Mirrors

​My daughter and I were mirrors this past week. At a family vacation up in Dillon Beach. The entire Rose crew went. My husband and I, our kids, and grandkids. An awesome dog that I consider my granddog. But alas, my dog did not join in, he is still at summer camp in Oregon (he comes home next week, I can’t wait, I will obviously write about him a lot, be prepared.)
 
My daughter and I were mirrors. We did not plan this, this mirror thing, though we do it quite often. We did plan to do cartwheels. That was a plan. We did not plan our timing or our movement or our direction. Just that we were going to do cartwheels on the beach. And this is what we did. Mirrored cartwheels.  
 
This makes me laugh. The mirrors my daughter and I do quite often when we dance or move or speak or move or dance. Or do cartwheels. These mirrors are joyful mirrors. They make me laugh. A lot.
 
But today I want to talk about those other mirrors The reflecting back of those challenging things about ourselves that we can’t see without the mirror being held up for us. I want to talk about those mirrors.  
 
One level removed. 
 
Because I don’t want to talk about the, you are the person in front of me, the person reflecting me as I stand here in this moment, person. I want to talk about the person or people that those people in our personal sphere interact with outside of us. The mirror once removed (think cousins) mirrors.
 
I am realizing more and more through the triggers and reactions I have around the friends of friends, that these one-step removed mirrors offer just as transparent an image for us to examine as those first-generation mirrors that we have. 
 
And for me, these days, these one-level down mirrors are actually better teachers. I have it going on with the obvious mirrors. I have practiced this part. For years. For years I have been aware of the gift of our clan mirroring back to us those things about ourselves that we need to see more clearly, heal more deeply, love more…more.
 
But this new mirror, the once removed mirror, this second-generation mirror one step outside of our direct connection with each other mirror, this is a big one. And it snuck up on me. 
 
This is how it goes.
 
When I friend of mine, someone I love, a person I care about, shares an interaction/challenge that they have with another person, my first thought is I hate this person. I hate everything about them.
 
And this got me thinking. What is it about this that elicits such a strong first reaction of immediate dislike.  
 
My ego mind, that doesn’t want to explore the truth, will say that I don’t like how this other person treats the person that is a friend of mine, that I love, that I care about. That my immediate distain for this person of this person of mine is that they are hurting my person and so I don’t like them.
 
But when I can drop away from my ego protector, champion of all things not having to do with the evolution of my soul and who won’t allow me to get to the truth of me, when I can drop away from my ego, well then, there I am. Here with them. With my person’s person. I am here with them. I am them. I am these other people I don’t like that hurt the people I love. They are just doing it in a more obvious way whereas my way is camouflaged and so it looks like I am not.
 
This is a hard place to stand in. In having to see yourself outside of yourself and not liking it. This other person of the person that you are in relationship with, they are ugly and evil and selfish and manipulative. And also smart and capable and you hate them while also you have compassion for them and their own struggles and challenges and inabilities to show up. 
 
You hate them and love them both, in their relationship with your person. Because they are you in your relationship with your person. Maybe not exactly. Often not exactly. Just pieces. But those piece, they are clear.  
 
“I do that,” I say. And my ego says, “oh no, you’re good.”