What if we could clearly see, understand, and care about what we feel? Psychotherapist Robert Strock talks about creating a friendly-mirror self within us so we can learn how to better take care of ourselves through the easy and difficult situations in life.
One of the greatest secrets we all need to uncover is developing our capacity to observe closely what we think, feel, and need. This needs to be understood and practiced by those of us who want to pursue greater fulfilment and learn how to become intimate with ourselves and others.
It’s like looking in a mirror and seeing yourself as you are, so in a sense, we are never alone. It isn’t just a mechanical dialogue as we can learn how to bring our heart and wisdom to see ourselves exactly as we are, communicate, and ask questions designed to support our capacity to love and be loved.
We may start out feeling sad in the morning. But, then, our friendly mirror-self says,” I can see that you feel sad and want to know if there’s anything I can do to understand you and to be of support?”
The response might be, “I have no idea why I am sad and therefore don’t know how I can be helped.”
The friendly “mirror-self” says to you, “Thank you for being clear that you are sad and unsure of what will help, and keep asking yourself when you can about why you’re sad and if there’s anything to do to help yourself through this.”
This may sound simple, but few of us realize how we can develop an intimate relationship with ourselves. We also don’t realize that this is key in developing intimate relationships with others. In a sense, when we develop this mirroring capacity more and more, we can see that we become even more interested in being the friendly mirror than what we had ever thought about. It’s not that what we feel isn’t important (it is!); however, the response and clearly seeing what we feel is one of the keys to living a life guided by our wisest selves.
This can be very subtle, and it is essential that the first step is simply to mirror back whatever it is that we think and feel. If we can realize not only what we feel and also include what we most need, we naturally would include that too. If we can’t discover what we feel or need, your friendly mirror will say to you:
“I can see that you are feeling something, but don’t know what it is and that you also don’t know what you need. This is exactly where you are and I see you.”
Now I want to suggest that you continue in the background of your mind and respond by reflecting, “I don’t know what I feel or need. But I’m still asking what is it that I feel and need.”
This is common for many of us not to know exactly what we feel and need, and we usually might ignore it altogether or judge ourselves. However, our friendly mirror-self never judges as it’s only interested in being precisely where we are and then asking how we can best take care of ourselves. During times like this, it would be very helpful to go to download the list of 75 challenging feelings and 75 essential needs to help you identify them.
This is basic training for us to discover our fears, what angers us, and how we can best deal with them. This is a master key to befriending ourselves, and by increasing our capacity to do this, we also give ourselves the best chance of doing it with those around us.
Even though this is likely to make sense and probably seems simplistic to many of you, if you look closely, you’ll see that the normal tendency is not to notice accurately what you are thinking, feeling, and needing. Instead, we often move on to the next thoughts and reactions to our lives. So, in a sense, you could say that you are missing yourself as you are.
We might often think, “I’d rather think about something that I want or what I understand and don’t want to waste my time not being clear.”
On the surface, this seems like it makes sense. However, the key to finding our maximum potential of closeness is first to be exactly where we are, reflect, and see it clearly with stability. As we have alluded to, it is a golden opportunity not to get lost in judging ourselves. It helps us realize that accepting and seeing exactly where we are and reflecting that clearly in our inner mind is a way of not wasting any energy.
When we judge or avoid ourselves, our energy almost always goes underground, and that aliveness in whatever form it is in gets buried in the closet of our minds and hearts. However, when we make it clear to ourselves, “I want to know you, accept you and support you,” from the precise place we think and feel, it allows us to feel safe. It makes us feel secure enough to expose ourselves to our own capacity to let the mirroring be a clean and clear reflection of how we are. It would be shocking to most of us to see how much of ourselves we normally look away from or judge what we think and feel.
For those of you who are or are not familiar with the Buddhist concepts of witnessing or mirroring, this friendly mirror is very similar. We are adding a component of not only mirroring what is real in front of us, but we are also adding the component of guiding ourselves to what we most need for our well-being.
Seeing ourselves clearly can help us forge better relationships
When you’re angry at your love partner, we all have unique tendencies to various degrees to over-express or suppress it: We can either express this tendency in a way that can create harm or end up burying it inside ourselves, making us feel like strangers within ourselves or in the relationship.
The friendly mirror will reflect inside us. “You are angry.” But, the friendly mirror will also always be interested in what will help you be at peace and support the same in your relationships. It, therefore, will ask the question: “Do you know why you are angry and what you would need to do? How would you need to be to be more at peace?”
It will also ask how you would express or convey your anger in a way that is most likely to support a good outcome. This would have been great to learn in first grade since it’s like second nature at that age. However, given that I don’t know anyone with that background, we need to support giving this to ourselves as most people die without ever learning how to create this kind of intimacy inside themselves.
In my fifty years of counseling, I have found this to be the bedrock of supporting self-esteem and the deeper capacity to love. It is so subtle because many people think they are already doing this; however, it is clear that if you are, in a sense, you are never alone and a different kind of self confidence and trust is possible..
The mirroring capacity is even better than a best friend because who can know you better than yourself?
So it is certainly something that you want to share with those closest to you so that they can help you and also so you can help them.
