NormsMilfordBlog

One of the regular readers my blog posts sent me a nice note about my last post – Who are you? In the comment she mentioned that she will ask that question as she looks in the mirror and hopes that she likes the answer.

Unless the mirror that she was referring to is in her mind she may be looking in the wrong place. We spend entirely too much time physically looking at ourselves in the mirror, because we believe that it shows us what the world sees when they see us. Wrong. The mirror provides a mere glimpse of what the world sees when it encounters us. We do not come into focus in the eyes of others until they get to know the parts of us that the mirror cannot reflect. We look and we see “I’m too fat or my ears are too big or my hair is terrible today or my clothes aren’t the latest style or I’m ugly or I’m not this or I’m not that.” Why do we do that to ourselves? Because we lack the self-confidence to just say, “this is me, take me as I am and get to know me”.

Maybe instead of starting out the day insecure with how we look or how we are dressed, we need instead to adjust how we are going to act towards others. One little quote that I saw provides a great starting point for every day –

“Be the person your dog thinks you are.”  (Lab Rescue)

For non-dog people, this may be a bit hard to grasp; however, dog people know that a dog is the most undemanding and appreciative companion that you could ever have. Dogs love their owners and that love expresses itself in happy tail wagging and licking and jumping and excitement at their every return after being way. They are genuinely happy to see you. Dogs don’t judge you on your looks or your clothes; they judge you on the affection that you share with them and they reward you with unconditional love in return.

Now, it’s not recommended that you jump around excitedly and lick the people that you meet during the day, but you can be genuinely happy to see them. You can show your interest in them by being an attentive listener and engaging them in meaningful conversation, rather than the meaningless banter that goes along with air kisses in too many modern encounters. You could put away your smartphone and actually talk. You could ask about their family and tell them about yours. All the while bits and pieces of who you really are will be revealed in ways that the mirror could never show them. They will begin to see the real you. The mirror doesn’t lie, it just doesn’t show the whole truth about you.

So, the secret is to worry less about how you look and more about how you interact with others so that they can see the real you. Beauty is not really just in the eye of the beholder, it is in the mind’s eye, too. Your beauty is expressed through your words and actions. You may have heard someone called a really beautiful person when it had nothing at all to do with how they look. That is an inner beauty that will never fade and will always outshine whatever the mirror tells you. Bring that beauty to the surface every day and let it shine.

Interesting things happens, when you really get into believing in your inner beauty and letting it out; you begin to see differences in the mirror, too. It begins with the smile that comes with feeling good about yourself and it continues with the self-confidence to dress and act in ways that also makes you feel good. You may lose a few pounds, not because you thought you were fat, but because it makes you feel better. You may try a new hair style, not because you’ve seen it on some model in a magazine somewhere; but, because the new style is more about the “you” that you want to be. People will notice, too, that you carry yourself differently – confidently and with more pose. Why? Because you feel good about yourself and you want to share that good feeling with others.

So, when you look in the mirror in the morning and ask “Who are you?” let your immediate answer be, “I’m going to be someone that I’d like to meet, if I met me on the street.” Be the beautiful, loving and caring person that your dog thinks that you are – because you are. Have a great big beautiful day!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2015 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.