by Shakti Gawain

Often, we are so stuck in our old beliefs and pat­terns that we aren’t able to see the changes we need to make. Even when we feel frus­trated about our prob­lems, we may not rec­og­nize what we need to learn to change things. That is why we need to use the mir­ror of life.

Every­thing in our lives reflects where we are in the process of devel­op­ing inte­gra­tion and bal­ance. We can use every­thing that hap­pens exter­nally as a mir­ror to help us see the areas within us that need heal­ing and devel­op­ment. When­ever we have a prob­lem, espe­cially a recur­ring or chronic prob­lem, it is always an arrow point­ing directly to some aspect of our psy­che where we need more awareness.

If we accept that life is always try­ing to teach us exactly what we need to learn, we can view every­thing that hap­pens to us as a gift. Even expe­ri­ences that are uncom­fort­able or painful con­tain within them an impor­tant key to our heal­ing, whole­ness, and prosperity.

We may have dif­fi­culty under­stand­ing what the mir­ror of life is try­ing to show us, but if we sin­cerely ask for the learn­ing and the gift in every expe­ri­ence, it will be revealed to us one way or another.

One of the clear­est reflec­tions we have to work with is the one pro­vided by our rela­tion­ships. Every­one we attract into our life is a mir­ror for us in cer­tain ways. All of our rela­tion­ships — our fam­i­lies, chil­dren, friends, co-workers, neigh­bors, pets, as well as our roman­tic part­ners — reflect cer­tain parts of us. How we feel with some­one is usu­ally an indi­ca­tion of how we feel about the parts of us that they mirror.

We all attract cer­tain peo­ple into our life who have devel­oped qual­i­ties oppo­site to the ones we are most iden­ti­fied with. In other words, they mir­ror our dis­owned selves, and we mir­ror theirs. These are often the most highly emo­tion­ally charged rela­tion­ships. We either love them, hate them, or both! We feel very attracted to them, and/or very uncom­fort­able, judg­men­tal, annoyed, or frus­trated with them. The stronger the feel­ings, the more impor­tant a mir­ror they are for us. We have drawn them into our real­ity to show us some­thing about what we need to develop in our­selves. The fact that we have such strong feel­ings (one way or another) toward them means that they are show­ing us a part of our­selves we need to acknowl­edge, accept, and integrate.

This does not mean we have to be with them or hold onto a harm­ful or inap­pro­pri­ate rela­tion­ship. It just means that as long as they are in our lives, or even in our thoughts and feel­ings, we can use the rela­tion­ship as a learn­ing expe­ri­ence. It also does not mean we are sup­posed to become like them. They may carry an energy we need more of, but they may be too far to the oppo­site extreme, or they may express that energy in a dis­torted way.

Still, we can look for the pos­i­tive essence in the oppo­site qual­i­ties they carry. For exam­ple, if you have been taught never to express any anger, you will prob­a­bly at some point find your­self in rela­tion­ship with a per­son who expresses their anger fre­quently and vehe­mently. Life is giv­ing you a strong mes­sage that it’s time for you to learn to acknowl­edge your own anger. It is not say­ing you have to become like this per­son and go around dump­ing your anger every­where. Instead, you need to find the appro­pri­ate bal­ance, learn­ing how to assert your­self and stand up for yourself.

If you have strongly devel­oped being energy but have dif­fi­culty tak­ing action, you may find that some­one impor­tant in your life is a com­pul­sive doer who can’t relax. Nat­u­rally, you don’t want to go to that extreme, but this per­son is your teacher, to show you the energy of action that you need to develop. Of course, you are a teacher for them, as well, but it usu­ally doesn’t work very well to try to show the other per­son what they need to learn from you — although we all suc­cumb to this temp­ta­tion. It works much bet­ter to con­cen­trate on what we need to learn in the sit­u­a­tion. Once we use the mir­ror to under­stand what we need, and actu­ally do the work to develop a dis­owned self, the whole pat­tern of the rela­tion­ship will shift.

If we are strongly iden­ti­fied with power, we will attract vul­ner­a­ble, needy peo­ple. This mir­ror is reflect­ing our need to rec­og­nize and accept our own vul­ner­a­bil­ity. If and when we do that, the needy peo­ple in our lives will either become more empow­ered, or will move out of our lives. If we are overly vul­ner­a­ble and dis­own power, we will find our­selves in a rela­tion­ship with some­one who uses power one way or another. We will feel over­whelmed, con­trolled, or vic­tim­ized by them until we own our power, at which point the rela­tion­ship will either dis­solve or become more equal.

As I men­tioned in the last chap­ter, we often seem to grav­i­tate toward a roman­tic or busi­ness part­ner who has an oppo­site approach to finan­cial man­age­ment. If the dif­fer­ence is not too extreme, this can be a com­ple­men­tary and har­mo­nious bal­ance in which we appre­ci­ate and learn from each other’s strengths. If we are highly polar­ized, how­ever, it can be painful and frus­trat­ing, lead­ing to a great deal of con­flict and stress.

Still, it is a gift — an oppor­tu­nity to rec­og­nize how iden­ti­fied we are with one polar­ity and a chance to develop the oppo­site energy we need. Like any rela­tion­ship issue, it requires that we com­mu­ni­cate with one another, and be will­ing to lis­ten and empathize with each other’s feel­ings and per­spec­tive. If we feel stuck in our abil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate, it may be an appro­pri­ate time to call in a skilled third party — a ther­a­pist, mar­riage coun­selor, or medi­a­tor — to help us through. Per­son­ally, I find that most of us need help at cer­tain times to get through the deep issues that are reflected in our inti­mate relationships.

The topic of rela­tion­ships is a com­plex and fas­ci­nat­ing sub­ject, which I can only begin to touch on. Still, if you grasp the basic idea of how our rela­tion­ships show us the next steps we need to take in our per­sonal growth, you can begin to use your rela­tion­ships as pow­er­ful guides on your path to true prosperity.