Do You Pay Regular Visits to Your Soul’s Mirror?

Post, share, stare, repeat. A millennial’s rhythm in everyday life includes rendering moments from the day, perspectives, interests, statements, missions, even #goals. Who we are can be known instantly through a few seconds of scrolling. It’s the easiest way to proclaim what we’re about and even to remind ourselves of our own personal proclamations.

It’s certainly not bad to be a partaker in public personality posting (if you will), yet, most of our cropped and filtered snapshots fall short to say what we fully mean and the wonders of who we are becoming.

How much of ourselves is still being developed, defined, and affirmed without the likes? Let’s welcome that part in and embrace an invitation to interrupt our distractions for a moment of truth. What really defines us? What is it we are pleased with when we see our individual reflections? What does our sincerest mirror tell us? Make a list, keyword it to your whiteboard, heck, write an essay, and let’s go to town on getting to know ourselves a little further below the surface of screens.

I can’t speak for each person, yet from my own life experience as an artist, dreamer, and task-lover (aka type-A to a T!), I live in the tension of seeing myself in two mirrors: the mirror of my mind versus the mirror of my soul. To fully get to know myself slims down to one choice, which mirror do I choose?

The mirror of my mind tells me I am enough if I exist in a place where I am reaching for validation. Said validation often comes to me through immediate gratification by the following:

-who likes me

-who am I associated with

-who doesn’t like me and why not and how am I better than that person

-who makes time for me

-what I’ve accomplished

-wanting others to see my accomplishments

-how others see me

-how great my talent/skill/ability is

-what I am becoming and how is that epic

-how much I appear to care

-what’s in it for me

-how many likes do I have from my compliment-machine (aka phone)

-how clean or organized I am

-how free or independent I appear to be

-how well I control dynamics

-how I handle situations

-how I can cunningly prove how much I know

-what I’ve overcome and how much I deserve

-how well of a planner I am

-how social I am

-how busy I am

-how fun I am

-how experienced I am

-how financially stable I am

-how open I am

-how good I am

If I am honest, these are the habitual ways I identify myself from the mirror in my mind. Be it wrong or maybe simply provocative, it’s what my thoughts rebuttal immediately from a place of wanting validation. However, when I make time to slow down, rest, and refigure which mirror I am existing from, I align with the truth allowing it to call forth the greatness within by gratitude for all that is and remembering I am already valuable.

My soul’s mirror tells me: I am enough and I can exist from validation and not for validation. A phrase I enjoy saying reads:

“If I am, then, therefore I can, and if I am not yet, then I welcome when I will be”

Even in the discomfort or disbelief in the following mantras, it is possible to become strengthened as an individual by bouncing each thought off the proverbial self-loving sounding board that tells the truth about our human integrity and our condition from the confidence of already being worthy and not hoping for worth.

-I am valuable.

-I am learning and I celebrate the process.

-I welcome change and transition.

-I am acceptable no matter who likes me or tells me they like me.

-I am living from acceptance and not for it.

-I enter each environment from love and not for love.

-I enter each life phase from contentment and not for contentment.

-I am entering this relationship from value and not for value.

-I am connecting and interacting from love and not for an exchange of love.

-I am not afraid to lose because a keen perspective creates a champion.

-I give without expectation of return.

-I am becoming who I am meant to be from knowing I am worth becoming and not for worth in becoming.

-I am thankful I am here.

-I learn from the imperfections.

-I change the things I can and accept the things I cannot change.

-I own my ignorances and allow myself to laugh like a child in my innocence welcoming the potential of what I get to learn.

-I have what I need within me.

The hope for us all is to dig deep, look inwardly, and find our truest mirror — not from an angle of frustration for adapting to modern ways of interacting nor should we punish ourselves for the lack of consistent self-reflecting (pun intended) disciplines, but let’s explore who we are from love to our own souls coupled with excitement so that we can deepen our connections with the people around us, inspiring them to do the same.

I hope we can spark conversations where we learn to like what we stand for, what we identify with, and most importantly that we’d gauge who we are becoming through the mirror of our soul’s intuition and not only the learned behaviors of our teething intellects. Let our souls point us to exist from a place of validation and not for it.

There is no filter when it comes to how beautiful we already are when we see ourselves in our rarest form: capable and worth the journey, knowing that we are growing, becoming, and in turn, learning to live the process.

 

By Christie Brooke

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