Your Mirror and Closet: Habit or Catalyst for Change?

BY ARLENE HARDER, MA, MFT

Do you begin your day with habits or consciously choose the actions on which you will focus?

When working with clients who berate themselves for making mistakes both minor and major, I have a favorite saying, "No one wakes up in the morning planning to mess up his or her life." No, we just trudge along, doing the best we can. Then, when we run into trouble, we respond by drawing upon the conclusions we've reached in using our inner mirrors and closets, conclusions about the strengths and resources of ourselves and others. Unfortunately, the complexity of these features of our minds and emotions can prevent us from responding in the best way possible.

Let me explain.

The Mirror Hides Some of the Truth

As much as we'd like to believe we know and understand ourselves, the reality is that the mirror we use to see "who we are" and "who other people are" is covered with several filmy curtains that make it hard to see ourselves and others with clarity.

How did these impediments to reality get there? Well, folks, these curtains are created by our culture, by our egos and prejudices, by the experiences we've had, by the education we've been fortunate to receive or unable to get, by access to information, or lack thereof, and certainly by the temperaments that help make each of us a unique individual.

There is no way any of us can completely eliminate these curtains. We can't erase our history nor the effect of the times in which we live. What we "see," what we think we "know" about our "true self," what we are "sure" is true about others, is but a distortion, much as a fun-house mirror distorts the shape of our bodies.

What is true is that, when we look into any mirror, even those made from glass and silvering, to some degree we see what we want to see, ignoring what a purely objective viewer would see. There's an obvious advantage in this. If I'm not a beauty queen, and I'm far from it, I do much better to focus on the parts of me that I like (or at least don't dislike) than fret over characteristics I suspect are not attractive and about which I can do nothing. Of course, I could resort to plastic surgery, but even then I would view the results through the prism of my own invention.

However, the peculiar complexity of the mirror creates a phenomena in which the more we don't acknowledge the existence of the curtains, the thicker they become. Ignoring the limitations of our perceptions, we can easily assume that the conclusions we have drawn about ourselves and others are the "right" ones. Interacting with the world from this distorted perspective, we can easily stumble into situations we might have avoided had we been a bit less sure of ourselves.

Paradoxically, the more we do understand that our beliefs about ourselves and others may be faulty, it is almost as if the curtains become thinner. At the very least, by realizing we "might" be wrong, we're more likely to see strengths and resources (as well as areas of weakness) in ourselves and others that we would otherwise miss.

How to work with this feature of the mirror? It seems to me that the most effective way is to turn on the lights that surround the mirror, much as lights at the top and sides of real mirrors allow us to see ourselves (including pimples, warts, and wrinkles) more clearly.

Fortunately, there is a major source of illumination for our metaphorical mirror when we are in touch with the objective, loving wisdom or spirit that resides in the core of our being. Unfortunately, too often we fail to tap into this source of clarity because we're too busy, or don't know how. Yet it is relatively easy and all we need is the willingness to admit that maybe, just maybe, we don't always see the whole picture.

This willingness is the first, and major, step in drawing upon a great source of wisdom and clarity (not perfect wisdom, you understand, and not perfect clarity, but definitely better than we've known before). We may experience this source as coming into us from somewhere outside our minds and hearts, in which case we might call this spirit "God," or a similar term. On the other hand, we may be more comfortable believing this source of wisdom comes simply from within the deepest part of ourselves and call it "intuition" or "inner advisor." (See our Spirituality section to explore this further.)

No matter how we view this wellspring of greater objectivity and insight, what we then see in our mirror will be far more valuable in helping us be the best we can be.

