Stepping Into the Mirror

Recently someone called me out on something. I became instantly defensive and frankly, hurt. To my view point, not only was this person obviously wrong in their perception, but those complaints they had about me were the exact complaints I had about them. Not that I had called them out on these issues, but I certainly had been thinking these things about them… almost down to the exact words they used with me.

Hmmm. Interesting.

We’re taught that the things that bug and annoy us with other people’s personalities are a clear clue of something in our own behavior that needs to be addressed. In this way other people can be a mirror to help us identify what we need to correct.

Over the last year or so I’ve been working on really trying to see the mirrors in my life and understand the messages. Let’s be honest – sometimes I don’t like the messages. Sometimes I’d rather that mirror just steam up and become indecipherable. I’ve certainly used enough of my own “hot air” to steam those mirrors up real good when I didn’t want to take the hint. When someone grating comes along, someone rude, someone unkind, someone lazy…. I certainly don’t want to believe those are actually my own characteristics that need improved. It’s so much easier to say “That’s their issue… it has nothing to do with me.” But the fact is, if we don’t know about it we can’t fix it so Hashem has lovingly provided us with regular messages to help keep us moving forward in the right direction.

So back to me being called out for something I had secretly blamed this other person for. Let’s step into the mirror and look at the situation from an emuna perspective.

Phase 1: I became aware of, and was annoyed by, this person’s behaviors.

Phase 2: I complained to myself about this person’s behaviors for months.

Phase 3: This person used my own words (that they had never actually heard) to accuse me of those exact behaviors.

Phase 4: I became defensive and hurt.

What did I forget in these phases? Emuna!

Phase 1 was the mirror – Hashem was telling me “Look here – there is something you need to correct in your behavior.” And since I chose to ignore this I escalated things to phase 2 – where I failed to engage my emuna that everything comes from Hashem. Hashem then had to escalate things as well.

It is important to note here another example of Hashem’s patience… He gave me months of being annoyed by this person’s behaviors… trying to stimulate me to do a bit of introspection before He finally kicked things up to phase 3.

Once into phase 4 I was a real mess! Emotional and caught up in the illusion that I was right and they were wrong – far from engaging my emuna.

Ah but this is where phase 5 finally came into play – I remembered my emuna!

So I backed up and looked at the situation with my emuna glasses. It was true that I was innocent of the accused behaviors with this particular person. However, when I honestly assessed myself, I could see how I regularly exhibited those actions around other people. There it was. The mirror had showed me an accurate reflection of something I needed to correct that I had been too stubborn to accept.

Guess what happened next…

1. I made teshuva for my behavior and have done my best to stop the actions around everyone.
   

2. I was suddenly no longer irritated by this other person exhibiting the same behaviors
   

3. This person “suddenly” stopped doing those annoying things so frequently – without me ever saying a word to them about it.

Hmmmm. Interesting. 

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Jennifer invites you to participate in a regularly held Noahide on-line study group that reviews the garden series books of Rabbi Arush. You can contact her at jenniferjwoodward@gmail.com to be added to the weekly newsletter for dates and times. Visit the vlog on YouTube@emunaworld.