E012: Everything is a Mirror (Including Your Dog)

Did you know everything in life is a mirror?

[00:00:14] One of my favorite quotes goes like this: “As within, so without, as above, so below.” Or in other words, everything is a mirror. Now, what does this mean? That means that our interpretation of events or situations or people is actually that of our inner thoughts and feelings, creating what we see and experience.

What is above is our mind and it's reflected in the circumstances of our lives. Did I lose you? I hope not. In other words, normally the way in which we move through the world, especially when we're triggered is actually an indication of what is going on internally. It has very little to do with the person or thing that we're mad, sad, or agitated with. Instead, everything is a mirror.

It's really just insight into what's going on inside. And I think this is so beautiful and so important. It's one of the most relevant quotes to exist in 2020. I probably could talk for a five hour podcast by myself on this concept and dissect it in politics and how often, literally everything I can with it. But I'll spare you, and instead I'll just give you a little bit of information that I think is important.

Because everything is a mirror, we need to use our everyday experiences to help us learn more about ourselves.

The game in 2020 is a self-awareness for most of us. It's cultivating it, it's being on top of it, and it's using it to our advantage. A lot of us have woken up in 2020. Gary Vaynerchuk just released this beautiful video about how he said don't cancel the year that you woke up.

And I swear that is one of the most powerful quotes of this year. By using every experience and situation that we come across as a learning experience, we are building that self-confidence muscle. We are flexing it, we are looking at it in the mirror, and we're transforming it into something that works for us. We are using everything as a mirror.

[00:02:43] I don't know about you, but I don't like being triggered. It makes me feel angry or agitated or sassy, and I don't like it, even though it's something I've done most of my life, because I know that's not who I truly am. I am the anger, the pretentiousness that I experience when I'm triggered. And honestly, it's intoxicating.

But after I come down from the adrenaline rush, I don't like myself. I always ask myself, I’m like why did I do that? I got mad at that woman who couldn't take my money at my university. She was just doing her job. Like, why am I mad at this person?

It has nothing to do with her. It has everything to do with me.

And granted, if you're hard on yourself, like I was for a lot of my life, it's hard to understand that everything has to do with ourselves because then we put on the shame and disgust towards ourselves. And we're like, why do you act that way when you know better? Why did you do this? Because you know better.

At least I do that. But that's the thing is you can know all you possibly can, but that doesn't mean that there's not stored emotion and subconscious issues going on. That you're just not aware of yet. And that's why this quote is so potent: “as within, so without, as above, so below.”

You are being asked, actually, you're being screamed at to look inside right now and to understand what makes you tick and what you can do to help manage that. Most of the time when we're triggered, we're in fight or flight. And it's a bit melodramatic if I may be so bold, but we've somehow come to this realization that if we're angry at someone or we attack first, we'll be fine.

[00:04:44] The thing is most of the time we're hurting the most important person in our lives, which is ourselves. So now that you know this, now that you kind of understand how we as human beings work, I am challenging you and inviting you to see why you're getting upset and to see what those experiences are telling you.

Now I'll do one today.

The reason that the title of this podcast is called Everything is a Mirror, (Including Your Dog) is because I love my dog.

But let me tell you, he is one spoiled M effer. If I may be so bold, he gets everything he wants. He gets tinbits almost every day. Puppy chinos from Starbucks, he's a big fan. He gets four walks a day, even though he's four years old and can kind of hold his pee.

He gets all the love in the world and he sleeps not only on a King size bed. I actually bought a King size bed for him because I knew that that would be more comfortable. Like this dog is living better lives than most people, myself included. But because of this, he's not as well-trained as he could be. Obviously these are all my problems.

I'm the one who's spoiling him. I'm the one who's not training him properly. However, what's very interesting is that I've taken on a big, much bigger, role in his training than I had in the past, because I was depressed or anxious or dealing with trauma and grief. And I just didn't have the bandwidth to be able to attempt to train a dog. And this is my mirror, because everything is a mirror.

