Tag Archives: mirroring

Chuck’s Place: Look Into The Mirror Of Self-Importance

Who is looking back at you in the mirror?
-Artwork © 2026 Jan Ketchel

What rules the outer world, at this moment in time, is the most fantastic display of self-importance the world has ever known. Of course, it’s the most fantastic display, ever! It wields the Midas Touch, as everything it touches turns to gold, real or imagined!

Let us face this outer reflection of insatiable self-importance as we discover its hidden presence within the workings of our own inner Soul. We are all subject to the Hermetic Law, as without so within. May we all truly find the gold within in this golden moment of our planetary progression.

Self-importance has its roots in the developmental needs of the human ego. The mention of ego often provokes a pejorative reaction, as it is frequently associated with negative self-importance, one of its trappings so offensive to the virtue of humility. However, in its functional form, ego is the part of the personality that forms an identity that navigates the life we were born into, and the entire journey of our lifetime in human form.

In fact, ego is a part of our Soul that generally suffers amnesia at birth—what is called a blank slate—where it is separated from its royal ancestry of infinite Soul, to be born into a human family, as a mere mortal who will live and die in human form. This royal scheme is the greater Soul’s intent to explore vistas of being that only life and death in finite form can provide.

Ego, born into this state of alienation, is obsessively driven to bond to parents who will ensure its survival. It grows through helplessness and dependence to secure independence, when it can more fully undertake its hero’s journey to complete the mission it unknowingly signed up for prior to birth.

Ego has an insatiable desire for attention, particularly from its parents, which is largely met by parents through mirroring glances of acknowledgement, joy, and welcomeness to young ego, who experiences validation and the definitive right to take up space and thrive in this world. Failures in early mirroring can lead to depression and obsessive attention seeking behaviors, as such an ego lacks secure attachment and inner worth.

Ego may revert to strategies such as ego inflation, where it puffs up its self-importance to more securely navigate life. Equally, ego may choose to hide, seeking no attention. Attention entails performance, which can lead to failure, shame, and rejection. In this adaptive hideout, one may live a fantasy life of importance and fulfillment, though secretly feel entitled, superior, and resentful.

Another ego strategy for navigation is the pursuit of perfection to avoid the judgments inherent in being seen. The problem with perfection is that it leaves no space for the acceptance of being a mortal human with flaws and inadequacies. Avoidance of rejection and shame can monopolize all of one’s energy for life.

Blatantly mirrored, in current world rule, is an ego strategy that exercises its full might to consume all world attention and stamp out all possible criticism and limitation. This strategy is a concretized attempt to achieve wholeness and oneness by literally having, and becoming, all that is.

Ultimately, we are all being challenged to address our fixations with self-importance as the collective planetary ego prepares to evolve in this Age of Aquarius, which we have recently entered. The ego of the Aquarian Age is opening up to telepathy, where thoughts and feelings are transmitted without verbal communication. This mind-reading function does not require another to be locally present for thought-sharing to occur.

Ego cannot hide out during telepathic communication. The ego becomes the emperor with no clothes in this scenario, for all is known. Ego can no longer hide behind words and persona; it is simply seen as it truly is. This progression in evolution requires that ego be in acceptance of the truth of what it is, with all its flaws and limitations. This alignment with truth opens the door to love of self, as well as love of equally flawed neighbor.

P. P. Quimby discovered that most of what becomes disease in our lives is  erroneous ego beliefs, which condense and are reflected in the external conditions of our body. His method of cure was to have his patients see the blatant truths of these errors and open to the love and truth of their divine beingness. This orientation also opens us to the truths and intentions for the greater good for all rather than the cloistered, self-serving ego of deception.

This attitude of love and reverence for everyone prepares us to take full conscious possession of our divine ability to manifest, via suggestion to our divine subconscious mind, sincere fulfillment for self and all others.

Until recently, we have all projected these divine abilities to create and manifest onto godly beings beyond ourselves, or concretely upon money and physical objects. The Age of Aquarius is reflecting to us our royal potential, as we retrieve our projections and advance our innate energetic abilities.

In effect, the more truthfully we face and accept the full truths of our lives, the more ego discovers its true royal heritage, which it can then align with for the greater good of self, and all others. Ego then serves the needs of its greater Soul, in truth and wisdom, rather than its own self-aggrandizement.

