The Mirror of Self

Question

Though my heart is opening wider every day and I'm learning to see through divine eyes with greater compassion, insight and acceptance, I am having particular difficulty in seeing my partner in this way. It is ironic to me that the people closest to me have become more repellent, more offensive, more intolerable, while I see strangers and former enemies with new grace and understanding. Is this normal?

Answer

Your experience is not only normal; it is a sign of significant spiritual progress. Realize everything we perceive outwardly is just a reflection of inner consciousness. Hence, you have simply cleared away more surface, outer layers of illusion (as indicated by your new feelings of grace and understanding in relation to strangers and former enemies) and are now closing in on deeper and more intimate places of personal holding and resistance.

Such outer layers are where we generally hold judgment, fear, anger, etc. in relation to public figures, random strangers, casual friends, colleagues, distant relatives, etc. - in other words our less intimate acquaintances. As you allow the inward spiral of an ego purification process, increasingly personal sources of judgment, fear and anger (that we often go to great lengths to hide from ourselves and others) naturally rise to the surface.

Hence, your partner is serving a very loving purpose for you at this time in terms of reflecting back the "more repellent, more offensive, more intolerable" aspects of your own ego-based nature that need to be clearly seen as well as surrendered to God in order to be compassionately released.

Do your best to not act out in anger or judgment towards such a helpful spiritual ally and instead calmly allow your partner (as well as all other mirroring sources in your life) to powerfully carry out their divine purpose.

Although it can be enormously challenging to look into the mirror of self (either directly or through another), it is critical to your process. For until you willing to expose all the shadows and flaws of your false self, the eternal light of your true, perfected nature can never be fully realized!

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