At first sight

Is this you?

“…like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.”

Maybe it’s just me. But in the splendid event that you can relate to what I am about to share, let me just say this has got to be the most frustrating, close to dementing affliction anyone can endure.

Mirrors. I’m still not very fond of them and I am still fascinated by people who can spend hours in front of them while painting their faces or sculpting their bodies at the gym. For me, it’s a tool where I quickly scan myself to verify that my clothes and visage are somewhat presentable.

What bothers me about a mirror is that as soon as I step away from it, I have no memory or abstraction of the details of my face and body; therefore when I am interacting in the world, my mind races to discern whether what and who the observer sees is pleasing and acceptable in their sight. This gets me into an internal frenzy as I frantically conjure compensation in behavior and speech, just in case my appearance is wanting.

They say ghosts and vampires have no reflection in a mirror and this is how this affliction made me feel and caused me to show up in the world. Until one day when a whisper notion prompted me to linger a little longer in front of that unnerving reflector and pause to just look at her.

After a few seconds of looking, I wept so hard for reasons I couldn’t bother to grasp at the time. When I finally gathered myself and continued to look into her eyes, I felt the sheepish awkwardness that comes with first meetings. And then I felt terror at the weight and condemnation of my neglect of knowing her, who has been my ever-present companion! This realization troubled me so, that I became obsessed with understanding its many facets.

My search led me to the phenomenon of sleepwalking. According to science, sleepwalking is a sleep disorder where a person, while asleep, performs activities that are usually performed during a state of full consciousness. Although the walker’s eyes are open in this state, their expression is dim and glazed over. Wow. This description gripped me to my core because from it my whole world began to unravel.

In Peter Jackson’s magnificent motion picture rendition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Grima Wormtongue, chief advisor King Théoden of Rohan exploits his dark lord Saruman’s spells that have seized the king’s mind turning his whole expression dim and glazed over, Wormtongue then steers the king to effect the bidding of the evil lord. No doubt LOTR remains a magnificent trilogy in all history and this moment in The Two Towers was profound in my understanding of our – I say collectively in the hope that I am not alone in this – affliction.

If you’d told me some years back that I was a sleepwalker, I would have scoffed at you and thrown in a dirty glare for good measure. Before you swiftly dismiss what I am setting up here, imagine this: A random stranger, an acquaintance, a close friend or a relative walks up to you and greets you with “Hey you, what the hell’s wrong with you?”. How would you feel? I wager at least indignation, offense, disorientation, anger, self-consciousness [fill your set in here]. Yet each time I glanced at myself in a mirror, this was the greeting I offered myself.

One of the causes of my aversion to mirrors was a response to adolescent trauma, where I could not bear to see the gross puss-filled zits that adorned my face, neck, and sometimes chest while the other girls sported smooth radiant glowing portraits! Seeing myself became utterly repulsive so I gave it up altogether. Subsequently, I began to forget the details of my face and body to the point where I would not see myself even though I glanced at or scanned myself in a mirror. As such, my affliction was born. I would look at myself in the mirror and as soon as I turned away, I felt ghostly.

Through my many self-study sessions, I am constantly discovering that personal obscurity is one of the cognitive giants that can menace and derail our life experience and enjoyment. I now believe that the root of our distress in this regard sprouts from our transgressing the assumed principle of self-love in the second greatest commandment:

“And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

To love my neighbor requires that I love myself, but how can I love myself if I am obscured to myself? To love me demands that I see, hear, and know myself with unconditional compassion, attentiveness, and responsibility. But if I cannot bear to take a look at myself in the mirror, how can I see others as they truly are, not as projections of my vain imaginings?

The great Gandhi and King of Pop both implore us to do this simple yet infinitely hard work that is necessary for the enjoyment of life in God’s good world abundantly and with the wholeness of spirit, soul, and body. In personal development, this concept is widely known as self-awareness. On the surface, it seems so obvious but my experience teaches me that it is one of the more profound activities we could invest, or waste, our time on. Either way, it is a very important work for the human who would awaken from the sleepwalking we engage in when we are oblivious of our very selves.

The day I relented to the whisper was both excruciating and initiating. There and then, I embarked on putting my hand on the plow, and my life has transformed in so many wonderful ways. Where I once yearned for other people to see me, know me, hear me, and help me I now understood that this would never be possible unless I was willing to do those very things for her. For me.

It’s been many days since I stood before a mirror and looked her straight in the eyes, awkwardly, fearfully, and tentatively whispered “Hello.”

Slowly but surely I advanced to:

“Hello there. Nice to meet you.”

“You are so beautiful, to me. You’re everything I wanted, you’re everything I need. You are so beautiful… to me.”

“My love. I see you. I am sorry I have ignored and neglected you even though you’re the only one who has always been with me”

“So, my love, there are some things I feel like I’m wanting but that’s what I’ve always focused on. What do you want? Is there anything you need me to do and be for you?”

“I am for you.” I recently whispered, with my arms wrapped around our body.

Of course, self-awareness encounters are more in-depth and thrilling lifelong adventures than my near-manic personal displays of affection but a deliberate lavish peruse in a mirror at you, in all your “fearfully and wonderfully made” glory may be just what your hurting soul needs more than anything else in the world right now.

You are worth being seen, known, and heard — at the very least by you. Take a look at you now, and discover loving you at first sight.

xoxo

Nimi