My Beloved Mirrors

Nothing like a blog to loosen one's lips--or in this case, my fingertips on the keyboard.

It's been a long journey--this learning to genuinely love all aspects of myself. I had multitudes of "prodigal sons and daughters" within me begging for me to acknowledge them, to appreciate their contribution to my life and then to release them from their old roles.

In my imagination, I see each aspect of myself coming onto the stage, an actor, with a bouquet of roses, taking his/her final bow in front of an audience on its feet, applauding and cheering for a job well done, convincingly so.

Those previous two paragraphs make it sound so easy, for it was as simple as that--but I had an ego who had been protecting me and running the show for a very long time.

My ego was the left hemisphere of my brain, the part that thought myself separate from God (my tiny-feeling human survivor--my identity), and when my more negative prodigal children started coming to the fore, my ego did everything in its power to deny their existence, to squelch them, to avoid them in shame. It was afraid I wouldn't survive my acceptance of them.

At first, I was ashamed of my ego and I tried to kill her off, but I eventually realized that she, too, was an integral part of the human experience--that amazing gift given to me by God--for without her, there would be no distinguishing myself from all of God's other gifts (other humans and Creation).

Early on, back in my "judge not, lest you be judged the same" days, I had an idea surface that I still use as a tool today. I used it as my mantra:

"Thanks to all who touch my life, for you are the mirrors that reflect back to me my own thoughts, beliefs and perceptions."

I am the projector of everything I perceive in this life, and it doesn't change anything if I'm out there trying to adjust the mirrors (fix other people).

I discovered that true change in my reflected outer world starts with changing what's going on within me. It's a whole lot easier and much less dramatically, traumatically messy. And it allows me to honor everyone else in their own journeys while honoring myself.

The outer world was simply a tool to help me see the struggles going on within me--struggles that could be resolved when I was aware they were there.

That's enough for now. I think the next part will be on breathing through the gift of pain...