3 Signs You Love Looking at Yourself a Little Too Much
This mirror was like a magnet for my eyes. Every time I walked past this particular mirror in my house I looked into it. Without even realizing it, I had made it a habit to “check myself out” every time I walked by.
Before I knew it, I was “checking myself out” every time I walked past any mirror.
This subtle habit was rudely awakened one day during a construction project in my house. My favorite mirror had been removed from it’s normal place…but out of habit, I still looked in that same spot every time I walked by it.
Instead of catching eyes with myself, a blank white wall stared back at me. After several instances of walking past this white wall and glancing in the same blank spot, I suddenly realized what was happening.
I had made it a constant habit of checking myself out in the mirror every time I walked past it!
I had grown to love looking at myself a little too much.
My eyes were suddenly opened to the fact that I didn’t just “check myself out” in this particular mirror…but almost every mirror I walked past. My habit came alive that afternoon as I walked around my house and noticed how often I started at myself in every mirror.
And to be honest…it was way more than I’d like to admit.
As time went on, I started noticing other girls doing the same thing I did. I saw several girls inconspicuously “check themselves out” in a public mirror for 5 minutes straight. I wasn’t alone in this habit of self-admiration.
I have a feeling some of you can really relate to me on this topic. If you’re not sure if you love looking at yourself a little too much, here’s a good gauge.
3 signs you love looking at yourself a little too much:
- You “check yourself out” every time you walk past a mirror.
- You stare at your face and body so much in the mirror that you can identity every single teeny weeny flaw and blemish.
- You view yourself as either a super hot babe – or – you view yourself as an ugly and unattractive girl.
Those signs aren’t foolproof, but they’re a good gauge to help you discover how much you love looking at yourself in the mirror.
I don’t know about you, but for me, my mirror obsession revealed something much deeper in my heart.
I qualified for every single one of those signs (and on number 3, I juggled back and forth from feeling like hot babe to feeling unattractive…depending on the situation).
All in all, my mirror obsession revealed a heart that had grown to love myself way too much.
And you know what?
The more I stared at myself in the mirror, the more self-focused I became.
Then, the more unhappy I became with my outward appearance. The more I looked at myself, the more flaws I noticed, and the more ungrateful I became towards God for the body He gave me.
If your eyes are constantly drawn toward looking in the mirror, you probably struggle with the same heart issue that I did (and still do regularly!). And you know what the root struggle is?
Pride.
Pride is revealed in a heart that is obsessed with with self more than is interested in God.
One of the definitions of pride is described as, “a person or thing that is the object or source of a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction.”
Yep! That was me. I was finding way too much pleasure and satisfaction in staring at myself in the mirror.
My love of self was clearly rooted in a self-focused heart of pride. And this self-love was revealed by how often and regularly I stared at myself in the mirror. As I studied God’s Word, I started noticing how clearly anti-God pride and self-focussedness are.
Proverbs 16:5 says, “Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord.” And James 4:6b says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
How about you? How did you measure up against those 3 signs? How often do you stare at yourself in a mirror when you walk past it?
If you’re anything like me, you may need to confess your own heart of pride to God as well.
I encourage you to examine your heart and ask God to show you areas of pride and self focusedness that are replacing your love and adoration for HIM.
He alone is to be praised. He alone is to be admired. He alone is to be worshipped.
And trust me – if you seek Him with a sincere heart of humility on this issue, He will reveal your pride and help you humble yourself before Him.
Let’s chat more about this below!
- How often do you catch yourself staring into a mirror when you walk past it?
- In what ways can you relate to the 3 signs I mentioned above?
- How has your heart strayed from loving God, to loving self a little too much?
Photo Credit: Here
oh my! reality check…
I actually don’t find that to be a problem… Yeah, I look at myself in the mirror in the morning and I see my flaws, but I don’t obsess about it…
I have mirrors all along my wardrobe and I have notied in the past that I do look at them quite freaquently. I have been noticing my prideful heart lately and been praying a lot about it. Not just in this area. Pride is one of my #1 struggles. Any other posts on the topic would be aprecceated 😀
This happened to me about a year and a half ago. People kept telling me how pretty I was and how pretty my long hair was and it just went straight to my head. Then I realized one day what I was doing and prayed and God helped me realize, I am pretty, but I don’t need to love myself more than him. Now every time I look in the mirror, I thank God for giving me what I have and giving me such a healthy body instead of thinking about how pretty I am. By the way I loved this post!
