Stephen Covey On The Social Mirror

If the only vision we have of ourselves comes from the social mirror – from the current social paradigm and the opinions, perceptions and paradigms of the people around us – our view of ourselves is like the reflection in the crazy mirror room at the carnival.

“You're never on time.”

“Why can't you ever keep things in order?”

“You must be an artist!”

“You eat like a horse!”

“I can't believe you won!”

“This is so simple, why can't you understand?”

These visions are disjointed and out of proportion. They are often more projections than reflections, projecting the concerns and character weaknesses of people giving the input rather than accurately reflecting what we are.

– Stephen R. Covey (from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) 

Covey's point about one's social mirror being like a carnival mirror room - boy can I relate to that!

I suffered a lot of invalidation while growing up because I was 'different'...

*Being an introvert rather than fitting the extrovert ideal.

*Being an abstract thinker rather than a concrete thinker.

*Being creative rather than practical.

Being seen as odd/defective by certain people created distortions in my identity that have taken years to resolve. 

The problem is, when other people project on to us, at an age when we don't have the perspective to understand what's happening, we have no choice but to accept what we're told.

A barb like “You're stupid!”, repeated often enough, can take hold in our unconscious and begin to guide our behaviour – so we actually end up saying and doing stupid things. We self-sabotage in order to remain consistent with our 'stupid' identity.

And the invalidation need not be explicit and verbal; people can communicate a disparaging attitude in other ways. But the result is the same: when we receive this kind of invalidation, often enough, when we're impressionable, we can become conditioned by it.   

Thank heaven for healing tools like The Sedona Method and consciousness-expanding truths like The 3 Principles. This knowledge has helped me (and continue to help me) move beyond the negative scripting I received while growing up. 

What kind of negative scripting did you receive while growing up? And how have you dealt with it (or struggled to deal with it)? Do share your insights below.