This failure to mirror ourselves in a friendly way leads us to imagine that our own alienation from ourselves is actually caused by those around us much more than it is. That isn’t to deny that others can cause difficulty for us, as this is, of course, true in the real world at times.
However, when the friendly mirror is activated, we are prepared to face our reactions as they are and be very interested in what we need. This makes us a lot less vulnerable to being violated for very long as our ability to see our own reactions and how we can best take them starts to occur automatically.
As we become more adept at being able to do this, the focus becomes more and more on what it is that we need, and as it continually grows, we can understand what others around us need more clearly as well. This will naturally lead to conversations that will be sparked whenever there is a conflict or various kinds of suffering.
The question that will be naturally asked is, “What is it that is needed to take care of both of us?” This is one of the most profound sources of trust, peace, communication and intimacy.
Even if you can’t reach the other, which in the real world will happen pretty often, we will know that we have arrived at a place where that reaching toward ourselves and significant others is our most authentic need.
If there is no way to meet whoever the other is, we would then naturally ask “How do I best take care of myself and do my best not to create harm?” We then will guide ourselves to the best of our ability.
How have I used the friendly mirror-self in my own life?
As I look back at the relationships in my life or those of clients and friends, I can see that not being able to clearly be very interested in what I’m thinking, feeling, and needing and then include the other has been a source of creating distance and conflict.
This might be called being a wise best friend to ourselves and then passing it on to those around us. There are thousands of interactions that I’ve witnessed where the lack of being willing and able to do this well has caused the majority of the suffering.
Sometimes even when we do this impeccably, it will lead to clarifying differences in what one person needs from the other. However, this is much more peaceful, even though it may lead us to be sad or create a sense of loss. This is better than fighting it out or avoiding it altogether.
I can remember in my first marriage; there was a difference in what we each needed. I wanted to spend more than half my time supporting the world and wanted to spend less than half my time focusing on my nuclear family (even though I was devoted to it deeply). My spouse’s dominant focus was on loving fully the primary family.
We had a lot of indirect challenges and struggles that came out through me wanting to pursue more friendships and caring work in the world vs deeper dedication with time for the family itself. After several years of indirect and direct struggles and attempts to compromise, it became clear.
This led to a very amicable divorce, and both of us found what we each needed most in future relationships. She found a great husband that was and is devoted to family life in a way that wouldn’t have been true to my deepest needs. I found a balance between my love life and love for the world in a way that I’m deeply grateful for with a partner that is the same.
Regarding my marriage, this led to us being able to have a very unusual transition that allowed the love for both ourselves, each other and what we each wanted to continue to this day. But, of course, there are many situations where there will be different needs, and the relationships can still be intimate and fulfilling. It is a matter of degrees that will determine whether the mirroring of ourselves and the inquiry as to how we take care of each other reflects itself accurately and sensitiviely. .
Tapping into our wisdom to see ourselves better
Take a look at yourself and ask, “What thoughts and feelings do I have that are hardest to mirror in a friendly or neutral way?”
It could be about parts of yourself, your relationship, the world, family, lifestyle, or religion — the list is endless. Whatever parts are hardest to mirror are the parts that will end up creating the most conflict. When we can embrace and take great interest in how we are and can care for ourselves, it is a catalytic leap into a different potential world of fulfillment and intimacy.
So ask again in a slightly different way, “What thoughts and feelings are hardest for me to see stably, accept and look for how to best care for them repeatedly in my current life?”
Notice whether this is a question that inspires, scares, or repels you. Include whatever reactions you have in your mirroring. This practice becomes more and more subtle the more we take it into our lives, heart, and wisdom. It is important to realize that just seeing ourselves isn’t enough to be fulfilled. We need to also develop the capacity to ask how we can best be cared for and learn to be devoted to our best efforts to fulfil it.
It is essential to realize that sometimes we will judge ourselves, and the friendly mirror will reflect you are feeling a certain way and thinking about yourself. The mirroring will see that you are in a state of judging, and when you see this clearly, you might realize that self-judgement isn’t helpful and has never helped.
Situations like these give you the greatest chance of reflecting, perhaps even with some humor, “I can see that you are feeling this way and judging yourself. I suggest you do your best to find what you need and let go of the judgement as soon as possible.”
Sometimes this can take some significant repetition to see the absurdity of judging yourself for something you can’t change. But, then, when we get the hang of it, sparks of humor come through with comments like, “How many times has it helped you to continue judging yourself?”
This is a practice to really deepen until it becomes a lifestyle. It’s not what we were taught, so it will require a great act of intentionality.
After all, what could be more vital than to be real and continue to develop our capacity to best care of ourselves without having to get lost in avoidance or ongoing judgement?
This capacity and subsequent intimacy that it will create will invariably benefit those around us as well. This is not something that we can learn from an article alone, as it requires a lifetime of practice. It is fairly easy to understand but requires dedication, humility, courage and honesty to ground it into our lives.
The inability to see our own vulnerability, anger and similar feelings and take good care of our needs and those around us has led the world into a state of believing the source of our suffering is dominantly outside ourselves. As we deepen the realization that we can create our inner peace, our impact in supporting outer peace expands.
I wish this for all of us at this pivotal time for humanity.