Thanks to those of you who wrote concerned that I may have been hacked while reading last week’s post. Your concern was comforting. Having to be wary of email, snail mail and phone call authenticity doesn’t feel natural to my way of being. I find a suspicious mindset depressing because it doesn’t match how I see myself.
And that’s not the only time there is a mismatch with how I see myself.
When I’m in physical therapy and the PT asks me to look in the mirror while I do an exercise, I feel uncomfortable. What I see when I look in the mirror doesn’t match the picture in my mind – the way I think I look. This is especially the case when I walk towards a badly warped mirror that the PT laughingly describes as the circus mirror. Why they have such a mirror in a physical therapy office is beyond me.
Here at home, we don’t have any circus mirrors, but there are times when I see our mirrors as friendly, and times when I see them as unfriendly. In psychotherapy, this type of seeing is seen as a defense and it’s called projection.
We see what we’re feeling or thinking in people or objects outside of us. Thankfully, the mirror I use to draw on my disappearing eyebrows is usually friendly, which I guess means I am friends with my made-up eyebrows?
However, if I see myself in the same mirror in the early morning hours before I’m truly awake, the mirror isn’t as generous. This doesn’t feel good, but can I blame the mirror or is this just me projecting my prejudice against aging faces on my own face?
I believe in the power of projection, so that means I am projecting my feelings, in this case judgments, onto my reflection. I want to try and remember that’s what I’m doing. But it’s difficult. Projection is a tricky way of defending ourselves especially when we see ourselves in unflattering ways in reflections like mirrors.
Getting older and staying in touch with how I see and judge myself and others is a full time job. I am going to keep paying attention when I project negative attributes on myself and others.
Again, I thank you for caring about me and hoping I didn’t get hacked. Please be careful out there!
IMAGE: The Guardian is waiting for the next round of frigid weather.
