Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall: Who Is the Fairest of Them All?

Written by Elizabeth Kaye A. Corpuz

 

Mirror, mirror, on the wall – who is the fairest of them all?

Sound familiar?

Who would not know this famous line? I bet everyone does. Though this line is from a fairytale, its significance applies to this day.

We may not utter these words every day, but somehow, we are unconsciously asking ourselves this same question and hoping that what we see in the mirror is our own best image.
For someone who has low self-confidence, the mirror is the last thing I would want to look at. During adolescence, I felt awkward looking at the mirror because I thought that something was not quite right. Gracefully, I was able to outgrow that phase, but I struggled. One day, I took a jewelry box from the cabinet. I opened it and saw a mirror. I was alone in the room, so I tried to stare at myself in the mirror. At first, I was uncomfortable. Then, I looked more intently at myself. I did that for over half an hour until I felt comfortable enough. I think that was my first step toward self-acceptance.

Every day, we look at the mirror to check if we are presentable enough, unless we intend to look shabby. There are also times I do not want to check myself in the mirror because I have no desire, or I am not in the mood. A mirror, perhaps, is the unofficial logo of vanity. As a story from Greek mythology tells us, Narcissus became attracted to himself after looking at his own reflection in the water. The idea of vanity plus my low self-confidence, I think, are the reasons I am not really fascinated by mirrors. But I discovered something.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall – who is the fairest of them all?

I caught myself asking this to myself. It started when I decided to enroll in a gym session. It was to prepare and condition myself for my first fun run. I wanted to enjoy the event and did not like that my weak heart might be a hindrance. This first fun run would eventually lead to my first foray into the “gym world.” My naive notion of this “gym world” was a place where everyone is competing to show off who has the most well-defined muscles and who is the sexiest while sweating.

When I came for my first session, I noticed that the wall had mirrors end to end. I could not help but be very much self-conscious and uneasy. I was used to seeing myself in a small mirror – a good size that could fit my whole body – but to look at myself in an infinite reflection was daunting. During the first session, I tried to focus on the exercise routines and tried my best not to look at the mirror; it was as if something was yelling to me, giving me no choice but to look at it. After a few minutes had gone by, I was lucky that I was too exhausted to care, so the mirror did not bother me further until the end of the first session.

As I continued with my gym sessions, my coach would always tell me that I should look at the mirror and not look down because it was giving me bad posture. Also, my coach said I should look at the mirror to see if I was executing the exercise properly. To be as effective an exercise as possible, proper execution is important. Then an aha moment came to me. I realized I should only focus on myself to see if I was doing my exercises properly. If I thought this way, maybe eventually my uneasiness would go away, and I could do the exercises properly and benefit from them.

For every session, I would give myself a pep talk:

Forget about that flabby fat trying to escape your gym clothes. Forget about sweating and not looking sexy. Forget about those who have toned muscles. Forget about those who are looking at you. Focus on whether you have done the squat properly. Focus on proper breathing. Focus on doing the deadlift. Focus on the thrill of exercising.

Eventually, I won over myself and was not intimidated by mirrors anymore toward the latter part of my experience. For me, a mirror became an object to help show me my mistakes and flaws. I came to like looking at myself in the mirror during workouts because I sweat profusely, and was like, Oh, that was so hard, but I pulled through it. It made me feel strong somehow. Now a mirror shows the little achievements I make – not in a narcissistic way – but in a way that helps me appreciate my milestones. Appreciating those small steps helps me to build up my self-esteem.

My first step in self-acceptance was to be more comfortable looking at what I was seeing in the mirror. Growing up, I had this love–hate relationship with myself until I became more relaxed and confident as I grew older. Being in the gym has further challenged and assured me with regard to loving myself.

I am not saying that you should feel too comfortable looking at your flaws and mistakes, but instead to try to correct them and learn from them. From here, something will blossom for you to become a better person. But be wary of the pitfalls of vanity or else you will be doomed like Narcissus. Furthermore, as we are taking good care of ourselves, let us also become more accepting and loving to others.

In total, I had 50 workout sessions and I saw the changes, both physically and mentally. Now, I can easily give my niece a piggyback ride, and it makes me happy. I can now say that I have an active lifestyle and am healthier than before. What was supposed to be a short session of body conditioning expanded into almost six months of sessions, and I learned to be more accepting of all my imperfections and flaws along the way. The journey is yet to end, but now I have more strength from within.

The Author
As of the moment, Elizabeth is gaining the strength and endurance to climb a mountain. She may be daydreaming, but she is still trying to live out her dreams one by one.