If the Mirror Goes Away, Can I Still See Myself?

I have been reflecting on friendship, some learnings that have only been made possible from my tender space of transition and solitude.

I have a lot of friends who I think are fun (or pick your own word here).  One of things I like about fun friends is that I also feel fun when I’m with them.  Sometimes I get to be irreverent or goofy, or I get to have access to laughter or cleverness in my banter or texting. And I think I have always thought of access to this silly space as a gift of friendship.

Really, the people we love and are drawn to do have a gift they can give us: they can hold up a mirror and reflect back a trait or way of being that we like about ourselves. And that is a gift and is certainly an important phenomenon for us social creatures. But I think I’m learning that it can also be problematic.

This morning, I had a tree-falling-in-the-forest philosophical moment.  You know, the query about whether the tree actually makes noise when it falls even if no one hears it? So, what happens to me – in me – if I am spending time alone and there is no one available to hold a mirror for me to see myself in? Am I still funny?

And why is it that I can be pretty sure that a tree makes noise when it falls whether anyone is there to witness it or not, but it is so very hard for me some days to remember my own sense of fun, my worth and magnificence when I am by myself and there is no mirror in sight?

Because when we give our friends the power to hold that mirror, do we also give them the power to take something away when they put the mirror down? I am learning that I have given away that power pretty regularly in my life.

Really, the fact is that our cleverness and irreverence are our own; they aren’t given to us by our friends or families. We get to take them with us wherever we go. And my work – maybe the work for many of us – is to allow and invite the images, the beautiful funny and lovely and loveable ways our friends see us and reflect to us in that mirror, to let those images get seared into us, so we can peek at them even in an empty room. To remember that a reflection is only a reflection and the real, 3D part is alive in us … even when we are alone.

What do you forget to see about you when the mirror gets put down?

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