PSYCHOLOGY & SPIRITUALITY
The 7 Essene Mirrors
What our relationships are actually mirroring back at us.
“It is when you lose sight of yourself, that you lose your way. To keep your truth in sight you must keep yourself in sight and the world to you should be a mirror to reflect to you your image; the world should be a mirror that you reflect upon.”
― C. JoyBell
I have recently attended a workshop on relationships held by one of our main psychotherapists' trainers. And at one point, she mentioned The 7 Essene Mirrors and played us a video by Gregg Braden talking on this topic. I was immediately intrigued by the concepts behind it.
I found it quite interesting since it was a perfect blend of psychology and spirituality, two of my favorite topics I am constantly reading and educating myself about.
I believe I gained some valuable insights after that workshop and I wanted to share them with you here.
What are the 7 Essene Mirrors?
The Essenes were an ancient and ascetic Jewish sect, existing from 150 BCE to AD 70. The name Essene comes from the Syrian term asaya, and the Aramaic essaya or essenoí, all with the meaning of doctor, passes through Greek orum (Greek Therapeutés.)
According to Gregg Braden, the Essenes have wisely identified the role of personal relationships in our lives and classified them into 7 categories called mirrors.
By simply living our lives on this Earth we come in contact with different people who reflect certain aspects that we might or might not be aware of. The way we perceive our reality is reflected back to us through the actions, choices, or language of the ones around us.
The First Essene Mirror
The way we feel is reflected back to us. If we feel angry or irritated, that’s what people around us will reflect back. It has often happened to me to feel like this and to wonder why everything goes awfully terrible during that day and why do I keep on meeting people who felt the same way.
The mystery of the first mirror is focused on what emotions we send in the present moment to the people around us. It also works for when we feel happiness, joy, and gratitude, for some reason we meet people who feel the same way.
This mirror is great for practicing mindfulness and recalibrating our state of being at the time. For instance, if you feel angry or anxious, take a moment to pause and reflect: what causes these feelings? why am I feeling this way? A great thing to do is to become aware of it and name your emotion. I feel angry. Naming emotions seems to bridge the gap between thoughts and feelings. The step from “I am this…” to “I am feeling this…”, means that we are not that emotion exclusively and thus we shouldn’t identify with it. And also reminds us that the emotion is fleeting.
The Second Essene Mirror
This mirror reflects back what we most dislike and judge in others. It's a bit subtler than the first one, yet another great chance to practice awareness. For instance, at one point in my life, I used to judge people who would do things only for money’s sake, having lost their passion. And lo and behold, everywhere I looked, I kept encountering those people.
This mirror is great for discerning your own feelings and emotions from those of others. In psychology, this phenomenon is known as contagion, meaning you have taken other’s people emotions and felt them yourself. According to Sigal G. Barsade contagion is “a process in which a person or group influences the emotions or behavior of another person or group through the conscious or unconscious induction of emotion states and behavioral attitudes”.
If you are surrounded by people whose behavior causes frustration or triggers feelings of anger or bitterness inside you and realize that these models are not yours at that moment, then ask yourself, “Is this me in the present moment?” If you can honestly say no, there is a good chance that it is showing you what you are judging at that time.
The Third Essene Mirror
This mirror refers to the feeling of being drawn to someone when we look into their eyes. We feel like there is an invisible thread connecting us to that person and we feel an irresistible urge to be around them. The Essenes believed that what we see in those people is a part of us we have lost, repressed, or forgotten about. It is a physiological response that we understand as a kind of magnetic attraction for that person.
The Essens advise we should take a deep look at ourselves and ask what it is that we have lost that we find to still be alive in that person. Is it our innocence, our desire for adventure, our joy, our freedom? Gregg Breden was giving the example of a man who kept on falling in love at first sight only to realize that feeling was gone in a blink after a while. That is because, according to him, the man had successfully managed to integrate those aspects of himself he kept on seeing in other women.
You can use this mirror to your advantage to see, for instance, whether it is true love you’re experiencing or whether a yearning to reintegrate a lost part of yourself that you are now seeing in the other person.