But I do have a question. I love to sing, and people are always telling me I have a great voice but I keep thinking I don’t because I don’t want it to go to my head. Iv been avoiding singing in front of people because I don’t want to start thinking i have the best voice out there. I really want to sing in front of people but I don’t want it to go to head. So my question is, how can I sing and enjoy singing in front of other people but not let it go so my head when they tell me I’m good?
Hi Australia!
I have done a fair amount of public singing and have heard many compliments about it. Sometimes a really wish that I received no compliments, since pride is a serious issue for me. Have you ever considered joining a choir? If you are in a choir, you are not singing just for yourself, but working with other people to form one beautiful voice. I love to sing, and I truly understand your longing to sing solo. God has gifted some people in that way. Yesterday morning at church my sister and I sang a contemporary christian song for offering time. I had been stressing about it, struggling with my voice, but I gave the song up to God, begged him to make it glorifying to him, even asked if I could receive no compliments! It turned out that my voice was fine, the song flowed well, and I was able to worship through some of the lyrics. I did receive some compliments, but not too many, and I really am able to say that if you are intent on worshiping God through whatever singing you are doing, he will help you with your pride. It is a struggle, though. Singing in church or in a choir might be a good option to help deal with pride. I hope this helps, I didn’t have an exact answer to your questions. My mentor said a wonderful thing that I will remember when it comes to performing. She said that the focus should not be on you, but on blessing the people watching!
Thanks so much Clara and Emily! This helps a lot. I hav thought about joining a choir but I haven’t done it yet because. I love singing and I’m going to think about this it the way you said from now on. Thanks again! 🙂
I have that same problem. Everyone tells me I have a great voice, and in fact, I love singing. It is hard for me not to get proud because of my voice, but I have been starting to learn that when I sing, I have to realize that the voice I have is what God has given me, and it is not really my own. With that mindset, I can have people say nice things about my voice, but I can remember that my voice is not from me, and that God could, if He wanted to, take it away. It is a gift he has given me. “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139: 13) When I think about it that way, the complements turn from something that is fuel for pride into something that is fuel for gratitude. I still struggle with this a lot, especially since pride is one of my number one struggles in almost every area. I have to pray about it a lot and ask God to change my heart all the time. It helps me to think about all these things and try to use my voice for God instead of for myself, because that is an extent of knowing it is from Him: using it for Him, and realizing that every note I sing is a gift God has given me to use for His glory. “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31) That makes it hard to have pride (even though I still manage it sometime) since I see my voice as something that is God’s. I hope this was helpful. (I started this before that other comment, but didn’t finish it. Sorry that you have two very similar comments)
That so hit home! All of those signs are relevant to me, especially the third one.
Thank you for this post!
I never looked at it that way, but it’s true! Such an eye-opening post.
I can’t believe it! In the last few days my family have been picking up on me looking in the mirror so often. Seeing this post on my facebook was loke God calling to me. Thankyou Kristen, you have shown me a lot I need to learn!
Aww, Kristen… I’ve been doing this recently, and I didn’t know that it actually does have a connection with pride and self–centeredness; therefore, I challenge myself to stop checking myself out at every mirror. Thank you so much, Kristen! This was what I just needed.
And, oh, I think there’s a typo error with: “how often I ‘started’ at myself in every mirror.” 🙂
But, anyways, may God bless you, your sister, and the GirlDefined ministry!
Thanks so much Kristen for writing this blog post! I am convinced that I spend WAY to much time in front of the mirror. I frequently switch between thinking I am so gorgeous and thinking I am ugly or unattractive. I never seriously thought about it (maybe because I didn’t want to have to give up my habit), but this is a serious pride issue. This blog post really hit home for me, and revealed the ugly root of a seemingly harmless issue. Thanks so much for the encouragement to lay aside my self-centeredness, and focus on God.
This is something I think nearly every young lady has trouble with at some point in life, and this made me see that I too have been having trouble with it. Often when I go to a restroom, I’ll check my hair, see if I need to clean my face and to be sure I’m not getting any pimples (I never thought about this, but I haven’t broken out once in all of my teen years and have been extremely pleased with that, but now that I think about it I have been prideful in that area.) But I have to ask, does that mean that it’s wrong to want to get braces (my teeth aren’t the straightest.) or to use face creams? (Because I have two, one that I use when I’m worried I might break out and the other is just for cleaning.)
Ouch. Yup, I’m guilty of this one. Thanks for this post! It’s really opening my eyes to the fact that I’ve been really focused on my outward appearance lately… so much so that I’m afraid I’ve quite forgotten about my heart.
