Mirror Meditation

Tara Well

Sujets

• Assertiveness
• Popular psychology
• Mind

Informations

• Publié par: New Harbinger Publications
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781684039692
• Langue: English

Extrait

“Tara Well is an extraordinarily creative psychologist. In Mirror Meditation , she introduces a powerful new approach to self-awareness that encourages people to look at themselves and each other with compassion and clarity. As our world becomes more complex and uncertain, there’s an urgent need for this book. Mirror Meditation is a truly unique offering that is sure to change the lives of many readers worldwide and how they literally see themselves.”
—Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD , host of The Psychology Podcast , and author of nine books, including Transcend
“ Mirror Meditation is an important contribution to understanding how we see ourselves and the world around us. Tara Well’s approach is smartly based on science, yet her true gift is making these lessons accessible, personal, and even fun. This book is for anyone who wants to experience the power of seeing themselves clearly and compassionately.”
—Tasha Eurich, PhD , organizational psychologist, and New York Times bestselling author of Insight and Bankable Leadership
“ Mirror Meditation is a game changer! If you ever struggle to believe in yourself, Mirror Meditation will help you reconnect to your worth and move forward to create a richer and more rewarding life.”
—Margie Warrell, PhD , speaker, and author of You’ve Got This
“What happens in your mind when you look at yourself in the mirror? Drawing on psychological research and a deep understanding of human selfhood, Tara Well provides new insights into the nature of self-reflection. Her book is full of powerful stories, sage psychological advice, fascinating scientific findings, and provocative insights for living a full and authentic life.”
—Dan P. McAdams, PhD , Henry Wade Rogers professor of psychology at Northwestern University, and author of The Stories We Live By
“What a gem of a book this is! Tara Well’s Mirror Mediation is creative, fresh, and has the potential to bring great relief to many. The book is beautifully written, yet brings together research from social psychology to neuroscience. With clear exercises and tips for readers, it is a unique addition to the field of mindfulness, meditation, and psychology at large.”
—Robert T. Muller, PhD , professor of clinical psychology, and author of Trauma and the Struggle to Open Up
“ Mirror Meditation is a very valuable resource, providing tools that are practical, easy to implement, and based on current research findings in brain science, health, and personality psychology. Its focus on increasing self-awareness, reducing self-objectification, and increasing mindfulness are timely and important in the era of Zoom meetings and seeing one’s own face on screen all day. Tara Well is clearly an expert in her field, providing tools and research-based advice that is fresh, workable, and helps us relate to ourselves with greater self-compassion.”
—Melanie Greenberg, PhD , clinical psychologist, and author of The Stress-Proof Brain


Publisher’s Note
The content in this book is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment by a licensed mental health care provider. Seek the advice of a professional mental health provider with any questions you may have about your mental health.
This is a work of nonfiction. Nonetheless, some of the names and details of individuals and scenarios have been changed to disguise their identities. Therefore, any resulting resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional.
NEW HARBINGER PUBLICATIONS is a registered trademark of New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
New Harbinger Publications is an employee-owned company.
Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books
Copyright © 2022 by Tara Well
New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
www.newharbinger.com
Cover design by Sara Christian; Acquired by Jennye Garibaldi; Edited by Gretel Hakanson
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file