The Fourth Essene Mirror
This mirror reflects our addictive or compulsive behaviors, things that we start doing because we hold too much of a tighter grip on the material world. The need for power. control, obsessing over money, and comparing ourselves with others.
According to Gabor Mate, addiction is usually a response to emotional pain. Addictive behaviors are attempts to solve a deeper feeling, so trying to squash the behavior does not actually address the problem. ‘If you found a feeling of comfort in cigarettes, then addiction wasn’t your primary problem. The addiction was trying to solve your problem. Your primary problem is discomfort with life or with yourself’ Dr. Maté explains.
What exactly do you feel you are lacking? When and why did this feeling first appear? The fourth mirror of human relationships allows you to observe yourself in a state of dependence and compulsion. Doing some inner work allows you to take a better look at when and why you got disconnected from your true inner self and how you can realign yourself.
The Fifth Essene Mirror
This mirror resonated with me on a deep level. It talks about our relationship with our earthly parents through the lens of our Heavenly Ones. Our relationship with our parents influences our vision and faith towards the feminine and masculine aspects of Divinity.
It spoke to me because I realized that I didn’t use to have a close relationship with my father and neither with God. The lack of emotional support from my father was projected onto God from whom I felt abandoned at times. Mending my relationship with my father truly rekindled my faith in God and this was before I heard of the essence mirror concept.
Reflecting on your relationship with your earthly parents can give you a better understanding of your beliefs and faith in the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine.
The Sixth Essene Mirror
This mirror is also known as the Dark Night of the Soul. It is a period of challenges, deep inner work, and healing. It is seen as lessons we have to learn in order to reach the next levels of our lives. Going through these challenges helps us build resilience and self-confidence. It takes us out of our comfort zone and makes us access inner resources we didn’t even imagine we had within us.
In psychology, a great way to deal with challenges is by reframing them. Cognitive reframing is a technique used to shift your mindset so you’re able to look at a situation, person, or relationship from a slightly different perspective. When going through this intense period of our lives you can ask yourself: what is this thing trying to teach me? What new skills can I gain out of it? Taking a pause to reflect before acting is another great skill one can develop here.
The Seventh Essene Mirror
This is the last and the most challenging mirror because it requires total acceptance from our part and surrender to the Divine Order. I am saying it’s challenging because it is easy going with the flow of life when things go well, but when they don’t we tend to start blaming ourselves or others or God. We revolt and rebel and throw tantrums because things are not going our way. Meanwhile, the more resistance we have against life’s events, the more we hit walls of frustration and hopelessness.
According to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), acceptance refers to the practice of making room for unpleasant feelings, sensations, and urges, instead of trying to suppress them or push them away. By opening up and allowing them to come and go without struggling with them, running from them, or giving them undue attention, we find that they bother us much less.
In other words, accepting that you are not in control of your life or events but you are in control of how you deal with them can make you less reactive, more accepting, and at peace with yourself.
Final thoughts
The Essene Mirrors are just a model of how the world around us can be perceived. It provides some insights into how we can better navigate our relationships, strengthen or loosen certain bonds, and how inner work can help us achieve overall more peace.
The First Essene Mirror states that the way we feel at a certain moment is reflected back to us by others.
The Second Essene Mirror reflects back what we most dislike and judge in others
The Third Essene Mirror refers to the feeling of being drawn to someone when we look into their eyes.
The Fourth Essene Mirror reflects our addictive or compulsive behaviors
The Fifth Essene Mirror talks about our relationship with our earthly parents through the lens of our Heavenly Ones
The Sixth Essene Mirror- also known as the Dark Night of the Soul; is a period of challenges, deep inner work, and healing.
The Seventh Essene Mirror requires total acceptance from our part and surrender to the Divine Order.
I would love to know your take on these mirrors- if you resonate with these concepts or not, and why that is so.
Thank you for reading! I appreciate you!
I would like to give a shoutout to Umme Salma for her wonderful and empowering article called On My 30th Birthday I Got a Gift: A Piece of Advice, “You Are Not Complete…” about how to be complete on your own and own that. You can find it here:
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