Mirror images used to dominate my thought life. When my struggle with body image and self-acceptance was at its worst, the mirror was my daily defining god. How I looked in the reflections I saw would dictate how the rest of my day would be, whether or not I would be my confident self, or my negative self-deprecating self.
Too often we see distorted impressions of ourselves, whether or not they are distorted by our experiences of the past, or by socially constructed ideas of beauty, we just don’t see ourselves for who and how we really are. These distorted reflections aren’t always limited to what we see in a physical mirror, but also can be found in the mirrors of our minds. I love an anonymous quotation that I came across about these mind mirrors: “Maturity is that time when the mirrors in our mind turn to windows and instead of seeing the reflection of ourselves we see others.”
Be yourself and quit trying to be everyone else. Look into the mirror with kind eyes. Reflect and self-evaluate the mirrors of your mind with acceptance and wisdom so that they transform into windows of growth instead of just reflections of memories. The more we come to accept ourselves for who we really are, the more we will be able to see and love others for exactly who and how they are. This is true peace.