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| Mirror Globe (Photo by Arpingstone) |
Kjerstin Gruys, who has a history of anorexia, decided to go "mirrorless" for the year which included her wedding.
According to Godward's Eric Rennie, this decision was made after Gruys' body was larger than the gown she had hoped to pour herself into.
Rather than simply trying for the next size(s) up, Gruys began a very public
campaign of avoiding all mirrors. This even entailed turning away from the glare of her own reflection in others' sunglasses.
It would be wonderful (perhaps) if shedding a preoccupation with body/self image were as simple as stepping through the proverbial
looking glass.
However, just as Alice discovered, imagined Wonderlands on the far side of the hill have their own share of demons. Spending enormous amounts of time avoiding something
is tantamount to not thinking of a hippopotamus for the next five minutes.
It quickly becomes all about the hippo.
Rennie offers this quote from Cooley: I am
not what I think I am and
I am not what you think I am; I am what I think
that you think I am. (Lewis Carroll would have been proud of this logic…) Ashley Crossman further explains what Cooley (1864-1929) was about.
His theory of "the looking glass self" hinges upon three main components: "our
imagination of how others see our appearance; our imagination of the others' judgment of our appearance; and some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or mortification, determined by our imagination of the other's judgment of us."
The key word here seems to be "imagination." The reality of what the Self truly is can get easily distorted in a hall of mirrors, especially if every last one of them is covered with shame.
Resources
http://www.godwardweb.org/lookingglassself.html
http://sociology.about.com/od/Profiles/p/Charles-Horton-Cooley.htm
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