“What are you doing?”, asked the white haired teacher who had been brought back from retirement as our school for girls couldn’t find a history teacher. We tricked her into telling anecdotes from her youth nobody was interested in. She fell for our begging each time; her flights into her child hood gave us the chance to read magazines under the table, to dream, to sleep, ‘cause who wants to learn about “real” history? This old stuff was so boring…
I was a mostly nice Catholic teenager in the 60’s not allowed to sing with Mick Jagger, the devil, or daring to hold hands with a boy. In a time of cultural rebellions I tried hard to be what my parents expected from me but I knew that there was something wrong, this wasn’t me. I wasn’t seen, heard or understood, neither by them or by my self. I felt like one huge question mark, an Alien probably found in a trashcan. I looked into the mirror when and wherever I could or found one. It was vanity, sure, but on a deeper level it was
“Am I really HERE?”
“Is this really me?”
My history teacher caught me looking into a small hand mirror i had under my desk just in case I felt lost. The girls in the class giggled. I was the weird one, a girl attached to her mirror who had an A in math.
Looking at myself was my obsession through all my life, controlling my looks, dreading imperfection, loving style; hoping to proof that I was good enough.
I was searching for more than the shiny reflections of my outside.
Mirror, mirror, who am I?
Two decades later I yelled at the amazing star studded night sky of Portugal’s Algarve,
“I do anything to know what life is all about.”
The Universe answered manifold and repeated its messages many, many times until my tears had wiped away the dust and I could see. In my many spiritual, shamanic and self exploring journeys I found the bigger mirror, the one quantum physics calls Schroedinger’s cat. Reality exists because we see it. If we close our eyes there’s nothing out there but our imagination.
What if when we open our eyes all we see is our imagination?
What if we can’t see our Self in others because we are too afraid to face the truth? What if that’s why we are slapped over and over again? Because our soul wants us to wake up?
When my life coach told me to write “I love you” on my mirror a few years ago I found it super silly but did. I looked at it and at my wrinkled face and grinned.
“Fat chance.”
I did not love myself. Why should I? Because of some inner values? Everybody had them. I wasn’t special enough to deserve my love.
My coach gave me another one of her silly exercises; I took a deep breath and decided it couldn’t hurt, ridiculous or not.
I walked my dog. Instead of allowing my brain to bubble its usual comments like “Wow, he looks grumpy” “Gosh, look at that ugly dress…” I focused on finding people’s eyes. I looked at everybody I passed, no matter if they smiled, were absent minded or seemed unfriendly.
“I see you. I love you. I wish you all the best,” I thought. It must have been a hundred times.
When I came home an hour later something had clicked. I loved the world. I saw its people. Some had looked back at me recognizing something deeper.
For the first time I looked at my mirror image and saw more than my skin; I saw my soul.
I saw everything I was, all of ME. When I said “I love you” I felt pieces of my armor crashing to the floor.
I had seen my Self in the many people I met, in the essence behind all their personas.
Writing my memoir, the story of my rebellions and resistance, the stories of No let me dive into the people in my life; a mind boggling and heart expanding revelation of the love I received from my friends and foes alike; they were there for me to let me see; they were guides, teachers, messengers and even the guardian angels I did not believe existed. Each and every one of them was a mirror of my hopes and fears. Because I did not believe I was worthy I let the fears win and ran away.
I ran away with with my son, far away from Europe to the US, an ocean away from my past.
Giving my son everything I had missed out on and loving him without conditions I created the first mirror in which I could see my beauty; my son is the most loving, balanced, generous, smart and funny being I know. It just dawns on me now that he is a manifestation of every I hold dear and a mirror of the best in me.
The concept of seeing ourselves in others can easily be misinterpreted and misunderstood. It doesn’t mean that we are as bad as the murderer we see on TV, that we want the husband to hit us, are narcissists or actually aspire to be broke.
What we see are our fears, beliefs, judgments as much as our dream, hopes and desires.
Our judgments are our prisons but can be our guides to freedom; what we think about others often has nothing to do with their reality but is a “truth” interpreted by the grid of our own beliefs. We assume intentions where there aren’t any.
The answer is to ask “What does this have to do with me?” “What do I really see?”
You and me we are messengers from our souls, supporting actors showing each us our deeper truth.
Prompts from the Soul Sister Journal
Truth and Dare
Be brave. Fess up. See yourself in the mirror of others.
Take off your personas like robes that don’t fit anymore.
Attract like-minded women, your soul sister tribe, when you walk your truth.
Don’t fear your Self, be radically honest.
Helpful questions to ask
What was my relationship to women in the past and what is it today?
How do I feel towards women and in women groups?
How would I like to feel?
What are my main reasons to connect with women?
- Develop my business to make more money
- To connect with opportunities
- Achieve a common goal
- Support and be supported
- Give and receive love
- Sell my products or services
- Joined partnerships
- Create a better world together
- Feel sisterhood
Create magic and rituals
- Connect to ancient knowing
- Women empowerment
- Feel that I belong
- Create a revolution
- Other
What do I love or hate in my women friends?
What do I judge? (Fear)
What do I love about them?
Who and what inspires and attracts me?
Who are my deeper connections on Facebook?
Who are my girls on Instagram?
What do they have in common?
What do I see of myself in them?
What can I learn from them?
How can I be of assistance to them?
What’s my unique contribution, my gift to them?
I see you. I love you. I wish you all the best.
