observing habitual ways of thinking and relating to others.

Flourister provides you with strategies and development journeys to conduct these internal dialogues, with support from trusted peers. Flourister helps you facilitate identification, examination and modification of the theories-in-use that shape your behaviour.

Many reflection assignments offered by Flourister begin with one of the querying words, or tin-openers, setting you on a journey of asking more and more significant questions:

I keep six honest serving men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
(Kipling, 1902)