reflection

Who Is Your God Given Mirror?

I wrote a poem years ago in regards to people and mirrors. The flow of it was there and it just slipped from my brain to my finger tips in seconds. The words have never left me since the day it was written. It is a simple reminder to myself and others struggling to understand people in general.

mirror

God Given Mirror

I asked God for a mirror,

and He decided to give me you.

He said If I don’t like what I see,

then perhaps I have done it too.

He told me to cast no judgement,

on others when they are weak.

And that if I had nothing nice to say,

there shall be no need to speak.

He told me that you were my mirror,

what I dislike in you needs changed within me.

Because we are all one another’s mirrors

and our own worst enemy.

There is a lot of truth to what is said in this poem for the simple fact that “what we do not like in others is usually something that we do not like about ourselves”.

It may seem hard to believe it at first, but not if you really think in depth about it.

When we do not like someone…. it is because they either do something we use to do ourselves and we have attached negative feelings towards that action, or they do something we have suppressed and kept ourselves from doing.

 © Angela Bininger and The Empowerer, 2009-2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this websites author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Angela Bininger and The Empowerer with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

God Given Mirror




© Angela Bininger and The Empowerers, 2009-2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this websites author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Angela Bininger and The Empowerers with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

If you don’t like something about someone, is it something you have suppressed that you once did?

*We are one another’s God-given mirror *

Everyone has heard the old sayings “What you don’t like in others, is what you don’t like about yourself.” “They are just your God-given mirror” etc. Is there truth to those? Could it be, that you too, were at one point guilty of the same behaviors that you don’t find appealing in someone else?

I believe that there is truth to those sayings. If you stop and think about it, most people can’t stand a liar! It’s not to say that they have never lied, heck I can’t think of a person in the world that hasn’t. I do feel, however, the reason most do not like liars is because they have suppressed the behavior, after having learned from their own negative experience with it. It produces nothing positive, and most that have experienced the repercussions of a lie, have no desire to experience them again.

Odds are, the person that despises a liar may perhaps tell little white lies to their spouse or a friend. Wether it be the true price of that newly purchased item, or how much the vacation REALLY cost, it happens. Or perhaps when they were a child, they lied. Perhaps they got caught and taught that such behavior isn’t acceptable.

Now take that “one friend” for example. He/She drives you absolutely nuts! What is it about them that drives you nuts? When you find it, which is sometimes very easy, think about what you have done in your life that resembles what they are doing. If you can’t think of anything you have done similar right off-hand, dig deeper! Go all the way back into your childhood, for as far back as you can remember. If you still haven’t come up with a situation that compares, then compare the emotions. What have you done that would cause someone else to feel the way this person is making you feel emotionally? There has to be something!

We are all capable of the same things. The same choices, the same dream, the same mistakes etc. Although I may not make the same decision as you in the exact situation you are in, and our circumstances at times may be different, it’s not to say that I wouldn’t ever make the same decision. It’s not to say that I have never made that decision at all. It simply says, either I have done it and suppressed the negative behavior, or I haven’t been placed in a situation yet, where I may make the same choice.

Benefits of shared parenting, loneliness can be a good thing!

I guess the topic of conversation would vary from person to person, the circumstances that led up to it may also be slightly different, however, the results are all the same. You are alone.

Loneliness is often just as much of a good thing as a bad thing. It is a great time of  self-reflection, a time to heal, and a time to discover both old and new things about yourself. And discovering those things that got lost along the way, in the depths of a marriage,  are just as exciting as discovering the new ones.

For me, I have shared parenting. At first this was extremely difficult for me. I had never really been away from my children other than an occasional overnight at a relative’s house. When the every other week summer rotation began there was such a huge void there. It felt as though my life would end. Every other week I felt as though I had nothing. SO, as all single moms do…. I buried myself in work.

Eventually I found additional comfort at the library and began to check out heaps of self-help books. It would be nothing for me to walk out with 20 of them at a time. ANYTHING to occupy my mind. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was helping myself. I was learning. I was growing. And needless to say, I was surviving it. I just kept my mind so busy that I didn’t notice as much.

The one major plus side I see in shared parenting is this:

It gives me time every other week to reflect on the week prior and prepare for the week to come. There is time to  think about things that we did or didn’t do as a family, what could have been done better, should this or that been handled that way, the list goes on and on. There’s always time to self check! One simple example is: How often do you tell your child to hold on, just a second, or wait a minute? Those things are more noticeable after divorce when there is bi-weekly parenting. You catch it, then make an effort to correct it. Once you correct that one you are on to the next, and so forth.

I miss them a ton when they are gone, and anxiously await their return on Sunday nights. Although it is lonely, the lessons I’m learning will allow these children to become beautiful adults. There is nothing better for a child than to have a parent that is at peace with themselves. It gives balance, and allows them to see both love and hope! And there is nothing greater for young girls to see than a woman who is independent, and secure with who she is.