“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?” Rumi
It was the holidays.
It was the New Year.
It was just Valentine’s day.
When do we ever start the diet?
I think of myself as relatively healthy and swim a couple times a week.
Unfortunately it’s the carbs (&*$%#@@!* Indian food) and sweets (pies, cakes and candy bars) that are my downfall.
No matter how much I tried to avoid these things, I feel they are a constant and comfortable presence in my life. They constantly contribute to the additional 10 pounds of weight that I can do without.
Now, how many of us survive the holidays and stuff ourselves with all delicacies and then find ourselves in the new year resolving to eat less and be healthier?
How many times do you look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself in a dramatic tone, “why ….why did you do this? Why did you indulge and wallop those savory gulab jamuns and sweet potato pies !!!”
How many times do you avoid looking at the mirror when you walk into the bathroom ?
How many times have you thought to yourself that you only want to look at yourself after you’re back to your ideal weight?
Maybe I’m oversharing here but the additional 10 pounds of weight – the “comfort pounds” as I’ll now start referring to them as are visibly more apparent when I look at myself in the mirror.
I wouldn’t usually notice this weight (trick here is to regularly buy oversized pants and shirts J so you’ll never notice when your weight creeps up by a few pounds here and there).
Anyway, where were we?
Oh yeah, looking at mirrors.
I wouldn’t notice this weight…except…
when looking at myself shaving or brushing my teeth, looking into the mirror.
I would notice my eating habits, my love for that cocaine like substance, sugar, and the additional comfort pounds that are now part of my life.
The Notorious B.I.G used to say “Mo money, mo problems” but let me venture to say…
More mirror, more problems.
Which now brings me to a topic that I touched on last week.
How to recognize our past blame at our ex’s and start shifting of responsibilities back to ourselves.
I talked about how to stop blaming our ex’s and taking responsibility for our lives if we wanted to move on.
While we do need to end the blame game, your ex was helpful in one way.
Your ex was the mirror to yourself.
Your ex helped show where the flaws and spider webs were.
Your ex helped show you what needed a fix-up, a touch-up or a complete make-over.
You likely hated every minute that you were shown these flaws because this space is uncomfortable and unpleasant.
Yet instead of looking at this as something to work on or improve, you likely got angry and frustrated with your ex.
You likely demonized them and wondered what was wrong with them.
You likely told all your friends and family that you were being tortured and couldn’t handle the nastiness of the relationship.
It was our flaws but we made the person in the mirror responsible, not realizing that we were ultimately the ones in the mirror.
No point beating up ourselves about this now.
You can’t change the past.
You can reflect on it.
You can inquire about what were the things you missed looking in the mirror.
You can take responsibility for it.
You can get to work on improving those things.
I’m going to share what one of the biggest shortcomings/flaws that our ex’s mirrored back to us next week.
In the meantime, what did your ex show you about yourself?
What did you need to work on?
What are your skeletons?
What did you see in the mirror?
Hit reply and let me know.
And of course, if you’re not on the V-team email list, get on it please 🙂