The eternal mirror

I’ve known about the mirror principle for a while now but recently I’ve started to take it more seriously as a humbling force and helpful tool for personal growth.

In this context, the mirror principle goes something like this:  

Other people are a mirror for ourselves. When we see something in someone else that ignites a deep agitation in ourselves, what we are seeing is actually an unacknowledged truth about ourselves that we need to work through or heal. (The same is true for positive attributes as well).

This principle works for the collective as well - I came across this video of Neil deGrasse Tyson the other day, and it perfectly explains the principle at work at that scale.

“We do not see the world as it is, we see it as we are” is a quote I love and remind myself of often.

But back to the individual.

When I find myself whinging about other people, I try to stop myself, and just listen.

I reflect on what I have just said and hear it again as if I said it about myself.

It’s an almost embarrassing to realise that I’ve just openly revealed myself - flaws and all to the world.

Some helpful questions:

What unacknowledged thing about myself do I need to address or look at? 

What am I avoiding? What do I need to see?

Another way of thinking about it:

“A man sees in the world, what he carries in his heart” – Goethe

This re-frame has created space for me to reflect more honestly on myself while also softening my criticism of others.

My observations of others may be true, but knowing that I only see them (and they annoy me) because they are also true for me; makes me hold the words in a spirit of grace and compassion rather than judgement and self-righteousness.

Glass houses and all that.

✌🏻