Healing Your Emotional Self (9 page)

Throughout the rest of this book, beginning with chapter 5, I will remind you of these premises in the form of “psychological truths” at the end of each chapter. Each psychological truth will correspond to the focus of each chapter and will serve as a suggestion for contempla- tion and a basic review.

Mirror Therapy is also based on the following ideas: If you have low self-esteem and a poor body image and/or tend to be self-critical, the image you see in the mirror often reflects how your parents and other primary caretakers perceived you. Negative parenting experi- ences often cause us to see ourselves through a distorted lens. When parents are inattentive, angry, or self-absorbed, the mirror they hold up for their children reflects a distorted vision of reality. When they are overly critical, shaming, or verbally abusive, children see a dis- torted and unrealistic image of themselves. It is like looking at yourself in a fun-house hall of mirrors—you can’t really see yourself accurately because the mirror itself is distorted. Unfortunately, children have no way of knowing that the image they see is distorted, and so they come to believe that the reflection is real.

Mirror Therapy can help you provide for yourself your own posi- tive mirroring experiences and reject the negative messages and pro- jections put on you by your parents. It will also help you heal from your parents’ lack of proper mirroring. By giving back the negative projections your parents placed upon you and then providing for your- self the positive empathetic mirroring you did not receive as a child, you can rid yourself of your distorted, negative self-image. This will be done with a series of exercises and practices specifically developed to

overcome neglect, shame, negative parental messages, and inade- quate role modeling.

The Mirror Therapy process will also help you to understand the concept of the judge (or superego or inner critic) and will teach you how to overcome its negative influence in your life as well as self- soothing techniques and how to have compassion for yourself.

Mirroring and Projection

Mirroring
is a word used to describe the empathetic responsiveness many parents have toward their child’s needs, activities, and wishes. Mirroring teaches the child which of his potential qualities are most highly esteemed and valued. Mirroring also validates the child as to who he is and affirms his worth.

Projection
is an unconscious defense mechanism. What is emo- tionally unacceptable to the self is unconsciously rejected and attrib- uted to others. Many parents emotionally abuse, neglect, or smother their children by neglecting to practice proper mirroring or by pro- jecting their own unacceptable, rejected qualities onto them.

Mirroring and projection play an important role in creating our self-image. For example, most parents feel a rush of emotion when they first see their newborn infant. They have an overwhelming feel- ing of love and a deep desire to nurture their baby and protect it from harm. Unfortunately, some parents do not feel this rush of love, nor do they feel a strong nurturing or protective instinct. Some feel nothing. Others are overwhelmed with fear.

Parents who feel love for their infants also love to look at their baby. They marvel at every little thing the child does; every gesture or facial expression is endearing to them and they naturally smile at the child in adoration. These adoring, approving looks are like a magic potion to a baby, imbuing him with confidence and a strong sense of self.

Parents who do not feel love for their infant may do everything necessary to take care of their child properly and yet they will not nat- urally mirror (repeat or mimic) their infant’s facial gestures or shower their infant with unconditional love. While they may hold their infant closely and give him the necessary nutrition, they may look away or

become preoccupied with something else. As a result, the infant does not receive the adoring attention or empathetic mirroring he needs.

Parents who were themselves neglected or abused in childhood tend to treat their own children the way they were treated. For exam- ple, if a mother did not receive empathetic mirroring from her own mother, she will probably not know how to give it to her baby. If a father was overly criticized or shamed by his parents, he will likely project his bad feelings about himself onto his own children and end up treating them in the same ways he was treated.

During the stages of development from about two to four years of age (known as the rapprochement phase), a child builds on what he has already learned. This involves the child’s increasing discovery that he is a separate, autonomous self. During this phase the child constantly ref- erences back and forth, from himself to his parent or caretaker, in order to validate that it is all right to move out on his own. You have no doubt noticed this when watching toddlers. They reach out to touch something and then look back at their parent for his or her reaction.

A child checks the facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice of people around her—particularly her parents—to determine what kind of person she is. The ones close to her become reflections of her self—her mirrors. If these mirrors are smiling, the child feels good about herself; if they are frowning, she may become frightened and not feel so good about herself. As Nancy Napier, the author of
Recreating Your Self
, stated: “The mirrors in a child’s life convey a wide variety of messages about the self. They may say she is worth- while or lovable, or that she is a nuisance or unlovable.”

According to Napier, these reflections create a powerful founda- tion for the child’s internal sense of self. If parents are consistently remote, irritated, or hostile, the messages coming to the child will be self-diminishing and may create in a child a certain lack of acceptance of himself, because, as children, we believe what people reflect to us. As children, we have neither the cognitive nor the emotional ability to understand that Mother had a hard day and would snap at
anyone
she had to deal with. Instead, we conclude that we are the cause of our mother’s response, which in turn can become the belief that we are bad, that there is something wrong with us, or that we do not deserve to be treated well.

Parents are not the only ones who reflect self-diminishing beliefs back to us. Children also see mirrors in other family members, other caretakers, teachers, friends, and authority figures. The responses of all these people are taken in as reflections of the developing self. When these reflections are similar to the negative reflections from parents, children believe even more certainly that they are bad, they are to blame, or they are unlovable. Conversely, when the reflections from those mirrors are consistently positive, good feelings about the self are enhanced and reinforced. Unfortunately, many who grow up in abusive or neglectful homes tend to receive more self-diminishing than self-enhancing reflections.

How to Use This Book

As you read on, I encourage you to keep a Mirror Journal to record your feelings, reactions, and progress. You may wish to use your Mirror Journal for the many exercises in these chapters as well as for the various letters I encourage you to write throughout the book.

