# Self-Assessment > Self-assessment is the Day of Reflection practice of deliberately examining whether who you are being and what you are doing actually belong to you or are inherited from others. - Canonical: https://sassani.app/topic/self-assessment # Self-Assessment Bashar frames self-assessment as a deliberate, periodic pause — an Essassani ritual he calls the Day of Reflection — in which you slow down, detach from daily events, and ask plainly whether who you are being and what you are doing actually belong to you. The question is not moral scrutiny; it is calibration, a way of clearing inherited assumptions so that the natural self can be recognized and lived. ## The Day of Reflection The source session opens by transmitting an Essassani practice from their ancient history: one day a year, set completely aside for yourself, to assess and reflect on who you were and what you were doing — to determine whether you were who you wanted to be, doing what you wanted to be doing. The stated purpose was to ensure you did not get caught up in assumptions, definitions, beliefs, patterns, and actions that had nothing to do with your true natural core self. The instruction is concrete: slow down, look at yourself (in a mirror if it helps), and ask, am I who I want to be? Am I doing the things I really prefer to do? Examine actions and patterns and find out which really belong to you and which are holdovers from parents, peers, and society that may have nothing to do with you. Bashar is explicit that this is not a blanket rejection of outside advice — it is a deliberate decision about which suggestions actually serve you, made from who you really feel yourself to be. The reward of the practice is the natural self. When you relax into your true core self, that self is automatically and naturally creative, joyous, happy, loving, spontaneous, inspirational, and inspired — the reflection of being in synchronous harmony with creation. Self-assessment, done honestly, does not produce a corrected to-do list; it produces a vibration, a frequency you can then recognize as you and return to. ## Naming the belief that is not you The session applies the same principle interactively. When a questioner reports restlessness, irritability, and a blank wall in expressing themselves, Bashar locates the block in an unnamed idea that is not the person's true frequency. Any inertia that makes you feel sluggish is the containment of ideas that are not your true frequency; the real you is relatively inertia-less. The instruction is to find out specifically what belief seems more important to uphold than allowing your full creativity. When you name the thing, you have power over it, and when you name it, it is dissolved — only the things you do not name seem to have power over you. This turns self-assessment into a precise tool: do not let out-of-alignment material remain as generalized static chatter (Bashar's "yada yada yada"). Find the specific phrase, the specific definition. Once identified, it becomes transparent and can no longer automatically and unconsciously influence you. ## Accept the stepping stone you are A second application corrects a common distortion of self-assessment: that it is about cataloguing faults to fix. Asked what to do with traits one sees in the mirror that do not feel like the highest self, Bashar answers that you must accept yourself as you are, because if you do not accept yourself as you are you cannot transform into all you can become. Even the things that represent what you do not prefer must be owned, valued, relished, accepted, loved — because they are still you, and they were a necessary stepping stone to any other you could be. Devalue the stepping stone and you remove your ability to step from it: you create a gap in the path. Self-assessment, on this account, is not a project of self-rejection; it is a project of valuing where you are precisely so that you can move from it. (Bashar adds, in the same exchange, that allergy can be read as symbolic of self-rejection through specific symbology — a metaphor, not a substitute for medical care.) ## Let confusion unlock you A third exchange reframes confusion as a positive state in self-assessment. When the questioner reports being confused by Bashar's framing of the difference between self and true self, he tells her this is a good beginning: confusion used positively unlocks you from presupposition and allows a fresh start. The instruction is to let go of trying to make sense, so that paradoxically the things that are actually you can lock in, and a more refined sense can return. The same exchange names the whole enterprise plainly: when you really know something is true, do not guess — know that you know, and act like you know. Honest self-assessment is what tells the difference between what you actually know and what you are only telling yourself you know. ## Practical implications Take a deliberate day (your birthday, or any day you choose) for reflection alone: slow down, look at yourself, and ask whether you are who you want to be and doing what you prefer. The point is recalibration to your core frequency, not a review of accomplishments. Sort inherited material. Examine actions and patterns and ask which actually belong to you versus which are holdovers from parents, peers, and society. Outside advice is not rejected; it is decided about. When you feel sluggish, restless, or blocked, look for the unnamed belief that is not your true frequency. Naming a non-you belief specifically dissolves its automatic power over you; generalized static chatter must be made specific. Value the stepping-stone self you are now. If you devalue where you are, you cannot step from it; acceptance of the present self is the precondition of transformation, not its obstacle. Let confusion be a positive tool. Releasing the demand that things immediately make sense can unlock you from presuppositions and allow a more refined understanding to return. Over time the ritual becomes way of life: on Essassani the culture no longer needs a Day of Reflection because every day is one, and every day only what is natural self is chosen. The ritual is training-wheels for that continuous self-assessment. ## Representative passages On the day of reflection, whatever day that was that we chose it to be, we would take that day to, in a sense, detach from what might have been called the typical daily events, take a day completely for ourselves, to assess and reflect upon who we were, what we were doing, to determine whether or not we were who we wanted to be [...] so that we would make sure we did not, in your terms, get caught up in assumptions and definitions and beliefs and patterns and actions that had nothing to do with our true natural core self.— Bashar, The Day Of Reflection (the-day-of-reflection#qa-1) Any inertia that makes you feel sluggish is the result of the containment of ideas that are not your true frequency, and thus, they slow you down. [...] So, will it be molasses or mastery? [...] Find out specifically what is the statement, what is the phrase? What is the definition? What is the belief? That seems more important to uphold than allowing yourself to express the full creativity you know you have at your disposal. [...] when you name the thing, it is dissolved.— Bashar, The Day Of Reflection (the-day-of-reflection#qa-8) If you do not accept yourself as you are, you cannot transform into all you can become. That's the paradox. [...] Own them, value them, relish them, accept them, love them because they are still you. [...] If you devalue this stepping stone, you remove your ability to step from this stone to the next one because you create a gap in the path.— Bashar, The Day Of Reflection (the-day-of-reflection#qa-9) ## Related - [Presence](https://sassani.app/topic/presence) - [Self-Love & Self-Worth](https://sassani.app/topic/self-love) - [Definitions & Beliefs](https://sassani.app/topic/definitions-and-beliefs) - [Natural Self](https://sassani.app/topic/natural-self) - [Excitement](https://sassani.app/topic/excitement) - [Permission Slips](https://sassani.app/topic/permission-slips) Markdown twin of https://sassani.app/topic/self-assessment. The HTML page is the source of truth.