The Girl and The Broken Mirror 🪞

The Girl and the Broken Mirror

Once there was a girl,

who looked

to a mirror

to tell her

that she was beautiful.

“Am I beautiful?”

she asked the mirror.

And instead

of reflecting

back her beauty,

the mirror listed back

a long list

of flaws

that she possessed.

“You are too fat,

too short,

too plain,

and too shy,”

the mirror replied.

The girl sighed sadly.

But to be sure,

she went in search

of another mirror.

“Am I beautiful?”

she asked the second mirror.

“I do not see beauty.

I see

only ugliness.”

The mirror replied.

And when she asked this

of the third mirror,

it did not even appear to acknowledge her

or notice her at all.

And so,

she set out

to travel the world,

in search of a mirror

that would tell her

that she

was beautiful.

But with every mirror

that she met,

she was met

with the same reply.

“I cannot see your beauty.”

And she grew

more and more disheartened.

“All of these mirrors must be right.

I must not be beautiful.

I must not be worthy of love,”

she whispered to herself,

before starting to weep.

And as she sat crying,

she noticed

out of the corner of her eye,

an old woman

starting to slowly approach her.

“My dear,”

she smiled.

“Each of these mirrors

are not perfect mirrors.

They are people.

And what they see in you

is a reflection

of what they see in themselves.

And so, each person

who has not fully healed

and seen themselves in their fullness

is a broken mirror.”

She continued,

“When you are first born,

you cannot know yourself.

And so you go

in search of a mirror.

And the first mirror

that mirrors yourself back to you

becomes the mirror

in which you see yourself.

The first mirror

you saw yourself in

was not fully capable

of reflecting

your beauty

back to you,

though it may have wished to,

because the mirrors

that it encountered

were not fully capable

of reflecting

its beauty

back to it.

And so what you see

in yourself

is a girl

who cannot see

that she is beautiful.

And what

you now see

in each mirror

you ever encounter

are mirrors

who also

cannot see

that you are beautiful.

Can you see?” she asked.

She paused and smiled,

before continuing.

“Do not search

for yourself

in a broken mirror,

or mistake

a broken mirror

for meaning

that you

are broken.

And the next time that someone calls you

too fat or too thin,

too pale or too dark,

too wrinkled or too smooth,

too freckled or too tanned,

too this or too that,

remember that there are no ugly people,

only people incapable of seeing beauty.”

The girl’s eyes widened slightly.

Yet, she still felt discouraged.

“How can I see that I am beautiful?

If no mirror has ever

fully reflected it back to me?” she asked in reply.

The old lady smiled.

“What do you see

when you look into the eyes of a tree?” she asked.

“Beauty.” she replied.

“What do you see

when you notice the patterns of a seashell?”

“Perfection.” she answered.

“And what do you see

when you witness the colours of a sunset?”

“Magic,” she said.

The old lady paused before finishing,

“How can you see

that you are beautiful?

By changing the mirror

that you look in

from a mirror of the body

to a mirror of the soul.”

And with her words,

the spell was broken,

and the mirrors

that surrounded her,

were magically

transformed

back into people.

And she no longer looked to them

to tell her

that she was beautiful,

for they were no longer mirrors.

And though the old woman

was gone,

she remained with her in spirit.

And if she ever found herself

unable to see her beauty,

she remembered

the wise words the old woman

had left with her

before she had departed:

"On the days

when you struggle to look at yourself

in the mirror,

for you feel dissatisfied by what you see,

remember that feeling that something is less beautiful

does not make it so.

That you were born beautiful,

and will die beautiful,

for beauty is no two-dimensional thing,

that can ever be captured by an image,

as it encompasses the soul.

And a single flaw

that you believe that you possess

based on what you have been taught

to believe is beautiful

cannot come close

to reflecting

the entire essence of who you are.

And so, if you ever find yourself

fixating on your appearance

and wishing to change

what cannot be changed,

I would suggest, my dear,

that you shift your focus

from the beauty without

to the beauty within,

that shines outward

but originates inside,

that remains with you as you age,

and cannot ever be taken from you

when you die.

And change the mirror of the body

to a mirror of the soul."

Words by Tahlia Hunter

Artwork by Catrin Welz-Stein

An original story.

A note about this story: This is not autobiographical. I was fortunate to be blessed with many beautiful mirrors growing up. This is instead dedicated to every person who has ever been told that they were ugly or not beautiful enough. ❤