The Miracle of Mirroring

Thanks to the recent World Cup tournament, I have had a lot of soccer lately, both on my TV and on my my mind.

Not soccer per se- I don’t know enough about the sport to have any deep insights on the topic. I hoped to learn more when my son started playing on the team, but the three years of being a soccer mom taught me only two things: my son didn’t like soccer after all, and indoor sports were more parent-friendly.

As a result of my ignorance, instead of contemplating teams’ performance and players’ skills, I tend to reflect on life and life skills when I watch soccer, which happens every two years, on the occasion of Euro and World Cup.

This World Cup, as I watched Ronaldo being sent to the bench during a game, I was thinking about transitions and different ways of handling it. How to accept change? How to deal with it without anger? I looked at the incredible run Mbappe had. He was beaming at every game, until he wasn’t. Shouldn’t he celebrate his hat trick in the finals? Could his final loss to Argentina wipe out his prior achievement? I know soccer is a competitive sport, but how does viewing success in binary terms: winning or losing, serve us?

But what struck me the most this World Cup was how infectious the joy of Messi and the Argentine team was after the final whistle confirmed their championship. Watching the champions and their fans jump, huddle and cry with exhilaration, made me feel strangely elated, if not light-headed for the rest of the day. The very witnessing of happiness made me happy. It was different from empathy- feeling happy for others. It was mirroring- imitating the behaviour or emotion. What if other people shared my experience? Considering that 4 billion people around the world watched this riveting and arguably the best World Cup final of all times, it must have been a wonderful global mirroring phenomenon.

Yesterday at 3 am I got to see the power of mirroring again. We woke up early to catch an early flight. To put it simply, it was a painful experience. I knew I had to get ready fast, but my disgruntlement sabotaged my efforts. Why have we decided to go visit our family for the holidays this year? We should have planned to stay home. I am too old for waking up in the middle of the night. But then I heard my ten-year-old walk into our bedroom. I knew I didn't want to be a downer. I was was ready to put on a happy face because I was happy for him- empathy. But I didn't have to. Seeing him all dressed, chirpy and smiling triggered an immediate change in my attitude. It was as if his positive energy spilled over onto me. My grumpiness and sleepiness morphed into enthusiasm. I was ready to go.

And with that little miracle of mirroring I was also ready for family holidays.