Mirror work

Mirror work is a self-help practice in which a person looks at themselves in a mirror and repeats positive affirmations. It was taught by the author and publisher Louise Hay, whose publisher calls it her signature practice for personal change and her method for learning to love oneself.

Description

The practice as Hay taught it

The description of Hay's 2016 book Mirror Work: 21 Days to Heal Your Life defines mirror work as looking deeply into your own eyes and repeating affirmations. Hay is quoted there calling it the most effective method she had found for learning to love yourself, and saying she had taught it for as long as she had taught affirmations. In the same passage she says affirmations are most powerful when said out loud in front of a mirror, and that the mirror reflects back the feelings a person has about themselves.

The Mirror Principle

The practice rests on what Hay called the Mirror Principle: the idea that a person's experience of life reflects their relationship with themselves.

The 21-day program

The 2016 book sets out a 21-day program based on Hay's video course Loving Yourself. Each day has a theme, such as watching your self-talk, overcoming fear, releasing anger, healing relationships or forgiving yourself and others. Each day's practice combines an exercise in front of the mirror with affirmations, journal writing, a short "Heart Thought" to reflect on, and a guided meditation. The book's contents include a day on teaching mirror work to children.

Scope

What it includes

• Looking into your own eyes in a mirror while repeating affirmations, preferably out loud
• In Hay's 21-day program, daily mirror exercises alongside journal writing and guided meditation

What it is not

• It is not a tested method. In a 2016 paper, psychologists at Sapienza University of Rome noted that repeating positive affirmations in front of a mirror to increase self-acceptance had been recommended for years in popular psychology books, websites and self-help resources, citing Hay's work, but that as far as they knew it had never been tested.
• It is not the same as clinical uses of mirrors. Rehabilitation therapists use mirror therapy to help with pain or limb function, and psychologists have used guided mirror exposure with people who have eating disorders or body image problems. Those are clinical techniques used by therapists and psychologists, separate from Hay's self-help practice.

Research on mirrors and self-talk

The 2016 Rome study tested a related exercise in a laboratory. Eighty-six adults each wrote four kind, encouraging phrases they would say to a close friend, then described a time they had criticised themselves. They were then put into one of three groups: saying the phrases to themselves while looking in a mirror, saying them without a mirror, or looking in the mirror without the phrases. The group that said the phrases at the mirror reported more calm, "soothing" positive feelings and had higher heart rate variability than the other two groups, but their negative feelings did not drop more than in the other groups. The phrases were written by the participants themselves and used in a single session, rather than Hay's affirmations or 21-day program. The authors noted that they had not analysed the content of the phrases in detail or directly checked how closely people followed the instructions.

In 2014 the American public broadcaster NPR described saying nice things to your reflection as a self-help habit that had been around for decades, often aimed at women. A psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania told NPR he used a mirror with some new patients, coaching them to describe their bodies in gentler, more neutral words. The report said evidence that the words people say to themselves can change how they see themselves was still limited to patients' own reports, and that the effect on the brain had not yet been studied.

A 2020 review in Nursing Inquiry found that looking at oneself in a mirror can be distressing for some people. People with eating disorders may feel shame when they see themselves in a mirror, and people with body dysmorphic disorder, amputations or burns may avoid mirrors. Seeing one's body in a mirror after an amputation or other visible change to the body can be a traumatic experience. The review concerned mirror viewing in general and did not discuss mirror work.

Traditions and lineage

Louise Hay began publishing in 1976, when she self-published her first two books. Her book You Can Heal Your Life was first published in 1984, and its success led her to set up the publishing company Hay House in 1987. She died in San Diego, California, on 30 August 2017, aged 90.

Hay House published an online video course, Loving Yourself: 21 days to improved self-esteem with mirror work, in 2015. The 2016 book was based on that course and was described by its publisher as the first book dedicated to the practice.

Context

Within Spiritualism

Spiritfold has found no published source linking mirror work with Spiritualism.

In Australian Spiritualism

Spiritfold has found no published source linking mirror work with Spiritualism in Australia.

A Spiritualist perspective

Mirror work comes from the self-help teaching of Louise Hay, not from Spiritualism, and a Spiritualist would see it as a personal practice someone may choose in their own life. There is common ground. Spiritualism places weight on personal responsibility, and learning to speak to yourself with kindness fits comfortably with that.

A thoughtful teacher would offer it gently, if at all, and never press it on anyone. As the research above notes, looking in a mirror can be distressing for some people, including those who have lost a limb or live with eating disorders or body image difficulties. People who come to a church in grief may also be fragile. Mirror work is not counselling, and anyone who is struggling should be encouraged to talk with their doctor or a qualified counsellor.

Mirror work in Australia

Hay House has an office in Sydney, among others in New York, London, Johannesburg and New Delhi. Hay's book Mirror Work is held in Australian libraries in print and electronic editions, and has been translated into languages including Hindi and Chinese.

Safety and good practice

Spiritfold has found no guidance from a health authority that deals specifically with mirror work. A 2020 review in Nursing Inquiry on looking at oneself in a mirror reports that it can be distressing for some people: people with eating disorders may feel shame, and people with body dysmorphic disorder, amputations or burns may avoid mirrors. The review was about mirror viewing in general and did not study mirror work itself.

Related modalities

• Art therapy
• Meditation
• Relaxation techniques
• Neuro-linguistic programming

Further reading

• Freysteinson, Wyona M. "Demystifying the mirror taboo: A neurocognitive model of viewing self in the mirror". Nursing Inquiry, 2020.
• Hay, Louise. Mirror Work: 21 Days to Heal Your Life. Hay House, 2016. (The practice's own primary source.)
• Petrocchi, Nicola; Ottaviani, Cristina; Couyoumdjian, Alessandro. "Compassion at the mirror". The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2016.
• Starecheski, Laura. "Why Saying Is Believing – The Science Of Self-Talk". NPR, 2014.
• Wenner, Emma. "Louise Hay, Founder of Hay House, Dies at 90". Publishers Weekly, 2017.