The Teacher in the Mirror

When you consider the people around you, it is by no means a coincidence that you find yourself in relationships that are “tailor made” to assist in the development of personal growth based upon total honesty and humble learning. If you look closely at the individuals in your life, it is possible to recognize the complexity of divinely interwoven relationships.

Take a moment to consider the people with whom you work, share a familial or social relationship, or are connected with romantically. Have you ever wondered, on a fundamentally subconscious level, why these people? Why that person? Why are these individuals in my life? Why am I a part of their life?

The feedback you receive from your interactions, and the ways in which you approach the people around you, is constantly revealing something to help you further develop and improve yourself. However, if you are not ready to see what your environment and the people around you reflect back to you, it will not be seen.

As human beings who are more alike than unlike, you are parents, friends, siblings, uncles, aunts, co-workers, grandparents, spousal partners, and nieces and nephews, who are “mirrors” of each other.

The primary purpose of a mirror is to reflect.

The mirror is there for you to look at what is reflected back to you. When you look at your reflection in a mirror, the reflection beckons you to open your eyes to look deeply to see your true reflection; to identify what is not real, what is not truly you so you can let it go.

The reflective mirror also applies to the people in your life.

When you experience these individuals as “mirrors” — the reflections of yourself in another person — they reflect the virtues and qualities you admire in yourself as well as the shortcomings and qualities you reject. What you see outside of yourself and dislike in someone else, is an aspect of yourself which you have not embraced within yourself. The same applies to what you see in someone else that you like or admire. It is an aspect of yourself which you have embraced.

The people in your life also reflect your deepest beliefs, even the beliefs you did not choose.

We all have aspects of ourselves that we want to hide from, be separate from, reject and avoid. These aspects are easy to identify because you judge them and attach negative labels to them. You may label some people as: lazy, controlling, demanding, moody, emotionally unavailable, shameful or too aggressive to name a few. You may label without hesitation to examine where, when, how and to whom you may exhibit the exact same qualities and behaviors.

The people around you are there to show you which qualities to hold onto and which qualities to let go. Their presence in your life can also bring to your attention the importance of not pushing away what is there to embrace.

In their own way each person is in your life to help you remember who you are, just as you do the same for them.

It is the desire and willingness to learn from the people around you that creates the experience for learning. However, due to the possibility of a flawed perspective as garnered through the lack of objectivity, there is a caveat. When you look at the “mirrors” in your life, you can choose to see only what you want to see. It is only when you sincerely make an effort to see yourself reflected back at you when you come to understand there is no need to take anything personally, dole out blame, sit in judgment, or render yourself a victim, because when you are ready to see, you will see.

Keep in mind, you are human, and there may be occasions when you do take something personally, dole out blame or sit eagerly in judgment. However, you can still take steps, no matter how tiny, to transform the relationship with the energy and the individual.

While employed on the research project, it was a pleasant work experience. I worked with a small group of people who were each efficient, professional and interested in doing good work of integrity. We all got along well. There were no major inter-relational problems, office feuds or anything of the sort. However, there was one co-worker who served as the project and budgetary supervisor on the secondary project which corresponded with our main project.

At the time, the secondary project supervisor was a younger graduate student. As the budget technician for both main and secondary projects, I worked with her for project budgetary items.

For the most part, she and I got along well. When we held meetings between the two of us, we conducted business in a polite but relatively cold manner. Without having had a verbal discrepancy or disagreement, it was clear, on a rather quiet level, there was distance between us.

When she made requests, I often responded with doing only what I was asked and nothing more. During office social events, our conversations were routinely forced and guarded, and I noticed we rarely sat at the same table for lunch.

One morning, she came into my office to go over budgetary expenses related to the secondary project. While she sat across the desk in front of me, I thought, ‘She bothers me. She’s cold and guarded.”

Later that evening, while standing at the kitchen sink washing after dinner dishes, the secondary project manner was still on my mind. Something about her gnawed at me. ‘Why does she irritate me so much? What is it about her?’

I scrubbed the pan, and stood quietly with the warm water running over my hands. Out of nowhere, or perhaps from a residual self-help book memory, a thought seeped through. I looked up and out the window, and stood completely still staring into the backyard at nothing.

‘She is cold and guarded, and so am I.’

For as long as I live, I will never forget the impact of that single “aha moment”. The revelatory insight was astounding.

She was the mirror of internal qualities I disowned and rejected within myself. The strong emotional response I felt towards her was simultaneously the trigger and the gift. My response let me know exactly what I needed to look at within myself.

Photo by Blake Barlow on Unsplash

From that moment on, the course of our interactions completely changed for the better. The resistant energy, which was normally present, when she made a perfectly appropriate business request lessened. Going forward during our budgetary meetings, I was able to sit across from her at my desk and see her from a softer non-judgmental place. I no longer held her at a distance. There was no need for emotional agitation.

Once I recognized what was going on, what I projected onto our interactions, the energy around our interactions and my thoughts about her shifted. The contempt I once felt was now replaced with compassion for her and for myself.

It is from the relationships with family members, friends, colleagues, and especially those who “push” your emotional buttons, that you are encouraged to look at who you are so you can plant a different “seed” in your collective lineage of relationships.

Relationships provide an opportunity for you to heal emotional wounds and self-negating beliefs at the level where you are, so you don’t take them with you where you want to go.

There is a wide reach of individuals from whom we can learn. When you are ready, you will become aware of “teachers” and “mirrors” who can show you where the next stage of healing is ready to occur.

Excerpt from The Gift of Crisis: How I Used Meditation to Go From Financial Failure to a Life of Purpose.