Do you ever look in the mirror?  Not to fix your make-up, or to check how gorgeous you still are.  But do you ever look yourself in the eye in order to know yourself better, the way you would look into the eyes of someone you were trying to know better?

 

It can be difficult for us to look at ourselves beyond the superficial, hair and make-up level.  We are used to checking our appearance first of all when we look at ourselves.  We rarely look long enough to make a connection.

 

When you meet someone new, if you want to get to know them better, what do you do?  Look at the floor when they speak to you?  Look up at the sky in the hope of finding a divine answer?  No.  You look into their eyes while they speak.  You attend to what they are saying.  You watch their eyes for the truth in what they are saying.  You look for the confirmation of the words they are saying.

 

We all know when someone lies to us.  As children we were used to the impossibility of telling a lie when someone was looking us straight in the eye.  And how do we demonstrate early signs of falling in love with someone?  We love to spend time looking deeply into their eyes.

 

So why not do it for ourselves?  Probably for both the reasons above.

 

Firstly, if we look ourselves in the eyes and say “I love and accept you” - we will immediately know if we are telling the truth or not.  If we are finding it difficult to say this to ourselves, why?  What are the feelings that come up for you if you say “I love and accept you” to yourself in the mirror?  Do you hear a critical parent or friend telling you you’re not worth it?  Maybe you feel that you are not perfect enough to be loved?  It could be that, in place of judgemental others, you have come to be your own harshest critic.

 

Secondly, looking deeply into our own eyes would mean taking on that critic, or judge or negative voice that we have inside us.  It would mean learning to, or being willing to love and accept ourselves.  That is often very difficult to do.  If we have a (so-far) lifetime of being a certain way (e.g. judged or criticised) it can be scary to change that way of being.  We’re used to it.

 

What would it be like to fall in love with yourself?  How would it be to have that warm, deeply contented glow inside?  And know that we are the reason for it ourselves?  How wonderful would that be?