Some mornings, we don’t look in the mirror. We listen.
When I use my fingers for skincare, or line my eyes while staring into them, I tune into something beyond thought. There’s a conversation beneath the surface of what animates my reflection. The face becomes a messenger, barometer, and mirror with a heartbeat.
Listening to a reflection means asking: How am I, really? And letting the answer come without words, through the pull of the brow, the puff beneath the eye, the way the lips forget how to curve.
There are days when I look put together but feel like I’m crumbling inside. I might take the photo anyway as a breadcrumb. A way to document that I showed up for myself, even when it felt hollow. That too is worth listening to.
Here’s an invitation.
Find a photo of yourself where you look composed, styled, perhaps even radiant, but you remember that day differently. What was really going on? What was held behind the eyes, just beneath the surface? Consider journaling about what that photo doesn’t show and why you still chose to be seen that day.
Because the act of decorating, when we’re honest, is layered. Sometimes it’s armor. Other times it’s art. Sometimes it’s a soft reaching inward, a balm on the rawest parts. And other times, it’s a refusal to disappear.
In that silence between swiping and gazing, we hear ourselves. We read our own emotional weather. And through witnessing ourselves, slowly, gently, we decide how to respond.
Photo: Imagine Images Photo