Mirror, mirror

During one of my therapy sessions with Dr. C, she described me this way: “I see you like a broken mirror with all the pieces over here on the floor. Instead of putting the pieces back together and being a worthwhile and useful cracked mirror, you have completely turned away from yourself and are over here trying to make a whole new mirror of you for others to see.”
This analogy was just what I needed to bring understanding of how I was rejecting myself in preference to being what I thought others wanted me to be. Throughout this journey of healing I have realized that the mirror of me that I was trying so hard to make wasn’t me at all, and as I dared to look at the real broken pieces of me I felt shame because to me I had failed to overcome all that I saw as not good enough. It has taken awhile for me to see that though I was broken I could be mended, and I had to face many painful memories to make that happen in order for me to know I am worth something just as I am; I am enough for this moment to do what I need to do, and I am valuable. As I began to understand that failure wasn’t the obliteration of me—it was my humanness, and--just as it is allowed in my friends, family, and strangers--it should be allowed in me without fear of punishment. Perfection is the mirage I would never reach. I could never be what I thought everyone wanted me to be in all situations. Yet I was compelled to try at all cost…that cost was losing the real me while hiding from everyone else. I knew what God said about me was true in my head most of the time, but I needed to know it in my heart and embrace myself (good and bad) and accept myself. As it was, I felt my good wasn’t good enough and the bad had to be fixed.
With this new understanding of how I had been treating myself, I started testing my motives for what I did with questions such as “Am I trying to make a new mirror of me?” It helped me to see I had not been living for the right person, me. By living to please others to that degree was a sin against myself. I was on the Deprivation highway into Martyr-ville, and I was convinced this was what was expected of me since I had done it all my life to avoid punishment or disapproval in the fire of my parents’ anger. I was beginning to see that to put others first at all cost was a lie I had believed all my life. Now I know my value isn’t in how others treated me, but rather it is in what God made me: a unique person unlike anyone else with something genuine to give.
As a Christian, it is important to me to be careful about what I allow to mold me,and I often measure what I read about caring for your inner child,co-dependence, recovery from depression, what I learn in therapy, etc... to the Bible to determine if an idea or method is based in truth. All truth is God’s truth wherever it may be found, so I do think it is possible for psychology and Christianity to mix. My blog, my opinion…wow, I have come a long way. I digress… I was living to please everyone but the most important ones: God and myself. God was high on the list of those I was trying to please, but so were a lot of other people, and I was on the bottom, thinking: “I will be happy when others are happy.” Living with this mindset of denying myself was imprinted on me as a young child and kept me safe then but now it was slowly killing me. As I picked up the pieces of myself I see the beauty that I do possess, I see the strength that that remains, and I see the insights I have gained by facing the memories of my childhood and working through them. It is like a healing salve that helps me care for myself now, listen and honor the my inner child and I realize that I am stronger facing the memories that I am when I repress them and act as if it isn’t important. Now I strive to see the real me in full and to show that person to others rather than the person I think they want me to be. Now if I disagree with someone, it is okay. If people are angry with me, I strive to let them feel their own emotions as each person is entitled to without negative consequences. Now I work at feeling what I need to feel and accepting that it’s okay for me to be afraid, angry, sad, happy, ashamed, and brave. As I look at the kaleidoscope of me I see beauty in the ashes, healing in the pain, and joy coming out of the sorrow.