The other way I see it is, in a way, like soul mates, but not necessarily about romantic love. Someone has come into your life and created some sort of disturbance in the energy around you. Maybe it's romantic love. Maybe it's a great friendship. Maybe it's just someone passing through. Maybe it's someone who's a big frickin' thorn in your side. Any which way, for me, the Lovers signals someone significant coming in your life to aid in your expansion, whether you like it (or them) or not. They are coming into your life for the express purpose of challenging you to choose "love" and expansion over whatever other emotion they may spark in you.
I can't recall us ever talking specifically about mirroring here, but I think it's something that's kind of misunderstood. First, mirroring reflects the positive, as well as the negative. And it's not tit for tat, meaning that someone with a short temper is not necessarily mirroring back a short temper in you. That may be one consideration, but perhaps they're *causing* you to have a short temper back and its simply to show you that you possess this trait if pushed hard enough. Once you understand the behavior, you can understand the person and once you understand the person, you can choose compassion and love over anger and withdrawal.
Another thing it may be "mirroring" in you is any other response you might have. Do you tend to ignore short tempered people when they're being short tempered? Do you cry? Does someone like that lower your energy to their level or does your response raise their energy out of the temper tantrum? Do you get all judge-y and superior? What happens? There is greater self understanding to be found if you can see past your response.
And what about the kind of mirroring that brings a positive response? One thing every woman would love to hear from a man in her life is, "you make me want to be a better man." In this case, he's not looking at her and seeing himself as the tender, loving woman she is. He's seeing himself as NOT tender or loving. But he's learning that, within him is a tender, loving person that wants to come out. And he wants to stop fighting that person. Her love makes him want to be better.
In all of this, however, one thing seems pretty certain to me....nobody is in your life just to piss you off. Nobody is in your life to show you how perfect you are through the window of their imperfection. And nobody is in your life for you to judge their stuff while denying your own. They are there for a reason that is something you need to work on within you to grow. And you are there to bring them an opportunity to grow, too. In that way, you are like soul mates. You've found each other because, even if you find them unpalatable, they're the one perfect, star crossed person who can help you learn that lesson and heal.
What do they make you feel? What animal response do they bring out in you? How do you see yourself thinking differently from the way before? How are they knocking you off kilter or creating a disturbance in your life? What kind of person are you when you're around them? What do they dredge up in you that most others cannot? All of this is valuable information that reflects something back at you. Because whatever they're dredging up, is being dredged up for healing. Whatever is reflected back is there for you to use for your expansion. And if you stuff it all down with anger and denial and hate, the wound will just grow within you. And the lesson will come back again.
We've all seen people who encounter the same challenges over and over. Let's say there's a woman and every partner she has cheats on her. Is she just bad at choosing men? Just unlucky? No. In fact, she is excellent at choosing men, because she's choosing men who can help her heal abandonment, disloyalty or betrayal issues within her. Maybe there's some part of herself that is being disloyal to herself. Maybe he insists he's not cheating when she knows he is, and she's not trusting what she KNOWS. Maybe she finds that she blinds herself to all the clues because she's afraid of being alone. Maybe she sees how she abandoned the relationship, shut down and pushed him to seek comfort elsewhere.
There are many possibilities OTHER THAN, his cheating is trying to mirror that she's a cheat herself. But it's still a mirror. And if she just keeps whining about her bad luck with men...or avoids men altogether...she's missing the lesson. And if those actions cause her to cheat back...or cheat first...then she IS seeing her own propensity to seek comfort elsewhere. And she can either blame it on him and get cheated on again and again until she learns her lesson....or she can heal that part of her personality and see the cheating as a contributing factor to her own expansion or growth.
So whenever there's some sort of dance going on with someone in your life, whether brief or long lasting, unpleasant or inspiring, it's happening for a reason. And one of the ways to know you're NOT getting the lesson is if the mirror brings out the kinds of things that make you smaller—anger, vindictiveness, cruelty or a closed heart. If that is how you respond, look forward to it coming into your life again and again until you finally understand the idea of expansion—to widen your circle of love and understanding ever wider through genuine compassion, forgiveness and a live-and-let-live attitude.
You can't rise above and beyond anything in your life with the darkness of hate weighing you down. Within every mirror is a hidden pathway that requires an open heart to uncover. And that is the pathway leads to your freedom.
(P.S. I found this article online that pretty much says what I've said above, but with different words. It's worth a read.)
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