What do YOU see in your mirror?
Mirror, Mirror
Long ago and far away, inspired by Louise Hay,
I invited my class of yoga students to face the mirror in the studio
and to look into the eyes of the person looking back at them (themselves).
Just look.
Then notice how what they felt as we did mountain and warrior poses.
Some of them reported after class that it was the hardest thing I’d ever asked them to do.
Try it!
Even minus the yoga poses, looking into the eyes of your reflection
induces a fair amount of squirming.
Which tells us we’re onto something!
Looking at yourself with loving eyes?
Easier said than done!
Thich Nhat Han advocated looking at ourselves with loving eyes.
Looking at yourself in the mirror, with the intention of looking with loving eyes
elicits all kinds of emotional gibberish, doesn’t it?
For most of us humans, looking into a mirror is generally an exercise in self criticism and self judgment.
“My hair. My eyes. my weight. My wrinkles. My knees. My..”
We Humans are designed to look for the bad
We are designed and programmed to look for bad.
And boy, do we find it when we’re looking at ourselves.
So, to be invited to look with loving eyes?
A cataclysmic event follows:
We look with the intention of seeing with loving eyes.
And we feel as though we are at war.
The War Within
Do we notice: the catch in our throat as we work to “look with loving eyes?”
and how frail our grasp is on where our thoughts automatically go?
or how tenuous is our ability to hold space in the face of the conflicting messages of “Look lovingly” versus “Find the flaw(s) as quickly as possible.”
How soon do we try to avert our gaze from our reflection?
How exhausting is the effort to hold ourself in a loving gaze when our nervous system (formed through evolution and conditioning) is screaming at us: “You’re ugly, dammit!” or “you’re fat, dammit!” or “what are you trying to prove?”
Is it even possible to shift a lifetime of looking for bad so that we can see ourselves with loving eyes?
Go.
Look.
See what happens.
Notice what you see in the order you see it.
The Question Beneath All of It
The question is: Do you WANT to shift your view of yourself from judging and criticizing to loving?
And what, exactly, does this mean?
Let’s start with what it might mean:
Looking at yourself with loving eyes might first mean that you see that you do not look with loving eyes. You see that your judgment is piercing. And you acknowledge this and you acknowledge that it may never change.
May I step in here and invite you to appreciate your courage? This is monumental, this place of seeing yourself right here right now.
Looking at yourself with loving eyes might mean that you see how you are right here right now and you do it anyway. That is, you continue with your awareness to set the intention of seeing yourself with loving eyes, looking into the mirror and acknowledging that you’re not there…and might not ever be.
This place is already filled with a deeper love for yourself than you had exercised before when you unknowingly gazed at yourself in the mirror and jumped, out of habit, to everything that’s wrong with you or to one specific thing that you despise about your appearance, aka yourself.
So, if you want to shift your perspective of yourself, bring this practice into your day.
The Quick 6-Step Practice for Every Time You Look in the Mirror
Set the intention to see yourself with loving eyes (you know, the way you see others!).
Look at yourself in the mirror.
Notice: How do you feel in your body? Where does your attention go?
Remind yourself to remember your intention to see yourself with loving eyes.
Notice: how do you feel?
Sit with whatever feeling you feel.
The Practice of a Lifetime
It may take your lifetime to get to a place where you can glance at yourself and feel the judgment, acknowledge it and replace it—if only momentarily—with a sweet, deeply appreciative thought of love for yourself.
Perhaps the love is for your courage in undertaking this shift.
Perhaps the love is for your bravery in acknowledging that this is HARD and that you may never get past this place.
Perhaps the love is for your commitment to shifting your view of yourself and doing all that it takes to do so…even if it doesn’t appear to be changing.
How Do You Succeed?
Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita advises the warrior Arjuna to do what needs to be done and to relinquish the fruit of action. The “success” is in the work itself and not in the outcome.
Whatever it is that you feel, let it be as it is.
And keep coming back. Keep glancing. Keep reminding yourself to remember.
Because with and without a mirror,
the message of “I love myself” rings loud and clear and reverberates through your whole body-mind-spirit.
It breaks the resistance from your nervous system into shared into pieces into morsels, until whole segments are dismantled and you can look at yourself in the mirror, into your eyes (and, therefore, into your soul) and say out loud, “I love myself.”
And it will be truer than you’d ever believed possible.
The mirror becomes a reminder to remember that looking at yourself with loving eyes is worth the work…because YOU are worth the work AND worth the joy of discovering another piece of yourself.
blessings,
paula.
