The Perfect Mirror

The Perfect Mirror

I am feeling a tremendous amount of gratitude for my LO today.

When I started my own healing journey, I wrestled constantly with this piece about time. Where would I get the time to do all this work, dive deep into my own baggage, collect all the tools necessary, and build a network of people who could support me through it?

It is the question I asked every one of my masters as I trained, and honestly, it is a question I continued asking as I kept training. I felt the ache and tear of adding anything else to my already heavy load as a working leader, loving wife, devoted mother, active community member, and overachiever extraordinaire. The idea that I would have to add one more thing to my plate felt exhausting.

My teachers and masters always gently reminded me that the whole reason I was trying to heal my mind, body, and spirit was to give me more time with my husband and child. They kept coming back to one simple phrase:

“The best way to be there for your family is to heal yourself.”

It is something I keep thinking I finally understand. Like my mind has fully comprehended the wisdom in that phrase and tucked it away somewhere safe. Then life shifts, another layer reveals itself, and I am being schooled all over again.

That happened again this week.

My perfect LO just turned 4. I honestly don’t know why we call it terrible twos or terrifying threes. It is clearly frustrating fours.

We have just discovered the wonderful nature of what tantrums look like. And holy crap, it is worse than I was led to believe. There is that phrase that eventually comes back to bite every parent in the ass, “Oh, it won’t be like that for me,” basically guaranteeing that somehow it will be much worse for you.

This has been my reality for the last two months.

Then this week something miraculous happened.

I noticed that every time my LO began to throw a fit, especially in public, I would move almost instantly into a tremendous amount of anger. I would race to correct him or scold him for his behavior, and then thirty seconds later the shame and guilt over not handling it better would wash over me.

As spring comes to a close, I have been spending a lot of time working with the liver.

Within Traditional Chinese Medicine and Medical Qigong, the liver has been associated for centuries with anger, frustration, compassion, forgiveness, movement, and the ability to flow through life without becoming stuck. These energetic relationships are part of a much older understanding of the body than the Western medical model, and they continue to shape the way practitioners work with emotional and physical patterns today.

For me, this relationship between the liver and anger has always felt beautifully accurate.

Anger is not a bad emotion. I actually think anger can be incredibly beautiful. It tells us something. It can show us where a boundary has been crossed, where an old wound is still tender, where something inside us is desperate to be seen, or where a protective part of us still believes it needs to stand guard.

As I started watching myself more closely, I realized my instinct was to move directly into anger whenever my LO expressed emotions in a way that did not fit the social norm of what a “good” child should look like.

And there it was.

An old experience. An old expectation. An old piece of pain quietly running the show.

So I began doing something different.

Every time that boundary was triggered, I took three deep breaths and dove into it. I started asking the boundary questions.

Where did you come from? Why are you here? When did this develop? What are you trying to protect? Are you still necessary?

And really anything else I could think of that might help me understand this piece of myself instead of simply reacting from it.

Then I would ask, “When will you be ready to be released?”

At the beginning, the answer was, “Never.”

So I kept asking.

Eventually it softened into, “Maybe in a few years.”

Then a year.

Then a month.

Then this week.

Then a few days.

Until finally, the answer was, “Now.”

Feeling that release inside me was beautiful.

There is something extraordinary about reaching the place inside yourself where something you have carried for years finally realizes it does not have to keep protecting you anymore. It can loosen its grip. It can stop bracing. It can finally rest.

And here is the part I love most.

While I was experiencing this internal dilemma about being a better parent, my LO was still fighting his own battle too.

Then slowly, as I found more grace for myself, I watched him begin to find more grace for himself.

We began to communicate through it.

We could express emotions. We could make a plan to change the situation and the outcome. We could laugh at the absolute absurdity of how our bodies were reacting. We could forgive ourselves. We could love the broken pieces of ourselves that had simply been looking for somewhere safe to land.

And once again, I understood what my teachers had been trying to show me all along.

The people around us become the most extraordinary mirrors.

Our partners. Our families. Our friends. The people who irritate us. The people we love beyond comprehension. Society as a whole. And maybe most beautifully, our children.

They hold up pieces of ourselves that we might never have been able to see on our own.

They show us our pain. Our tenderness. Our fear. Our expectations. Our beautiful little survival mechanisms that once served us perfectly and may finally be ready to be released.

Our children are especially brilliant at this because they have absolutely no interest in protecting us from ourselves.

They will walk right up to the deepest place inside of you, hold up the mirror, and somehow ask you to look.

And what a gift that can become.

Healing has taught me that I do not have to be afraid of what I see in the mirror.

I can become curious about it.

I can love it.

I can ask where it came from.

I can thank it for getting me this far.

And when it is ready, I can finally let it go.

The reflection may belong to the person standing in front of me, and the reaction happening inside of me belongs to me.

That is where the work lives.

That is where the possibility lives.

That is where healing continues to surprise me with how intimate, intelligent, and beautifully woven it can be.

Sometimes the greatest gift another human being can give us is simply becoming the perfect mirror.

May peace and joy find you.