The Closet Has Garments That Only Add to Our Problems

Did I mention the complete array of garments available in our metaphorical closets? I didn't? Well then, I should do it now because here is where things get tricky. It seems that the closet has more than garments made from the "highest" qualities of the human spirit. It also has cloaks made from less desirable human traits, such as

aggression . . anger . . apathy . . arrogance . . blame . . boorishness . . boredom . . bullying . . carelessness . . cheating . . chaos . . criticism . . confusion . . cowardice . . cruelty . . destructiveness . . depression . . disharmony . . dishonesty . . dishonorableness . . disobedient . . disrespectfulness . . domination . . ego . . flippancy . . gossipy . . greediness . . grumpiness . . guilt . . harshness . . hatred . . hurtfulness . . hopelessness . . indifference . . inflexibility . . intolerance . . isolation . . jealousy . . judgementalness . . laziness . . loneliness . . martyrdom . . passivity . . perfectionism . pessimism . . prejudice . . pettiness . . pride . . regret . . resentment . . revengefulness. . rigidity . . rudderlessness . . sadism . . sarcasm . . scheming . . self-righteousness . . small-mindedness . . sulkiness . . suspicious . . tempted . . timidity . . unethicalness . . vanity . . victimhood . . vindictiveness . . weakness . . worry

We'll never know who first displayed these not-so-noble qualities of human nature or how they came to be, but throughout history there are those who, consciously or unconsciously, have dressed themselves in cloaks woven from the fibers of these traits. This has given them great power.

With such garments they are able to avert their eyes from the pain of others, domestic violence, sexual abuse, suicide, mental illness, abandoned children, hunger in the face of plenty, stealing, cheating, dumping toxins in free flowing rivers, snubbing our noses at our "inferiors," lynching those of a different color, writing restrictive covenants for housing, fighting wars, burning innocent victims in gas ovens, committing suicide bombings, retaliating with eye for an eye acts of vengeance, and, all too frequently, beating one another to a bloody pulp just for the fun of it.

We, of course, want to believe we would never do such things. But we do. Not quite so extreme, perhaps, but no one has eliminated every trace of pettiness and vanity. And so we slip on garments woven from attitudes that allow us to express behaviors that are less than our ideals.

When you come to the closet feeling criticized, you want a garment that will make you feel better and might choose the "critical" garment so you can see the flaws in others and make them feel inadequate. If you are feeling timid and shy, you may select one that allows you to hide and become more invisible, so you won't feel so vulnerable. If you think you are unattractive because you're overweight, you might choose any old thing, deciding it wouldn't make a difference what you wore, you'd still look "fat." So you don't care what you select.

Masks Can Make It Harder to Be Congruent

In all these cases you will want to not only wear something that gives you a sense of protection. You will want to choose a mask so people won't know how you feel. Then you'll go beyond the simple masks we use to make small talk with the cashier at the grocery store (don't we all more or less say "Fine" or "Good" when asked, "How are you?"). Now to be sure you don't risk rejection by letting people know the part of you that hurts or feels inadequate, you'll grab a bunch of masks and stick them in our purse or briefcase, just "in case" they might be needed later in the day.

Over time, you can become so comfortable hiding behind a mask that you don't know how to live authentically, how to allow others to see you with your guard down. I know. I've been there, done that. The trick is in learning how to be congruent with who you feel you are inside and understanding when keeping our feelings to ourselves is appropriate.

We Limit Ourselves in the Garments We Choose

Just as we tend to wear some clothes more than others, we tend to concentrate on some qualities to the exclusion of others. We shove to the back the ones we don't think "look right" on us, perhaps because we haven't learned how to wear them.

The best way to counter this problem is to wear a quality until we grow into it. Then it is no longer a garment we "put on," but something we have so incorporated into our way of being that it is second nature and simply part of "who we are."

To live most fully in the world, we need all the quality garments (pun intended) we can find. For these are truly "quality" cloaks we can wrap around our shoulders because they are made of the finest traits of the human spirit. And since in everyone's life there is need for acceptance, courage, gentleness, passion, strength, etc., and the more we have used them in the past, the easier it is to use them in the future.

As soon as I can, I'll write some more on the topic, since this concept is consistent with my Perspectives on Why and How People Change and Symbols Can Reinforce a Decision to Change.

© Copyright 1987, Revised 2005, Arlene Harder, MA, MFT