Who Do You See in the Mirror? Beauty or Beast?

“Look, I’m not the one with the problem.

It’s the world that seems to have a problem with me.

People take one look at me and go ‘a big stupid ugly ogre.’

They judge me before they even know me.

That’s why I’m better off alone,” says Shrek.

To which Donkey replies

“When we met, I didn’t think you were a big stupid ugly ogre.”

Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy, Shrek

It’s true that people often judge us before they know us. But it’s equally true that we often judge ourselves before we even really know us. Codependents rarely know the person who exists inside of them. Oh, we think we know who we really are because we’ve believed the negative things about ourselves that we’ve heard playing through our heads since childhood. Parents and others told us we were “big stupid ugly ogre(s)” and we believed it. We simply accepted what we were told at face-value without ever challenging it and we’ve lived what we have believed about ourselves to this very day.

We are often like Shrek. We believe that the world has a problem with us. But more often than not, it’s just the opposite: We have a problem with us and we are projecting how we feel about ourselves onto the rest of the world. We look in the mirror—and instead of seeing beauty—we see the beast. So we walk around our little worlds feeling ugly and projecting those feelings onto everyone we encounter. We could be in a department store and hear two girls laughing, we look their way and we’re just sure that they are laughing at “big stupid ugly” us. What we have believed about ourselves—that we’re ogres—we have become—at least inside of our heads—and we project it onto the world, then we scream that the world has a problem with us.

In reality, the two girls in the department store weren’t even conscious of us while they were laughing, and even if they did become aware of us, it’s not likely that they saw us in the same negative light that we see ourselves in. Nor is it likely that anyone we encounter sees us in the same bad beastly light that we see ourselves in. The only people who may see us in the same negative way we see ourselves are those people who have known us for a long enough period of time—long enough to know how badly we treat ourselves.

Like Donkey, many of those people have tried to tell us that they don’t see a “big stupid ugly ogre” when they see us, but we don’t believe them. We can’t believe them. It’s impossible for us to believe what they say. And it will always be impossible for us to see ourselves as they do—as we really are-- until we choose to go deeper inside of ourselves. Self-love works from inside-out. Even the most physically beautiful people, like the Audrey Hepburns of the world, don’t believe they are beautiful on the outside until they come to know themselves on the inside.

Once we do our inner-spiritual work, once we uncover and come to value our talents, once we get in touch with our uniquely lovable personalities, and once we begin to truly let ourselves out of our inner-caves, we will begin to see ourselves as we truly are. We will no longer see ogres, or beasts. We will see beauty—beauty that is uniquely ours.

Like Shrek, we will then stop believing that we are better off alone as we stop projecting negative thoughts and feelings about ourselves onto everyone around us. The world will become a better place and we will grow to greatly value our friends, who like Donkey, have always see us as we truly are—completely lovable.