Mirror, Mirror: A Spiritual Reflection

“You don’t have an alcohol problem. You have a mental health problem.” 

I know; when she says it a wave of relief and a sense that I am seen, again, for the first time wash over me. For anonymity’s sake, I will simply call her Dee. Dee came into my life slowly, like twilight’s fading in the face of the sunrise. A first introduction at an AA meeting, straightforward and eyes locked in on mine; “Hi, I’m Dee. What’s your name?” Then a conversation or two at a picnic table over cigarettes. We exchanged numbers, but the first time I entered hers incorrectly, so when she didn’t text me back I assumed I’d misread her as being more willing to support me than she was. But when she next saw me, and I realized my mistake, she smiled her knowing smile (I am learning this smile and twinkle in her eyes) and said, “If I’d gotten them, I would have text you right back.” I believed her, and I was right to. Today over a table or two, I shared some of my story and she shared some of hers. Through my tears I heard her promise a circle of trust, and again, I believe her. “You don’t have an alcohol problem. You have a mental health problem. But you don’t need alcohol in your life, and I am here for you.” 

Sometimes, it's just being seen that we need. It's knowing that all of your brokenness is safe with someone else, that’s what helps. Not being fixed, just being beheld. Being beheld by imperfect people, who see both your imperfections and all of God in you, this is what begins your salvation. Not unto them, but with them as your witness. We need witnessing. We were not made to sit or stand or lay in abject darkness, unable to see or feel the warmth of light. This is not a profound revelation, quite the opposite. It is an affirmation of what you already know. You need a witness; we all do. 

I cannot pretend to witness you through a screen. What you choose to show me of your life, no matter how honest or vulnerable you are trying to be, can only scratch the surface of who you are. It is through the tiny moments of togetherness - your voice as I read your lips, our eyes locked on each other, perhaps the gentle grasping of a hand, the warmth of a hug - that we truly can absorb the shock wave of one another’s coexistence within the context of our own. In these moments, we come closer to understanding the Oneness of everything, that we are all different parts of the same body, amazing and unique and vitally important to one another. The hand simply cannot say to the eye, I have no need for you. The heart would never say to the lungs, “away with you, I’m just fine on my own.” We are because we are witnessed by one another. We are because, without one another, we would cease to be ourselves. Read that last sentence as you wish. 

If you are yearning for this, you are normal. It is okay to want to be seen in a world that seems full of the blind leading the blind. It doesn’t make you bad or amoral to need the validation of another person looking at you and communicating to you that they are witnessing who you really are in some profound way. I don’t mean bystanding, interrogating, gawking, or even admiring you on some surface level. I mean seeing into you, maybe through to the soul of who you are beneath the masks you wear for whatever reasons you wear them. To see you with a sense of honesty, openness, and willingness. To hold you in the space between you, grasping some part of the universe that makes its home within your skin, and not shying away from it in veneration or terror. You need this, and you know you need it, and you're not wrong for needing it. I need it, too. We all do. 

More than that, it is in their reflection, in their beholding of us, that we are able to behold ourselves in some strangely enlightened way. They become a mirror, which shows us our own true face. They become a light in which the things that have hidden in the darkness can come to the fore. They filter the mud and sand and debris so that the waters can become a bit clearer, and we can peer in, seeing further towards the bottom of ourselves.