Do You See What I See?

What do you see when you look in the mirror? Do you see someone worth loving? Someone who is loved? Do you see someone whom you love?

Many of us tolerate their our reflections for practical purposes, like teeth-brushing and face-washing, but lots of us don’t like to look that closely at ourselves. We see what we’re told to see, and the mirror only shows the flaws that have dogged us from birth. We focus on our buckteeth and bug eyes because our peers focused on them and we mistook teasing for truth. Beauty, for most of us, was unattainable without certain products, and even then, Revlon has never worked the same magic on me as it did on Cindy Crawford.

She was the supermodel I figured I had the best shot at emulating. Trust me—it never happened.

That’s okay. I know now that her Cosmo covers were touched up to make her more than she actually was. None of us is perfect; we’ve established that. Unfortunately, we are primed to pay more attention to our imperfections than they deserve, and at the cost of what makes us beautiful.

You are so much more than what you see in the glass. Mirrors only show us two dimensions. I wonder sometimes how I appear to other people. I’m happy in my own skin (finally!), but I know some beautiful people who loathe to look in the mirror. What gives?

Here’s the best kept secret in the cosmos: everyone is beautiful. That’s the dimension the mirror cannot capture, and thus the one whose existence we insist on doubting. Our divinity eludes the tool we use to measure our appeal, yet our divinity is what makes us each unique and special and extraordinary. How can you be all those things and not be beautiful? A smile—even a bucktoothed one—is irresistible when it animates the smiler’s eyes. When we accept that we are divine, we allow ourselves to be loved. When we feel loved, we feel beautiful, and our distorted perception of ourselves is realigned to reveal the inescapable truth. Beauty resides in the soul, and everybody has one of those. Some of us are out of touch with it, but we have one nonetheless.

The next time you catch your own eye, take a minute to look—really look—at yourself, and don’t look away until you glimpse that beauty. I promise you, it’s there. I can see it, even if (right now) you can’t.

With love,