When we look around at the people surrounding us we often don’t realize that they are reflections of different parts of our psyche. We don’t recognize this because some parts are hidden or we are hiding from. But again, the people around us are a manifestation of who we are and what we have inside us.

Everyone has darkness inside them but not everyone allows that darkness space within their personality. No one knows why this is so. How do two people who grow up in the same household go on to to live such different lives, the paradox of the two siblings, one a cop and one a criminal. It works in popular culture and television.

Why? It works because we are all living our own soap operas. The people we like are liked by us because they represent all the things we accept within ourselves. For the people we don’t like the opposite can be said. But we also have people in our lives that represent the person we want to be. It could be envy, jealousy or even adoration.   Somewhere inside us all is a voyeur, living vicariously through someone else. It may be a friend who has freedom that you desire and travels the world. It may be that friend with the big family and lots of children when you have none.

How many people have heard the expression that you are just a reflection of the five people closest to you? How can you use that information to become a better more authentic you? When you feel someone’s pain, it is because you have already experienced what they have experienced and you understand. This is true compassion. But right now there are people in your life who are a mirror of your happiness and your pain. They are in your life to show you a new part of yourself that may or may not be hidden. You may or may not be in denial of this part of your personality.

Feel the emotions that they stir inside you. Good or bad. Maybe together you laugh a lot: that’s joy. Maybe you drink to much: that’s denial of life. The journey to to face what these emotions mean. Not where they come from but the fact that they are there. If you are wounded by an arrow, you don’t start looking around for who fired the arrow, you work triage, stop the bleeding and then repair the damage.

It’s a cliche but life is a journey. We are all in it together. You are surrounded by life. People come in all shapes and sizes and they come and go from your life. The task is to learn more about yourself from these interactions so you can be a better you and understand that if everyone around us is just an aspect of our personality then we really are all as one.