Contents
Introduction: Explore Your Mirror Wisdom
PART I: Facing Yourself— Navigating Self-Awareness
1. The Magical and Mundane Mirror
2. Going Mirrorless
3. In the Beginning, There Was a Face
4. Reflections Are the Key to Coordination
5. Two Sides of Self-Awareness
6. Facing Yourself Mindfully
7. Ready to Try Mirror Meditation?
8. Befriending Your Resistance
PART II: Your Beautiful Distraction
9. The Trifecta of Self-Cruelty
10. Self as Object
11. The Neuroscience of Intense Self-Objectification
12. Transforming Self-Scrutiny
13. A Model Faces Herself
14. Looking at Aging and Invisibility
15. Mirror Meditation to Accept Your Appearance
PART III: Witness and Choose Your Self-Talk
16. Why Is Self-Talk So Powerful?
17. The Benefits of Self-Talk
18. Exploring the Voices in Your Head: Uncovering the Inner Nurturer
19. Compassion at the Mirror
20. Exploring the Voices in Your Head: Taming Your Inner Critic
21. Ways to Express Your Inner Voices
22. How to Do Self-Reflective Video Journaling
PART IV: Beyond Selfies and Looking for Likes
23. Sign of the Times
24. Selfie Addiction
25. Ideal Images Versus Self-Reflection
26. Trying to Maintain Image Control
27. Attempts at Emotion Management
PART V: Tame Your Anxiety Through Reflection
28. Facing Anxiety
29. What’s Driving Your Attention?
30. Anxiety Can Distort Your Vision
31. Self-Mirroring for Self-Soothing
32. How to Unfreeze Yourself
33. Taking Flight and Coming Back from Dissociation
34. Letting Go of the Fight to Heal the Heart
PART VI: A Safe Space to Explore Your Emotions
35. How Emotions Are Reflected
36. Social Display Rules
37. Discovering Your True Feelings
38. Emotional Labor and Authenticity
39. Facing Anger
40. Facing Sadness
PART VII: What Narcissus Can Teach You
41. Reflecting on Narcissus
42. Empathy: Feeling What You Feel
43. Compassion: Knowing What You Feel
44. Why Compassion Might Be Better than Empathy
45. Compassion for the Narcissist
46. Using the Mirror to Find What’s Missing
PART VIII: Reflections on Loneliness, Aloneness, and Attachment
47. How Do You See Loneliness?
48. Loneliness on Your Face
49. The Capacity to Be Alone
50. Attachment Patterns in Self-Relating
51. Looking at Anxious Self-Attachment
52. Looking at Avoidant Self-Attachment
PART IX: Risk Being Seen
53. Others Are Our Mirrors
54. Reflections That Shape Your Identity
55. Self-Objectification Revisited
56. Gaslighting
57. Be Consistent to Build Trust
58. If You Really Knew Me
59. Trust Yourself to Be Seen
PART X: See Others with Clarity and Compassion
60. Seeing Others: What Are You Looking For?
61. Looking Through the Eyes of Love
62. See Compassionately and Take Action
63. Reclaiming Your Projections
64. When Others Look Threatening
65. Out of the Shadow: Facing Contempt
66. The Beauty Bias: Idolizing Others
Conclusion: Living Reflectively
Acknowledgments
In memory of Richard
Introduction: Explore Your Mirror Wisdom
Did you look in the mirror today?
Do you try to avoid looking at yourself?
Or maybe wish you could stop looking?
Mirrors can evoke some strong feelings in us. But they can also be incredibly useful in ways you might not have imagined. In this book, you’ll find that the mirror is one of the most essential tools you have to deal with life’s challenges. Because mirrors allow us to come face-to-face with ourselves. Being reflected is one of the most important and powerful experiences we can have as humans.
As adults, glancing in the mirror can become second nature. We use mirrors for personal grooming and to check how we look before we go out in public. But what if you took a different approach to how you see yourself in the mirror? Remember when you were a child? What was it like to see yourself in the mirror?
When I was a little girl, I used to look at my reflection in the side of the shiny chrome toaster on the table for as long as my parents would let me, clowning around, making faces, and imitating the adults around me. When I saw myself, I felt a sense of comfort and delight. But like most of us, as I grew older, society’s expectations of me changed, and I started to use the mirror to scrutinize my appearance and compare it to the actors on TV and models in fashion magazines.
What I saw in the mirror never seemed to measure up.
Then one day, I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror, and I was shocked by how sad and distressed I looked. I hadn’t realized I felt that way. I’d been walking around thinking I felt “fine.” In that moment of realization, I knew that, by trying to create a perfect image for others to see, I’d lost touch with how I felt inside. After that, I began to take time to look at my reflection in the mirror, not to focus on my appearance, but to simply acknowledge how I felt. Over time, it became a way to look beyond my appearance and see deeper into my own eyes with compassion. It became a meditation.
The mirror was so helpful to me, and as a research scientist, I wanted to understand why. So I began conducting mirror-gazing experiments in which research participants meditated on their own reflection. At first, they seemed awkward and self-conscious, their faces were often tense, and their eyes were harsh and critical. I guided them to see beyond their surface appearance and take a deepe