When is the last time you perused self-help books on Amazon? From “You Are a Badass” to the longtime best seller “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” the world of expert advice for self-improvement grows bigger every year.
Sadly, a lot of the purchases of said books are by people trying to figure out and change someone else rather than themselves. “Here, read this book, I loved it! Think you will find it enlightening too.” Translation: You are seriously a mess and I can’t fix you no matter how hard I try – so please read this book and hopefully your eyes will be open to all your flaws and maybe you will finally become someone I can tolerate.
Here is what I have learned (but of course, not perfected.)
I have a superpower but it’s not unique to me, you have it too. In fact, everyone I know was born with the same one, although some use it more frequently and more proficiently than others.
Like all human beings, I have this uncanny ability to look at people and see all their blind spots, character flaws, filters and wrong thinking. In fact, I can analyze you all day long and come up with all kinds of expert advice on how to fix “your stuff” and why you should want to.
Amazing, right? But my special superpower has a very powerful hidden adversary. Just one innocent rendezvous with kryptonite – the mirror on the wall – and I become just like everyone else. Suddenly the X-ray vision into all human imperfections is rendered useless when I try to use my superpower honestly and openly on myself.
So what good is this power if I can’t see my own blind spots and don’t have 20/20 vision when it comes to my own stuff – can I ever change? Can any of us really ever change who we are?
I believe the answer is yes. But just like stepping on the scale when you’ve been avoiding it for decades – at first, the light of the truth is going to pierce you deeply before it begins to set you free.
Judging others is easy and painless. Getting HONEST with yourself, being willing to take the scalpel to your own behavior and psyche is going to require you to be brave. Your amount of bravery will only be equal to your amount of unequivocal determination to become a better you.
Everything and anything about self-discovery and improvement begins with AWARENESS. We can’t change what we aren’t aware of. So how do we become more aware? We have to start by being objective with ourselves.
Listen to your thoughts and begin to ask the tougher questions. “What do I believe and why do I believe that about myself, my friends, and the world?”
Be VULNERABLE. True self-reflection requires one to open the door to others perceptions of how they see you. Friends or loved ones who you respect and trust can be great assets in your self-discovery journey.
Ask someone you love to be honest with you – “what do you see as my biggest weakness . . . or my greatest strength . . . and is there something about my personality which is annoying and I could improve?” I know, not so easy especially if you tend to have a very strong, protective and reactive ego.
My fellow blind-spot exposer happens to be my husband. Together we try to help each other eliminate wrong thinking, childhood misconceptions, negative propensities and detrimental inclinations. It’s funny because the first few years of our marriage these “blind spots” were actually the emotional pitfalls we both were so sensitive to. We fell into the same ones repeatedly and ended up in the same arguments over and over again. But each time these relationship rocks surfaced – we would grab our chisels and attempt to chip away at our own “stuff.”
So maybe in some way it is so much easier to make personal changes if we have someone else to help us see the light as in . . . “hold the mirror.”
While we are all perfect judges of everyone and all things outside of ourselves, perhaps our best self-help, self-talk daily habit should be simply this:
“Mirror, mirror on the wall . . . please let me see myself as I truly am . . . and that is all!”
It’s worth a try.
The Zen Den
Hello and welcome to The Zen Den. My name is Alison and while I am passionate about many things, my most inspiring driving force is human connection. Blogger, content writer, orthopedic exercise specialist, motivational speaker, international yoga pro, published songwriter, avid poker player, mom and wife are just a few of my titles. But when I do my job at NASA, I am known simply as “The Fairy Zenmother” a role I deeply love because people invite me into their space to help them find their center, relax and stretch their muscles and destress their mind. Here in the blogosphere version of The Zen Den, I invite you into my world where I will explore ideas for creating a better tomorrow and a kinder today. And hopefully, with insight, authenticity and humor; my words, observations and experiences will help you feel calm, centered, intellectually challenged and spiritually enlightened. Alternatively, if you have something you would like to see covered in The Zen Den, just let me know. Your feedback is welcome and valuable to the success of this blog. Finally, my heart is filled with gratitude to have this opportunity to share with all of you.
