God's Mirror Neurons: How we become what we look at

How God images us to ourselves

Where and how we pray are vital to prayer. St Ignatius was very attentive to this, and the Spiritual Exercises encouraged people to invest in the spaces and arrangement of the places they prayed in. He also gave advice for posture, position, and modes of praying. In particular, in what are called 'the additions', he gave a direction for all prayers.

75. 3. I will stand for the space of an Our Father, a step or two before the place where I am to meditate or contemplate, and with my mind raised on high, consider that God our Lord beholds me, etc. Then I will make an act of reverence or humility.¹

In his book, The Church of Mercy, Pope Francis writes, "...do you let yourself be looked at by the Lord? [May we let] ourselves be gazed upon by the Lord. He looks at us, and this is itself a way of praying."² The Pope is a Jesuit, so very familiar with St Ignatius's direction for us to consider how God looks at us looking at Him.

Why is this direction to observe God observing us observing him good for us in prayer? St Ignatius noticed the benefits of this in his own prayer life and, through experimentation in prayer, stumbled upon something that we now understand as fundamental to human nature and development. 

What Ignatian suggests is more than just an imaginative exercise. It is about the very nature of human identity formation and how we make meaning in the world. As human beings, we can, in our minds’s eyes, stand outside and observe ourselves, observing something or someone else. Try it now where you are. Imagine yourself looking at yourself.

What Ignatius had noticed in his prayer life and that of others, psychologists now understand as 'the observing self'. Our observing self is at the core of how we form an identity and of our mental well-being.

In short, we become what we look at.

Mirror Neurons: Becoming what we look at

There are many dimensions to our 'observing self' and implications for identity and formation. For now, I want to explore the nature of mirror neurons and mirroring behaviour. Mirror neurons are part of the human brain and literally the 'mind's mirror' —brain cells that respond when we perform an action we see others doing.

At the time of writing this, I have a five-month-old grandson. One of my greatest joys has been seeing him learn to smile and laugh in response to us smiling at him. When he smiles, his mirror neurons respond to our smiling at him. And our mirror neurons are firing in response to him smiling at us. Did you find yourself smiling at the image above of my grandson smiling? By the way, faking a smile at yourself in the mirror can trigger a genuine smile from yourself.

Mirror neurons exist not just for learning to smile but also for the many ways we learn through imitation. Adults have mirror neurons, through which we learn new skills, acquire knowledge, and make emotional and relational connections. Who we look at really shapes who we are and what we become. 

Looking in the Mirror and Narcism

No wonder that the smartphone and the rise of the selfie are directly linked to a growth in narcism. The term narcism comes from the myth of Narcissus. A man so beautiful he falls in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. We now know the physiological mechanisms at work in this story (for the social science of what happens when we look in a mirror, see here).

The modern smartphone selfie and social media places us at the centre of everything we do or participate in, observing ourselves. In doing so, we lose something vital to who we were really meant to be and become. One way to 'read' social media images and videos is as perpetual acts of self-observation and self-creation. Self-observing selves, observing other self-observing selves. Even during in-person meetings with others, we are often looking at our phones and screens more than the people present. 

I have written before about selfies and mirrors. For most of history, human beings did not have access to clear reflections of themselves until silvered mirrors were invented. Until then, we relied on others to tell us what we looked like and how we had 'our father's eyes', 'our mother's lips', etc.

In the bible, in James 1, we have the passage about a person who catches a glimpse of themselves in a mirror but goes away and forgets who they are. James 1:24 literally means to see who God in his Genesis creation intended us to be, to catch a glimpse of who we were meant to be within the image of God and to walk away, forgetting who we are.

James warns us to look in better mirrors as an antidote to this problem. 

Mirroring is part of the myths of ancient history, and other religions have mirror stories. We are fascinated with reflections, not just ours but those of trees, hills and clouds on a still lake on a calm day, where water symbolises our psychic depths, and the reflection upon that water is a mystical sense of self and reality. 

The constant drive to self-create and place ourselves at the centre of our own story is, in part, what leads to an unstable self that cannot take the weight of our lives. The constant peering into their own abyss, doubt and negative self-talk eat up the narcissist.

Essentially he therefore has to build up a false sense of self from the positive opinions of others, so creating a grandiose myth that he is amazing and can do no wrong. He actually has no self to reflect, the reflection isn't really his, it is what is given to him by the pool of water that he interacts with and in this case the pool of water is you! 

Looking at God, looking at you, looking at him

Scripture tells us that all creation reflects God's glory. When we look at God, looking at us, looking at him, we might notice how he sees us. His mirror neurons, so to speak, are activated as he smiles at us with joy. The Son of God, at the Father's right hand, fully human and fully divine certainly has mirror neurons. God delights in seeing his glory reflected back to him in us. And when we see him smiling at us, our brains and souls learn to smile back at him. 

God images us to ourselves.

God, the loving Father, looks at us, his child so that we might discover who we are in him—metaphorically, spiritually, existentially and literally- his eyes, hands, temperament, and personality. He is the mirror who reflects back to us who we were meant to be and might become. 

All we need to do is look. 

As a diagnostic tool, we might ask where we are looking most of the week and what and why. Where do we look for the meaning and measure of life? What do we turn to and look at when we are struggling in life? What do we turn to for rest and recreation?

And if and when we come to God, how do we come to him? Like a child to their loving, caring Father, to rest, discover, and be formed and transformed? Or do we metaphorically take a selfie of ourselves with God in our prayers as we give him a to-do list?

Teresa of Avila, nearly five hundred years ago, in her autobiography, writes about an experience of prayer and a mirror where: 

"My soul suddenly became recollected, and seemed to me like a clear mirror; there was no part of it – back, sides, top, or bottom – that was not completely bright; and in the middle was a picture of Christ Our Lord as I usually see Him. I seemed to see Him in every part of my soul as clearly as in a mirror, and this mirror – I cannot explain how – was entirely shaped to this same Lord, by a most loving communication which I could not describe."³

As you come to prayer, may these words of Pope Francis be a blessing over you.

“God loves you. Let yourself be gazed upon by him! Nothing else.” And this is the same thing I would say to you: let yourselves be gazed at by the Lord!”⁴

1. Puhl, Louis J., and Ignatius of Loyola, St., The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: Based on Studies in the Language of the Autograph, p.33.

2. Pope Francis, The Church of Mercy, p19.

3. Teresa of Avila, The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila, p267.

4. Pope Francis, The Church of Mercy, p20.