The Woman in the Mirror
For a few seconds I didn’t recognise this woman staring back at me in the bathroom mirror.
She simply glowed. Her hair artfully held up by sunglasses, just enough makeup on, gorgeous luminescent pearl earnings that seemed to amplify her light. It wasn’t specifically these details that had me catching my breathe, it was how she glowed, her inner strength and beauty shining so bright it was almost blinding.
For a split second I saw myself. I really saw myself in that bathroom mirror.
And this woman I saw was happy, confident, at peace and at ease with herself.
And I couldn’t believe it was me.
The Moments That Led Me to the Mirror
A few minutes earlier I’d been locked in the bathroom stall forcing myself to take some deep breathes with my eyes closed to calm myself down.
And a short while before that I’d been hiding around the corner, crouched against the scratchy wall where no-one could see me, trying not to cry and breakdown because of some random comment someone had made to me.
So when I came out of that stall and looked in the mirror, I was still expecting to see the broken version of myself, the overweight and unhappy woman who was stuck and just wanted to fit in. The girl with the birthmark and the stutter who hid her pain behind a mask of indifference, who rejected others before they had the chance to reject or judge her.
But that woman and that girl were not in that bathroom mirror.
This woman in the mirror she was shining back at me, and she gave me the strength to dry my hands, shake off the insecurity and get back out to face the world.
That woman in the mirror is who I always want to be. And I’ve never seen myself as clearly as I did in that moment. So few of us ever do. We see the cracks, the flaws, the doubts, the insecurities. We feel incomplete, unseen, unappreciated and exhausted from battling our own minds day in and day out. We have the “could” have and “should” have’s on a loop in our brains before we fall asleep each night.
My Journey to Her
And while there is no permanent “cure” for this state of mind, and these feelings and thoughts may never stop completely, if you could see yourself in all your beauty, I know that you’ll see yourself in a whole new light.
I know I did.
It’s my own personal breakthrough moment. It’s when the work I’ve been putting in has borne fruit.
I’ve been taking a bit of my own medicine recently and working on my doubts and fears. I’ve been taking those things that I only admit to myself in the darkest moments, and I’ve been replacing them. I’ve acknowledged them, thanked my glorious brain for the reminder, and I’ve pushed myself to feel my inner strength, my light. I’ve been revelling in my strengths not wallowing in my weaknesses.
I’ve sat at my desk, I’ve laid down on the bed or sat on the couch, closed my eyes, and searched for my light when the dark moments threaten. This light sits in my chest, and I can fuel that flame by clearing my mind and breathing in deeply to fans those flames.
This is not to say that the tough things I’ve faced are not still there when I open my eyes again. They are. But my anxiety is lessened. My ability to move on despite what’s going on increases. I have more control of what’s happening to me and for me.
Lessons Learned
There are a few things I’ve learned from that moment in the bathroom:
I have so much light if I just believe in myself.
I am so much stronger than my circumstances.
I am not my mistakes, my missteps, my doubts.
I can forgive myself for who I was, accept the past and move forward in a new way.
I am strong because of my lived experiences – even those that I thought were un-survivable!
And all of us feel overwhelmed at some time or another. I’ve learned that even a tiny piece of solitude and some deep breathes will bring me back to myself, will calm the anxiety that has dogged my every step to now.
When we see ourselves clearly, we don’t see the jagged pieces, we see the whole picture in full colour. Then we can see who we are. And then we can show others who we are.
I’m holding that image of the woman in the mirror in my mind all the time now.
She is who I am.
She is me.
And she is glorious.
A Message to Every Woman
I hope every woman gets the chance to see her version of the woman in the mirror. Because I know that once they do, they will know how wonderful they are, how powerful they are. And they’ll know that nothing will stand in their way.
The woman in the mirror affirmed for me that we are designed to make this life wonderful and not be dragged down my society’s expectations of the “good girls”. Our function is not to be pretty. Our function extends beyond our ability to bear and care for children or any of the other limiting expectations the world might have for us simply because we’re women. Our function, the job we’re her to do, is to find the woman in the mirror and use her power to change the world.
Have you seen the woman in the mirror?
