Mirrors are designed to help you see yourself objectively – as others see you. It doesn’t always work out that way.
Those of us who have worked with patients with eating disorders are well aware of the fact that anorexic patients who are objectively skinny can see themselves as being fat? Some attractive patients can look at themselves in the mirror and see only blemishes.
To see oneself objectively in the mirror requires an objective mindset. The same holds true for our psychological mirrors – those pictures of our selves that we maintain inside our head and reflect our self-images. If we don’t think highly of ourselves, we tend to filter out our achievements and the compliments that we get from others because they don’t correspond to our psychological mirrors.
Since we can even misinterpret what we observe in a physical mirror, it only stands to reason that we can fool ourselves psychologically when we don’t even have a physical image to prove us wrong.
One of the most important roles of a positive mindset is that it enables us to be objective. It enables us to look into our physical or psychological mirrors objectively so that we can accept or adjust. If we don’t like what we see, we can make the changes without criticizing ourselves for being normally flawed human beings.
But if the mirror reflects something positive back at us, we can accept it, take pride in it, and build upon our strengths and our accomplishments.
Can you accept positive feedback? If not, does your mirror or you self-image need an adjustment?