Mirror, mirror in the sky  

“Habits create a caricature of yourself.”—Marc Maron

You’ve probably heard of mirror work—where you gaze at your reflection in the bathroom mirror and tell yourself how strong and beautiful and capable you are.

Here’s why I never do that.

That woman who looks at me from the mirror is not the real me.

Focusing on that tiny sliver of a face and a body is like worshipping a single one of my 50 trillion cells. Without the other cells, that one solitary cell is useless.

Finding meaning or identity in my physical body blocks a deeper life force that wants to move through me. It blocks real meaning, real beauty, real substance.

Most of us squander our average 75 years on planet earth believing we are the image in the mirror. We slavishly work to protect it, to keep it going at all costs, to make it look as society tells us it should look.  

As the Course so plainly tells me, I am under no laws but God’s. All the strange and twisted human laws of beauty, economics, medicine and nutrition are only enforced when I cling so desperately to that caricature in the mirror.

Imagine how different our lives would be if we didn’t feel the compulsion to perpetually ensure its safety?

When we believe the image is who we are, we’re stuck and scared and unable to see the bigger glories.  

We are the life force itself, stars masquerading as separated reflections in a mirror.

Instead of talking to a mirror, I like to notice myself in the night sky, in the Milky Way, in the love that flows in and throughout the entire cosmos. #222 Forever!

Pam Grout is the author of 20 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her latest book, The Course in Miracles Experiment: A Starter Kit for Rewiring Your Mind (And Therefore Your World).