What happens when you look in the mirror?

We all spend a lot of time looking in the mirror. If it is first thing in the morning, we can avoid really looking and only see what we need to, our razor, our make-up, tooth-brushing. And we can do this without truly observing ourselves as a person.

Sometimes you may catch sight of yourself in a mirror or shop window. How do you react then? Do you look away and rush on to deal with the immediate issues of the day? Do you push aside any reactions from our mind as quickly as possible?

If any of the above is uncomfortably true for you, don’t worry, it is true for the majority of us! It is a very significant indicator of our self-image! And the fact that we have a self-image is relatively recent discovery.

Next time you find yourself in front of a mirror, why not take 30 seconds to look at yourself - really observe everything about yourself. Gradually become aware of you observing yourself? Try it NOW and come back and finish this article?

Did you find it difficult? Most people do at first. Did you persevere for the 30 seconds? Did you feel better about yourself after that time or worse? Even if you had to look away a couple of times, it would still have had an effect.

We realise we are separate from the world we are experiencing and begin to ask the question ‘Who am I?’

And why do we have difficulty with this?

Can you recall when you were a young child? Up to the age of seven did you think about yourself much? Probably not! At that age we are like looking, touching, and smelling machines. We are totally focused on experiencing the world outside ourselves.

We then start to become self-conscious. We realise we are separate from the world we are experiencing and begin to ask the question ‘Who am I?’ even if we don’t actually say the words. We start doing or resist doing things which we think the world wants us to do.

This is the beginning of us building our ‘self-image’. This could be described as the way we think the world sees us. Our opinion of how good or bad our ‘self-image’ is constitutes our ‘self-esteem’.

When we become adolescents, and feel the hormones surge though our bodies, we usually feel gauche, clumsy and shy. We become hyper self-aware and self-critical. Whatever confidence we had vanishes. In this state we usually do and say things which later we remember with embarrassment or shame. This is inevitably moulding our self-image, which means our self-esteem is usually pretty low at this time, even though we may put ‘a brave face on it’.

In addition to the self-inflicted damage to our self-image and self-esteem, there will have been other knocks in life. Other people will have said things or done things which we interpreted as hostile and damaging to our self-image and thus our self-esteem.

All these things leave subconscious scars. These are very difficult to get rid of. This is because they were taken on board non-verbally and irrationally, when we were young. These nearly forgotten traces and scars make their contribution to our continuing self-image and how we see ourselves today!

The emerging modern term to describe these scars of life is ‘Baggage’. This is a very good term because it describes the feeling of dragging round with us some heavy stuff. Interestingly the Latin word for baggage is ‘impedimenta’. That is exactly what our ‘baggage’ does! It impedes our journey through life!

There is an old Italian proverb that says "we all carry a knapsack on our back with our faults in it. Because it is on our back we cannot see the knapsack but everybody else can!"

So it is no new idea that we carry unwanted baggage with us. The very good news is: We can get rid of it! Sadly people of our parent’s generation did not have this facility. They dragged their baggage around all their lives, and it got heavier as they got older.

We are fortunate to have a choice that they didn't have.

How much is your excess baggage costing you? Let us help remove the burden - join us as a member.