I’m lost in everything I do now. please help me!! :*(
I don’t think I have the problem of looking at myself too much in the mirror, in fact, my sisters tell me that I need to look in the mirror more often. However, with that said, it does not mean, even for a split second, that I am better than those that do look in the mirror a lot. I have thought about this quite a bit because I started judging and looking down on one of my younger sisters (especially) who likes to look in the mirror a lot and can spend much time in front of one. I began thinking that I was better than her because I didn’t “need” to look in a mirror (because i never really thought i was that attractive anyway, so what was the use?). But it was and is pride, y’all. Pride. And that is just as bad (or worse) than the pride that comes with looking at your reflection in the mirror every time you walk by a mirror or window. It’s all self-centered. Whether it was the lie that I was better than my sister because ‘I am just fine’ or ‘look great’ without having to spend lots of time in front of the mirror or that I just don’t care how I look, it all boils down to the same thing…Pride, our enemy that we are sadly, way to often in compliance with (whether we admit it or even realize it or not). So the root is the same and one I am constantly trying to uproot, though it’s not easy and I fail constantly.
Thank for this post, Kristen! Such a blessing and an encouragement to read. 🙂
Great thoughts here, Kristen! I too went through a phase of “checking out myself” in the mirror; it is so embarrassing to look back on now! 🙂 Thanks for the points you made! I really want to remember your words, “I encourage you to examine your heart and ask God to show you areas of pride and self focusedness that are replacing your love and adoration for HIM.”
This is definitely something i struggle with! I’ve been working at breaking my habit of spending too much time in front of the mirror.
Thank you for words of encouragement!
Perhaps for a week you should print out a painting of Jesus or a bible verse you want to memorize and paste it on or over a mirror, so when you wanted to see yourself you were reminded on how you should see yourself – as a daughter of God. I dunno, just an idea.
Hello I’m a 19 year old female almost 20 and name is Jennifer.
Well for the first one I would hate if I looked bad and wanted to at least look decent when it was like in the morning but the more I looked in the mirror the more that I found and pointed out my flaws and thought that I was ugly. Now every time that I see a mirror I look at myself and most of the time now I think of myself as ugly cuss I point everything out. Now the stuff that I have not noticed I see now like my nose maybe looking weird and big or that I think that I look weird on the side of my face (Side view) or that since I still have my chubby cheeks at 19 almost 20 I see all of these other girls that have the nice cheek bones and slim face and nice jawline that I compare myself most of the time when I see myself in the mirror to other girls who I think are attractive and pretty because I don’t look like them. (I have a baby face and people think I’m much younger then i really am) I used to get made fun of sometimes on how I looked in middle school but my depression of all this started when I was going out of the 8th grade to high school when I started looking at myself more in the mirror and realizing how I looked instead of before not worrying at all just being me. I thought that I did not compare to any of the girls in my school and that I was never going to be like any of them. I will say that I have grown a little since then looking much different then I did before but still I still know that I’m not as pretty as any of the girls that I went to high school with. Once I was out of high school my depression was still there but I had an amazing boyfriend who I would talk to about it on how I felt and he understood and listen to what I had to say. (Who I am happily with still now :3) He calls me beautiful and pretty but when someone or anyone would tell me that I was I would never believe them but I would at least say thank you just to at least try to take it as a complement. I would think like recently now that I wanted to get a nose job just to be happy and at least have a small nose like cute girls have and think that a small nose would change a lot on my outlook on my face. There was also the thing were I have fair skin so I don’t look good under florescent lights or any bright lights for that matter and when I would see myself under them I would see all my flaws right on my face. I just wish that there was a way to see myself as a ok looking person and I pray to God all the time and ask him but I know that he has made people the way that they are and that I should not be selfish on asking him to help me at least look better when I’m in my 20s but I know it does not hurt to ask. Thank you if you read this and sorry that it is a lot of writing to read. Have a nice day/night :).
Hey Jennifer, you’re not being selfish at all.
Everything you just described sounds a whole lot like my own experiences with self-hate! Here’s what I’ve figured out so far, if it helps:
-There’s nothing wrong with wanting to love how you look.
-We only hate how we look because someone somewhere once told us that there was a “wrong” way to look.
-We’ve gotta be patient with ourselves when we try to unwrite everything society has written in our minds about how we should look.
-It helps to treat yourself as if you were a different person. Would you tell your best friend that their nose looked ugly? Probably, no! Be as kind with yourself as you would your best friend.
-At the end of the day, we’ve gotta remember that it’s okay to be ugly.
-Like, for real. It’s okay to be ugly. Even more importantly, it’s okay to LOVE being ugly.
Our bodies are beautiful gifts from God. If that’s a comforting thought to you, then that’s beautiful enough, I think.
Cheers! 🙂