Mirror Law: The Magic Rule For Solving Our Problems With Others
The law of the mirror shows us that the source of our negative feelings towards someone is within our heart, not the other person. That is, what this law teaches us is that feelings originate from within us, and that is why we are responsible for managing beliefs, ideas and bad thoughts in relation to others.
Because the irritation, usually, is with the person himself, and not with the neighbor. In other words, everything starts and everything ends in itself, as it is the projection that plays with our mind, as if our reality were a mirror that gives us back the image we are generating.
Yoshinori Noguchi recreates this law in his eponymous book, a beautiful story, moving to tears, that offers us the possibility of assuming and integrating this idea into everyday life.
This author places us in front of a mirror to face our interior, which is definitely what determines everything that happens to us in life. Therefore, as Jung would say, “what you deny submits you, and what you accept transforms you” .
What bothers us about others is what we deny about ourselves
We must examine what bothers us about others. Why do our brother’s comments bother us at family meals? Why are we not able to reason when our sister-in-law is present? Why can’t we handle not being supported when that’s what we want?
To analyze this, it’s a good idea to make a list of all the things that bother us about the people around us. We will probably find that there are values that we are also belittling ; that is, we will probably notice that there are things we do wrong too.
Somehow we must ask ourselves questions like: why don’t we react the same way with everyone to a situation? Why does a simple, dry “hello” from some people irritate us and provoke no reaction when it is said by other people? The answer is simple: we don’t keep the same in relation to one person and in relation to others.
So, the next step is to make a list of what we have to thank these people who always bother us (probably she will have done something for us or someone we love).
There are no time limits for making this list; we have to take our time to examine how many of those traits that bother us in the other person are also in us. When we’re done, we might as well make another list outlining those issues we’d like to ask forgiveness for.
It may be difficult, and in the end we believe we’ve created a forced list of unimportant little details. However, this very difficult gesture will help us to realize that on some occasion our gaze was hostile, that at other times we spoke with an altered voice or criticized something behind the back of something that didn’t make sense.
The last and bravest step is to get in touch with that person through a phone call, a letter, or face-to-face. We will have to thank you for the reasons we noted in the first list and then apologize for the things that are noted in the second list.
If we want to get over this and do our best to heal the grudge, then the contact must be direct. However, if this is not an option, a less radical way is to write a letter that will not be sent, in a way that allows us to release the emotional mismatch that we carry in our luggage.
In any case, knowing the law of the mirror helps us to be cautious and try not to harbor bitterness and bad feelings from now on. We must not forget that we project what we carry within us, so everything we see in others is likely to say more about ourselves than about them.