I suggest you attempt to read only one chapter per week, espe- cially as you get into the actual Mirror Therapy program (parts two and three). It is best to take in the information slowly. Each chapter has many exercises for you to complete. At the end of each chapter you will find a “homework assignment” for the week. I encourage you to do the exercises and these assignments because they are an impor- tant aspect of the healing process. Readers of my previous books have consistently given me feedback that they experienced more progress when they did the exercises.

The Mirror Therapy program presented in this book is considered an adjunct to professional therapy, especially if you were emotionally abused as a child. Although you can do the exercises on your own and can gain a better understanding of why you are the way you are from reading the book, a professional therapist can help you with some of the deeper issues, such as healing abandonment wounds and shame. The consistent, positive regard you receive from a good therapist (pos- itive mirroring) can help heal the wounds caused by overly critical or

overly shaming parents. This sense of approval from an authority fig- ure has the potential to be enormously healing.

Mirror Therapy techniques are also intended to be tools for psy- chotherapists working with people with low self-esteem, powerful inner critics, and deep shame issues. I offer a combination of cognitive restructuring techniques that are best used in cases of
situational
low self-esteem (someone whose low self-esteem tends to come up only in specific areas such as work or sexual performance), while they have confidence in other aspects of their lives. Low self-esteem that is
char- acterological
, on the other hand, usually has roots in early experiences of abuse or abandonment. The sense of “badness” or “wrongness” is more global and tends to affect many areas of their lives. In this case, changing a client’s thoughts is not enough. The main therapeutic focus needs to be on helping the client to re-create her identity and in some ways start over, since it is her negative identity that gives rise to her negative thoughts. Helping clients begin to give to themselves what they missed out on in childhood (positive mirroring, a nurturing, responsive, internal mother, and a safe, powerful, internal father to help them set limits) will help them to “grow themselves up” in a healthy way. Encouraging them to become more compassionate toward themselves will help them quiet their inner critics and over- come their shame.

Mirror Therapy Assignment #4

List the ways you feel your parents projected their own problems or unmet needs onto you.

P a r t T w o

Shattering Your Distorted Parental Mirror

5
‌

Rejecting Your Parents’ Negative Reflection

There is nothing wrong with you. Anyone who says something is wrong is wrong.

—R
ENAIS
J
EANNE
H
ILL

We must never allow other people’s limited perceptions to define us.

—V
IRGINIA
S
ATIR

W
E DO NOT NEED AN ACTUAL MIRROR
to see our reflections. We can see them in the way we treat ourselves, the way others perceive us and treat us, and in the ways our lives reflect how we feel about ourselves. Once you have become aware of the distorted image you have of yourself, you can begin to reject the inaccurate mirror your parents provided and replace it with a more accurate reflection.

Shattering Your Distorted Image

Before you can create a new, healthy image of yourself, you first need to shatter the distorted image placed on you through your parents’ actions and beliefs. This includes:

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1. Facing the truth and releasing pent-up emotions concerning the abuse or neglect you experienced
   

2. Placing responsibility where it belongs and giving back your parents’ projections
   

3. Turning your shame into righteous anger
   

4. Identifying and countering negative beliefs
   

Face the Truth and Express Pent-Up Emotions

Earlier, you may have experienced strong emotions as you read about what constitutes childhood emotional abuse and neglect and the effects they can have on a child’s sense of self and self-esteem. It can be quite painful to admit that you were abused or neglected in these ways and that you likely suffered from some or all of these effects. You may experience tremendous pain as you remember how it felt to be treated the way you were, and you may become extremely angry at the ones who abused or neglected you. You may feel a deep sense of loss as your idealized picture of your childhood or your positive image of a parent or another family member or adored caregiver is tarnished forever.

When we finally do face the truth about what happened to us as children, we can become overwhelmed with grief, sadness, and anger. Allow yourself to feel these emotions. Don’t try to fight them off; you’ve probably been doing that for too long. Allow your emotions to flow out of you. Cry for the little child who was mistreated in such terrible ways. Get angry at how the little child you once were was used or abused by adults who should have known better—adults who were supposed to protect you.

In order to shatter your negative parental mirror and raise your self-esteem, you must revisit the original wounding. Unfortunately, most people who were neglected or abused box off their pain and try to put it out of their minds. But this never really works. Experiences of neglect and emotional abuse continue to wear you down emotion- ally, insidiously whittling away at your self-esteem.

Many people who were neglected or abused stay stuck in anger or

pain and never move through their feelings. Instead, they turn their feelings of anger on themselves and become depressed or riddled with unnecessary (and unhealthy) guilt and shame. Some punish themselves by being self-destructive—smoking, driving too fast, or provoking a fight with someone. Others numb themselves to their feelings and are unable to access their anger and pain from the past.

Emotions that go unexpressed often lie dormant inside us until someone or something reminds us of our past and triggers a memory— and the feeling. When this happens we can become depressed and self-critical or lash out at the ones closest to us when our real target is someone from the past—someone we were likely afraid to express our emotions to at the time.

It can be frightening to lift the veil of denial—our tendency to ignore, suppress, or repress painful realities, thoughts, and feelings. The scariest part is experiencing the intense feelings that lurk just below denial’s surface. You may need professional help in dealing with all these strong emotions. For now, allow yourself to experience what- ever it is that you are feeling and remember the following:

Even though it may feel as if it is happening in the present, it will help if you remind yourself that what you are feeling are memories of the emotions you experienced as a child. These things are not happening to you in the present. You have already survived your childhood and the painful things that happened to you.