Mirror, Mirror…
By: Ann Litts
Tags: Life, Mental Health, Self Love, Healing, Women

Witch — Not A Vampire…BAHAHAHA!- Author’s photo

October 2017:

A while back my therapist gave me some homework. I was to go shopping with a friend and find a mirror. A beautiful mirror and hang it in my house in a prominent place. I was to look at myself in that mirror every day and see Real Ann — the person my friends see and love, not the person I imagine myself to be when my inner critic is turned on at full volume.

This assignment came about when I realized that other people actually decorated their homes with mirrors. On purpose. I have three mirrors in my home — they are over my bathroom sinks and exist mostly to make sure I don’t have spinach stuck between my teeth.

As the discussion with my therapist ensued, he was truly perplexed at my lack of decorative mirrors. And my long history of never having mirrors in my home. I joked about my past life as a vampire. He was not amused at my attempt to derail his observations. Therapists are like dogs with bones, once they get their teeth into a thing, well, there’s no letting go of it.

I can’t really tell you why mirrors have never appealed to my inner interior decorator. My home looks more like a warm and welcoming Ye Old English Pub than anything out of a design magazine. Warm wood and leather set against earth tones is the theme. Somehow mirrors seem out of sync with that Earth Mother vibe.

At least that’s what I tell myself.

Or maybe my therapist had a valid point. Perhaps I just wasn’t interested in looking too hard at myself. Maybe I just didn’t want to see what other people saw when they looked at me. He might have been right when he postulated that I was content to let the voices in my head run the show without taking stock of reality — my actual external self. I was too hard on myself he stated — being very hard on me — I might add.

Irony runs The Universe, have you ever noticed that?

This was all before Said Universe sat me down and made me look at my life. Not just my external self. All of it. Every last bit of it. And encouraged me to cut myself some slack.

In the last six months, I’ve had a long look at my inner workings. Its time to do my homework and take a look at my outer self now as well, through the eyes of the people who love me. And see myself with compassion and love, not judgment.

You don’t need a magic mirror — tomorrow morning look yourself in the eye, acknowledge the strength it took you to get this far. Give yourself credit for all the battles you’ve survived. Find the soft edges where you can still offer your heart to those worthy of its gifts. And breathe.

In the movie “The Help” the nanny tells her charges every day — “You is smart, you is beautiful — you is important — you is loved.” If no one ever told you that, look in the mirror and tell yourself that, because you are. Say it every day. Because your peeps believe that about you and they aren’t fools. The Humans in our lives who love us are here to remind us what we really look like, who we really are. Inside and out.

Namaste.

Addendum: I eventually found The Mirror. It’s a perfect circle — because Life — the earth — seasons — everything is a circle. It has a frame made of beautiful bits and pieces of glass chips — not quite stained glass but a similar aesthetic. It sits eye-level on the wall at the bottom of where my staircase makes a small turn. I see myself descend those stairs every day. And I remember. I am smart. I am beautiful. I am important. And most of all — I am loved.