‘When Finger Pointing Dressed Up as Wisdom’
“The world is a mirror, forever reflecting what you are doing, within yourself.” (Neville Goddard)
There is a saying that floats around spiritual circles. He or She is a mirror of your thoughts. Everyone in your life is simply reflecting you back to yourself. There is truth sitting inside that idea. This not one hundred percent accurate, and the gap between the two is worth understanding.
The Grain of Truth
Used well, the mirror is a gift. When someone's words or behaviour trigger a strong reaction inside of you, it invites a very useful question. ‘How come this affects me so much?’ Often the sting points back to one of your own fears, beliefs or old wounds, a fear of rejection, or a quiet sense of not being good enough. Looked at this way, other people become teachers, showing you the places in yourself that are still asking to be healed.
Where It Goes Wrong At Times
The trouble starts when the mirror gets weaponised. In spiritual circles, some people, and plenty of narcissists and manipulators, have learned to hide behind it. They say something hurtful, and the moment you name how it landed for you, they reply, ‘It’s not me, it is you, it’s your mirror.’ Or ‘You are just too sensitive.’ That is not self-reflection. That is finger pointing dressed up as wisdom, used to dodge responsibility on their part and to take advantage of how you feel.
Not Everything Is Your Reflection
Here is the part the saying leaves out. Other people are not only reflections of you. They carry their own wounds, their own clutter, their own ‘Tip.’ Sometimes what you see in them is genuinely theirs, and nothing to do with you. As I touched on in my post about how hurt people hurt people, what someone throws at you is often simply theirs to own. To insist that everything others do is somehow about you becomes its own quiet trap, because it hands you the blame for everyone else's behaviour.
The Difference That Keeps You Honest
The healthy path is to use the mirror honestly and look at why something stirs inside of you so strongly, while still seeing clearly what is really happening within the other person. Own your own feelings and keep the relationship honest. That is the real difference between the mirror and finger pointing. One asks, what is here for me to learn. The other asks, who can I blame.
There is an old proverb I keep close. ‘When you point your finger at someone, there are three fingers pointing back at you.’ Try it right now. Notice the one finger aimed outward, and the three curled quietly back toward yourself. It is a simple reminder to take responsibility for our own thoughts, feelings and beliefs before we reach to push them on anyone else.
As a hypnotherapist, a great deal of my work sits right on that line, helping people tell the difference between a trigger that is theirs to heal and a behaviour that was never theirs to carry.
A Question to Sit With
This week, when something from another person stings, carry one gentle question with you. And please hear it with love, the aim is not blame in either direction, only clear seeing:
‘Is this showing something in me to look at, or something in them to step back from?’
The mirror is a beautiful tool for looking within. It was never meant to be handed to someone else so they could avoid looking at themselves.
Have a great week,
Michael
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