{"id":1161,"date":"2023-07-21T00:45:08","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T23:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1161"},"modified":"2023-07-21T00:45:08","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T23:45:08","slug":"distorted-reflection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/archives\/1161","title":{"rendered":"Distorted Reflection"},"content":{"rendered":"

My homeopath (aka my well of mother wisdom and unconditional love) told me that I need to strengthen my boundaries when experiencing negative or critical attack.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And she is completely correct, except I have this huge voice inside me that says \u2018don\u2019t be so arrogant as to deflect criticism without first owning what is yours\u2019. I believe in the principle that what is in existence in my life is a reflection of some part of myself, so if I am receiving negativity I have a part to play.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What I realise today is how I have distorted that reflection, no different to the waves across a pond turning clear lines into surrealist images when the stone hits the surface. In the film Pretty Woman, Julia Robert\u2019s character says \u2018The bad stuff is easier to believe, ever noticed that?\u2019 and I think that is a default for most humans but certainly there are those, like myself, where my parental conditioning makes \u2018the bad stuff\u2019 feel like the \u2018truth\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I have focused recently on the bad stuff, why is this happening to me, what have I done?The usual self doubt. But despite an overwhelming smothering of love, support, reassurance and validation from a wonderful and significant circle of friends, I have only studied the reflection of the bad stuff.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The majority of \u2018feedback\u2019 in my life is positive, 97%, and I laugh when I hear myself say internally, but they\u2019re your friends, of course they\u2019re going to be nice about you! As if it doesn\u2019t count. Somehow they are biased and can\u2019t see me straight. Therefore the critic is the one whose opinion holds more weight. What a distorted reflection!<\/span><\/p>\n

I have one friend who is utterly glorious in every which way, I could cry when I think of her loving generosity of spirit and kindness and she was recently psychically taken down by a total nutbag (IMO) and I wanted to shake her and cuddle her and fill up right back up to the top with love. How could she possibly let this person make her doubt her own gloriousness\u2026.. and then I see myself in her too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I do get psychically taken down, I do have my inner child believing I am fundamentally bad and difficult and when people realise they will turn their back on me, just like my parents. My Now Self knows I\u2019m a good, loving and conscientious person with all the natural flaws of humanity, but I clearly have some work to do on rewiring that inner child and the first thing I\u2019m going to do is make sure she is listening to the 97% and maybe I\u2019ll get her some ear defenders for that other 3%!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So yes it\u2019s important to contemplate what is being reflected back to us in our lives, where we can grow and learn but it is more important to check if the reflection is clear or distorted by our own trauma or conditioning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One amazing thing this past year has highlighted is how I am so profoundly grateful to my friends who shine my light for me when I am wandering in the dark. They guide me back home to my true self, flawed and perfect, just like them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

First published on social media on 9th July 2023<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My homeopath (aka my well of mother wisdom and unconditional love) told me that I need to strengthen my boundaries when experiencing negative or critical attack.\u00a0 And she is completely correct, except I have this huge voice inside me that says \u2018don\u2019t be so arrogant as to deflect criticism without first owning what is yours\u2019. … Continue reading “Distorted Reflection”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,1],"tags":[279,648,148,19,647,12,109,646,649,650,94],"class_list":["post-1161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gratitudes","category-holistic-health-emotional-healing","category-personal-moments","tag-choice","tag-conditioning","tag-friendship","tag-healing","tag-innerchild","tag-love","tag-reflection","tag-selfaware","tag-selfcritic","tag-selflove","tag-trauma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1163,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions\/1163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soulreflection.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}