Tag Archives: mirrors

Who is Mirroring You?

What do the people around you reflect?

Many times I’ve come across the concept that the other people that I encounter are mirrors for what’s happening within me. The first time I encountered the phrase I sat back and contemplated it, rolling the phrase “People are mirrors for your inner self.” I knew it was important, but I didn’t quite understand it or realize it.

For many years after I tried to grasp the concept, tried to feel what it means for others to be a mirror of myself or to be a mirror for the person. I think once the concept is fully realized in a person will change the whole person’s behavior and the way they interact with people. Once fully realized, a person can see or feel the sweeping undertows of an interaction with another person and what is truly going on in a situation.

A small piece of Maya or illusion is removed.

Sometimes my brain has a very hard time conceptualizing a particular concept. This was one such concept. My brain twisted and bent as it strived to make sense of people mirroring me for a few years now. Often I would meet a person and do my best to see what was being mirrored back at me only to not be able to find anything at all. I would be asking the question: “What is it that I don’t like about them? What is it that annoys me?”

And if they were really annoying or infuriating to me I would say to myself, “Oh God, seriously? I really hope I am not like that at all!”

It was rare that the mirror would spawn deep reflection – my brain hurt – until I finally realized a small part of the concept just last month: Whatever I get annoyed about, I am. This was beautifully shown to me by the Universe and a friend of mine. I was complaining to her about how some people make plans: “They leave it all up in the air and I never know if we are actually going to meet or not! And I get so confused sometimes!”

My friend said: “You do that too.”

Stunned, my words died in midsentence. “What? When?”

She proceeded to give me several examples of when I had done the exact thing I was complaining about.

And it hit me: I am what I complain about.

Last week I witnessed a woman who was reflecting parts of me that I don’t like to look at or accept within myself. Because I refused to look at this aspect of me my reaction to her became stronger and stronger as I fought it – I wasn’t looking at my victim state because I wasn’t being a victim therefore why should I look there?

Deeper reflection over time revealed that there are still areas of my life where the victim mentality comes into play. By allowing myself to have a victim mentality and not being on guard of my mental patterns I step out of my personal power. I don’t take full responsibility for my life, giving it away to whatever fits in that moment of time.

Something else I have recently noticed is that in all the mirrors I’ve ever looked at, I was always trying to find what was wrong with me. I was always asking the wrong questions. I believe that asking those questions was part of the reason that I had such a hard time conceptualizing the idea – I didn’t believe that a person could mirror positive aspects of me too.

The Universe is not a tyrant.

The Universe is expressed in my reality right now as a duality – there is positive and there is negative and therefore mirrors in my life express both. Mirrors can be a positive experience!

Mirrors can be positive and beautiful too, just like you!

Realizing the other part – that you are a mirror for others – can change interactions with others as well. There are times when I have been hanging out with a person and something gets triggered. From my perspective I’ve done nothing to provoke or annoy the person, yet something happened for them that wasn’t pleasant.

Understanding that I may have mirrored for another an aspect they hate allows more acceptance and compassion to flow from me to them. Having experienced my own reaction to someone innocently reflecting one of my most undesirable aspects of myself in my opinion, I can totally empathize with a person who receives the same from me.

When a reaction like this happens, if a person is able to be conscious and allow the reaction to happen without judgment more clarity for both people can be attained. The person on the receiving end is able to step back from the situation and stay calm. He is able to practice allowance, his own wisdom and compassion. He needs to be able to decipher what is going in the situation – is he a mirror, or is he something more? How can he best respond to this situation? Does the reactor need space?

Sometimes the only thing the receiver can do is accept it. Sometimes the receiver must intervene. I would love to one day have the ability to take all with calmness and yet give out exactly what the other person needs to learn what the Universe is trying to teach, just like the story of a monk who threw his shoe at a student to make a point, or Jesus turning the merchants tables over in the temple in anger. (I’m sure most traditions have similar stories that I’d love to hear about as they bring a smile to my lips).

The person reacting needs to be able to fully react without judgment or fear, and learn from his reaction by having the space to process what happened and why. This must processing must be done on the reactors own terms and in his own time.

I feel like this happens quite often on a less extreme scale in many of my interactions with people, and part of the reason why I don’t want to respond to certain people or vice versa. I truly believe that every encounter with another is a learning opportunity. If I could use them all without being overwhelmed or driven crazy, I would! 🙂

P.S. Pictures in today’s blog posts were not taken by me. Click the image to go to the owners Flickr portfolio.