The shamans of ancient Mexico, who recognized the utter necessity to become free of self-importance, stressed that laughter was the best medicine in accepting our flawed selves and the wily ways we adopt to cover ourselves up.

Every one of us has the capacity now to advance the world from within, by facing the giant of self-importance, so boldly mirrored to us from without. May we follow the true guidance reflected by this utterly glaring projection!

With affection for all,
Chuck

Soulbyte for Tuesday July 7, 2020

When criticizing others don’t forget to look at the self and find the same criticisms. For that which is in others is also in the self. That which you find unnerving or frightening in the actions, language, or ideas of another lies also within the shadows of the self. For all are the same in the inner world; angel and devil, light and dark, good and evil. This is the universal duality that all suffer. Whether repressed or not, it is present in all beings. Resolution comes in knowing this and deciding which path is the right path of heart. The path of compassion or the path of hate? The path of equanimity or the path of disruption? The path of ego or the path of spirit? In the inner world there is always work to do. As within, so without. Change begins with you.

Sending you love,

The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Chuck’s Place: MirrorIng, The Heart of Connection

Mirroring in nature…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

We can use words to communicate, but connection requires more than words. Connection is meeting in pure transparency.

The intimacy of meeting so directly can be overpowering. The removal of boundaries, at that level, recalls a state of union and oneness that long preceded the notion of a separate self.

The terror of loss of self in such encounters generates ambivalence. Though we might seek the closeness of connection, we seek refuge in the protection of small talk, roles, and prefabricated expectations and interactions. Why do we find it so necessary to hide?

Carlos Castaneda was emphatic that we should avoid looking into the mirror; at most, a brief unfocused gaze for shaving or combing of the hair. For the shamans of his lineage, looking in the mirror results in the fixation of attention upon self-reflection, what the psychotherapist of today calls narcissistic preoccupation with the self.

The more we focus upon the presentation of the self, the more we become alienated from our true selves. The more we stare at our reflection, the more Bobby the Flyer takes command, and we find more and more fault with ourselves, which leads to a state of narcissistic loathing. Why then do we hide? Because we are so damned unacceptable!

Loathing the self is then compensated for by the insatiable attention we seek for our outer presentation of self, what Jung called the persona, or the mask we wear. Regardless of how much attention it receives, it is never enough to erase the underlying belief of unworthiness of the true underlying self.

Mirroring, in the modern psychological sense, happens between two people, not one person viewing their own appearance in the mirror. To mirror with another is to feel, know, and be with the truth of one’s own and the other’s experience in the moment. A meeting of the eyes in that moment reflects an unmistakable acknowledgement of a shared experience.

Mirroring requires no words, though words might be exchanged. Words are not necessary because the knowing of the meeting has already been validated through the mirroring effect. Meetings of this kind crack the mirror of fixation upon self-reflection. Meeting in transparency, with nothing hidden, transcends judgments of self and other.

Mirroring actually requires no special skill. In fact, shamans suggest that we all have access to the direct knowledge experience of mirroring. Direct knowledge is knowledge unfiltered by the mental processing and judging of the mind’s internal dialogue.

The key to direct knowledge is inner silence, a state of mindful presence that shuts down the mental process, that is, thinking. Devoid of thinking we are treated to the experience of what is, unbiased by interpretation.

Connecting at the heart level is mirroring at the level of truth. Of course, this can be experienced as extremely romantic, where “hearts meet as one.” Romance is highly sought after for this mirroring experience of transparent meeting.

Unfortunately, romance soon becomes overwhelmed with archetypal expectations of each other, which quickly engages the judging mind. This closes down the purity of the mirroring channel between partners, who then become utter strangers. The mirroring of romance is co-opted by nature’s underlying intent to simply continue the species, not deepen spiritual connection.

Romance is a limited subset though valuable experience of mirroring. That is, while it lasts. Mirroring is possible in all human and non-human interactions. Mirroring frequently happens between humans and animals, or humans and plants. Mirroring is the basis of successful early parenting. Mirroring is the essence of true bonding.

Mirroring is the active relational tool for the current and coming evolutionary advance of the human species. It springs from the heart because the heart brings us to the true interconnected oneness of everything, which is the active principle in mirroring.

Relax the mind, suspend judgment, and mirror. See what happens!

Mirroring,

Chuck