But here's the funny thing. Guess what else I'm learning to train right now? Myself. And I don't know about you. If you've ever tried to create a new habit or multiple habits. Simultaneously, it's really difficult, like really difficult, and it's easier to just give up and just like, whatever the world will go on.

We'll just be how we are and everything like this is okay in this moment. And it doesn't matter if my dog barks at every dog that barks at him and then scares the dog and then all this ridiculous stuff that goes on.

I'll just deal with it later.

Or I could deal with it now, and then in the long run, be happier on the day to day, because if I'm constantly pushing it off or ignoring it, or pretending, like it's not as big of a deal. When something bad does happen, I'm going to be upset at myself because I'm going to be like, well, why didn't I listen to myself and why didn't I train him better? Or why didn't I work on it better or whatever.

[00:07:26] But the thing is I'm actually also having some troubles with my own training, I go to bed every night, thinking I'm going to wake up at 7:00 AM and I'm like, yes, let's do this. Going to bed at 11 folks. Like it's not, yeah. That late seven o'clock rolls around.

My alarm goes off. I'm like, I'll just snooze it for like five more minutes. Two and a half hours later, I wake up, it's 9:30. I'm very lucky. I'm going to school right now. I don't have a job. Technically, I can do that, but it still doesn't make me feel good because I want to wake up earlier. I want to get stuff done earlier. I want to be the person that I know that I can be.

My dog is a mirror. Because everything is a mirror.

If I can't train my dog, can I train myself?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying everyone needs to go in to get a dog and doesn't understand what's going on in their lives. But what I'm saying is that pretty much everything, every single thing that you go through, every argument that you handle, every hiccup in life and how you move through it, not just when you're triggered, is telling you something. It's telling you that you need to look inside and figure out what's going on. It’s telling you that everything is a mirror.

[00:0:00] Especially if it's not making you feel good. Here's the thing. It's not only a bad thing. I have done a lot of work on myself over the past two years in a way that I'm very proud of. And it feels weird saying that and standing up here, because I know a lot of us listening to this might not feel the same way, but I want to show you how this quote goes through the good and the bad.

So. I have done this work. I am showing up on social media and podcasts and in life in ways that are scary and sometimes feel like I'm doing it for no reason or that people are judging me, but I'm doing it anyway. And I don't know what it is, but lately I've had people reach out to me and thank me for creating content specifically for them or a conversation we had four years ago that I didn't even realize was a big deal or showing up courageously online.

[00:09:26] And it feels a little uncomfortable to get these unwarranted, or not unwarranted, but unasked for praises.

But here's the thing, I've really started to love myself these past two years.

I started taking care of my health, my mental health especially. Plus, I started eating better. I started paying attention to the symptoms in my body. As someone who has chronic illness, you sometimes get to the point where you just want to ignore everything and I've started to really make a conscious effort to help become not only healthier physically, but mentally and emotionally.

I'm starting to give myself credit for it, just internally, sometimes on podcasts like this, but most of the time it's just inside. It's saying “Amy, I'm so thankful that you got out of bed and recorded this podcast today. I'm so happy that you went for a walk with your dog, even though you really didn't want to. Amy. I'm so happy that you screamed and cried into a pillow because you got in a fight with a friend, then had a conversation about it and didn't run away like you did the last 400 times.”

The world has started to show me the physical manifestation of those thought processes. I am allowing myself to feel love, so the world is showing me love as well. “As within. So without, as above, so below.” This quote will change your life. I hope it's given you some insight into how you can further this mental health and self-awareness journey.

I appreciate every one of you that listens to this podcast. If you're enjoying the content, I would appreciate it if you subscribe, let me know what you think about it, send me an email. Hit me up on Instagram, at Amy.Demone or The Empathy Front. Just let me know if what I'm talking about resonates with you. Until next time, this has been Amy D on the What We’re Not Talking About podcast.