How Do You See Yourself?

Recently I was at a different gym to the one I normally go to. The gym I frequent was closed for some refurbishment, a part of me was relieved it was closed and another part of me was a bit “upset”, I was thinking I had to be good with my diet as I wouldn’t be exercising for a whole week.

Out of the whole week my gym was closed, I went to one of their other locations, just outside my city; I felt empowered, I felt amazing and I caught a glance of myself in the mirror and I thought: God, I look good!

However, I had seen myself in a mirror at my “regular” gym just a day before and I did not have the same feeling…

Odd, I thought!

Then, this idea came to my mind: is the way we see ourselves being affected by the mirrors we see ourselves in? is the reflection we see an optical illusion? Why am I extremely attractive in this mirror and not the other?

With my professional hat on, I remember a blog post I wrote over 2 years ago, it was about perceptions.

How we see ourselves in the mirror is a combination of various things: light, angle, density of the glass, our mood, our water intake, etc.

So, equally, how do we see ourselves in general? Our capabilities? Our beliefs? Our wants and desires?

At the time of this “mirror” situation, I had a conversation with a dear friend and she was sharing very personal things, and just before she finished her story she said: I know I am not that important, that not everyone gives me that much of their time and thought.

To which I thought, wow, that is deep! We are not that important, people don’t think of us near as much as we think we do, we create all those stories in our heads, we create the drama and believe it, we buy into it.

How does this tie in with the mirror story? Well, easily, what we see is not what we get, we are seeing what we want to see, we are creating the story we want to believe, and we use the mirror as a form of validation.

For instance, if we go to the gym and the mirror is under a bad light, we will see all sorts of shadows in all areas of our body, but because we haven’t dealt with some emotional “stuff”, we then go to create this story that all the work we do is good for nothing, we will never amount to anything and we seek the evidence to this story we have concocted everywhere, we see people talking, we immediately think it is about us.

Does your mirror need repositioning? Does it need replacing? Do you need a mirror at all? Are you buying into the stories you are creating for yourself?

Answer these questions with honesty.

Remember we are not that important, people are not always thinking of us,

I hope you have enjoyed today’s post, as always like, comment and share.

With all my love.

From my heart to yours,

Jorge