My friend Michelle told me about a time when she had attended a women’s retreat. The participants passed around a hand-held mirror covered with slips of paper. Most of them contained negative words and phrases that people use to describe themselves. Only small portions of the mirror were visible for them to see their reflection. The point of the exercise was to demonstrate that God sees through all of that. He sees the real us.
This led me to wonder what negative thoughts I would write down if I was challenged to do this exercise and really look at myself. What would I say? Would I have words written over my forehead that I can’t seem to drive out of my mind? Would I draw sites of places over my eyes that I visit on the phone or computer or watch on tv that reinforce negative images of myself? The same with my ears. What do I listen to that helps form those negative thoughts that fill my mind? What words would I write over my lips that I use when I describe myself?
I have a full-length mirror that’s on my closet door but it’s only visible when I open it. Perhaps I don’t limit this exercise to just my face but also to the parts of my body that I don’t like to look at. Maybe it’s in an effort to understand my woundedness and a way to name the things that I find harder to like about myself.
I think it might be helpful to include the mental illness conditions that are part of me and just hold that. “Holding” as a way to honor and recognize that this is how God made me. Maybe the “holding” is part of the process to come to terms with the pain and struggle of my diagnoses. To consider that the way that I live with them allows me to see the “whole” me and celebrate that. To live without trying to hide them.
I could write down as many negative things as I used to think or say about myself that I have eliminated so I could see the progress I’ve made. The ones I struggle with could be written in one color until I am able to make the changes I need to change them for good. I could contemplate what I’m looking at or listening to that causes me distress to remind me of what I need to be intentional about tuning out or turning off. I could look at the words that I have written around my mouth and work to stop saying them about myself. The same goes for those thoughts in my mind.
My closet mirror can be out of sight. I don’t have to see it every time I go into the room, but I can open the door and consider these haunting thoughts and habits as I am ready. As time passes in between looking at the words, I can wonder out loud if this is really how I see myself. I can process some of the pain and some of my distorted thinking until I’m ready to let go of pieces of it. I don’t have to do this all at once. I can do what I can and leave it for the next time I’m ready to face it again.
I will definitely have to find a multi-pack of markers that will work for this exercise. That, and find the resolve to begin.
What do you see when you look at yourself in a mirror?
#acceptance #vulnerability
