The mirror effect

These days I’ve been feeling pretty good about myself.

Complimenting myself, noticing all the traits I appreciate rather than the things I usually criticise. My self-compassion has somehow amplified, and last night in bed I was trying to figure out what happened, what could have possibly triggered such a significant shift. Mind you, I’m not usually too horrible towards myself—though I have definitely gone through episodes where I was—but I am an adept of self-development and have journeyed through many stages from self-hatred to self-acceptance over the years.

I had a sudden realisation: it was by seeing my own humanity reflected back to me in others that I managed to find more clemency towards myself.

Earlier that week I had spent the evening at one of my BFF’s place and another one of her friends was there. My BFF, M, had just suffered terrible heartbreak over a girl she had only started seeing and whom she considered might be ‘the one’. Since the ‘breakup’ she had fallen into a pit of self-loathing that I remembered visiting during my last breakup. You know, that dark place where one is harassed by thousands of voices screaming ‘what’s wrong with you?’, ‘how could you f*k up so bad?’, ‘don’t you ever learn?’ and other profanities.

Her friend, C, told us about the three jobs she had applied for weeks prior and did not get, ending her story with, ‘So, basically, I’m a loser.’

I looked at these two amazing people, whom I knew to possess many qualities and skills, and was shocked at how little of the truth about themselves they saw. It felt wrong, yucky, even unpleasant to hear such things. I challenged that conclusion, asking C if she would be telling ME the same, if I had failed three interviews in a row. ‘No, of course not’ was her answer, ‘but maybe I’m just not as good at my job as I imagined I was.’

I challenged again, ‘do you believe deep down that you’re good at your job?’.

‘Well, yeah, I thought so.’

‘Has anyone ever TOLD you that you were good at your job, gave you praise for it?’

‘Yes, many times.’

‘So why are you choosing to believe those people who interviewed you, and only got a glimpse of you, instead of the people who know you and have worked with you for a while? Why give strangers such power over your own self-image?’

(Yes, I often sound like I’m trying to impersonate Oprah when I’m talking to my friends.)

The following week, I noticed my self-confidence had increased, for no apparent reason. I had loosened my grip on myself, and especially on the idea that I SHOULD have found love by now, that I SHOULD be more successful by now, that I SHOULD be further along in my life accomplishments. And it was all thanks to seeing my friends talk cr*p about themselves. I realised that if I could see them the way they really were, then it must be the same for other people when they look at me. And because I KNEW I was right about them, then my friends MUST be right about me.

I don’t know what gives us the right to demean ourselves so much, because it is truly painful to hear for the people who love and know us.

How dare we say mean things to ourselves when we would never dream of spewing such accusations and sometimes insults unto our very best friends?

What separates US, from THEM? Nothing. We are all in the same boat. What I do to myself, I do to you. What you do to yourself, you do to me—or rather, you remind me that I also do it to you. Seeing ourselves reflected in others is the greatest way to learn, to see things we would otherwise never be confronted with.

When someone is envious of you, how does it make you feel? It’s that same yucky feeling. ‘Why would they envy ME, when they have so many things that I envy about them?’

Today I challenge you to ask yourself: what behaviour or traits do I see in others that I also notice in myself? How does it make me feel when I spot them in others?

What wound does it reveal in myself, that I have not healed yet?

I don’t know what collective trauma we all share that induced so much self-loathing in us and in our societies, but we need to remember that we don’t have to keep carrying that shame. That we are free to exist and make mistakes, free to love ourselves as we love our friends—who, by the way, are also imperfect.

Let us be free to be human.