Self-Acceptance

The world is a wonderful harmonious place. It is full of sunshine, rainbows, and faeries. There are little Unicorns traipsing along the rainbows if you look close enough, and the fey regularly come out to happily play. The trees reach up into the sky unremittingly, the birds chirp joyously, and the plants all around us innocently grow. Humans help each other whenever possible and listen empathetically when appropriate. Time doesn’t matter  so there is no rush to accomplish anything because it is all completed right on Universal time. Laughter and joy permeate in the air around us. Kindness and generosity are regular occurrences. There is naught a harmful intention in the air for all is cared for and wonderful to bear.

This is what my brain naturally thinks of the world before I leave my bed. Then I get up. Reality is very far from the perfect fairy tale world that I like to think I live in.

I have been told over and over and over again certain things: The way I think is wrong. I am naive. The world doesn’t work that way. People aren’t kind and generous. I can’t trust people. Helping people is not worth the time nor expense – they are all trying to get something from you. Happiness is not possible unless you have lots of money. And yet money doesn’t buy you happiness.

Most of my life I’ve thought that I am weird. I view the world differently and that, I’m told, is a “bad” thing. I’ve allowed all of the thoughts listed above, and my beliefs about myself that are based on other peoples thoughts to stop my natural tendencies, personality, and who I am from being shown. By doing that I allowed my power to be taken away.

Now that I am in the process of taking back my power and stepping into it there is much to learn and many thought patterns that will gradually be reformed. One thing that I have noticed is that  when I am centred into my heart and grounded the outside worlds opinions don’t matter nearly as much, and I am able to confidently spread my joy and heart openly.

When I was in grade one or two I had my first jarring experience of not being accepted. My parents had enrolled me in a Christian private school that was rather extreme in a lot of their views and actions unknown to my parents at the time. What my parents were concerned about was the high quality of education provided by the school, which it definitely provided.

In class we had been asked if our parents were Christians. I didn’t raise my hand because my parents weren’t “Christians” by the schools definition of the word. The next day during the first recess I was approached by a group of girls. The leader of the group asked me “Is it true that your parents aren’t Christians?”

I, excruciatingly shy, nodded, surprised to be surrounded by so many people. The leader then informed me: “My mommy says I can’t play with you because your parents aren’t Christians.” The other girls nodded, and all of them walked away. I distinctly remember the feeling of shock, disappointment and confusion.

Reflecting on this memory illustrates to me that non-acceptance is taught or learned. It is a belief or thought pattern that until otherwise expressed most children would not think other than total acceptance of what is, whether that be a person, idea, animal, etc.

At first I thought self-acceptance was a value made up of a collection of beliefs, but now I’ve decided that self-acceptance is the sum of deeply ingrained beliefs. If a person lacks self-acceptance this shows with various statements that tell what the person thinks of themselves or believes  about themselves. The same goes if a person has self-acceptance.

The beliefs that dictate if we will or can accept ourselves for who we are define what we think of ourselves. All of these beliefs and self-acceptance rest energetically within the solar plexus chakra. Therefore, self-acceptance is directly tied to and effects  self-esteem, body image, stepping into one’s power and self-confidence.

Hug yourself! Your beautiful too!

Some of the beliefs that may contribute to not accepting ourselves are:

“I can’t do that because its too hard”

“I am too stupid”

“I am too fat”

Versus

“I am capable of working hard to achieve what I want.”

“I am intelligent. It is okay to make mistakes.”

“I am beautiful the way I am.”

The last couple of weeks I struggled with my own issues of self-acceptance. There were many people who came into my life who were mirrors for aspects of myself that I don’t really care to think about or look at. In fact, sometimes I refuse to look at those aspects. When the aspects of myself are mirrored and I find myself reacting strongly to the person mirroring the aspect I know that I am not accepting something of me.

One woman last week stood out in particular. When I saw this woman, I saw me. When I saw her victim state I saw mine. And this was repulsive to me. She was a reminder of a part of me, of who I had been at one point in my life, and I really did not like it. This was a part of myself that I found hard to look at never mind love. It was much easier to ignore that part of me and pretend that it had never happened.

And so I question: Is a person whole only when they accept all parts of themselves?

A person is whole when they are able to accept the fact that they are going to cry, be angry, be upset, have bad days, have bad hair, and that they have a “shadow side”. Sometimes we are going to think “bad” things, we are going to make judgments on ourselves or others, do things that we are going to regret. And all of that is okay. It is all part of our human experience and all part of our own personal journeys.