We all have one common enemy, but it is not so much a who but more of a what.

The Mirror.

Each time we glance at the vile piece of reflective glass it stares back at you and points out every single flaw on your body. From major to minuscule, the Mirror screams at you.

Your nose is too large!

That shirt is too tight for your size!

Don’t eat as much!

Eat some more!

It is why we all have insecurities.

The voice of The Mirror’s criticism is now seared into our brains. It causes us to look at it more, let it scream at us more, as if we believe that peering into the glass will make every one of our flaws disappear.

We are doing exactly what The Mirror wants. 

The Mirror puts an image into our brain for what we should strive to be: the perfect human being, the one whose mirror doesn’t scream.

Thick yet thin, silent yet deafening, the Mirror laughs with malice. Every time we walk past it, our slight frown grows larger, our poor posture becomes worse, and our arms wrap tightly around our stomachs for a feeling of comfort and safety.

The Mirror’s goal is to break us down to the point where we only want to meet its expectations instead of our own. It watches as tears roll down our cheeks. It listens to our weak, broken whispers. 

I’m not good enough.

The Mirror wants to see us suffer. What it doesn’t want is for us to rebel, but we have to rebel.

We have to break loose from the burden that The Mirror holds above us. We must shatter that thick layer of hate and resentment that The Mirror has built over the years.

The Mirror wasn’t always the hostile creature that we now know it to be. It used to scream about all of the beautiful features that are painted on our bodies. 

To bring that mirror back we must outsmart this new one. Each time The Mirror screams at us, we scream back. Louder.

Your nose looks perfect!

That shirt looks immaculate on you!

Who cares about what you eat today?

We all think that The Mirror’s opinion matters. But here’s the truth: it doesn’t. The only opinion that matters is our own, and we do not need a toxic mirror to tell us otherwise. 

We all have one common enemy, and it doesn’t take an army to defeat it but rather the kind words that you tell yourself and everyone around you.