163. Why do I look different in different mirrors and windows?

Ever caught your reflection in a shop window and thought, “Hang on… I didn’t look like that this morning”? Yep, me too!

So in this episode, I’m going to explain why mirrors and windows can make us look completely different, even on the same day, in the same outfit. 

I’m going to talk about how reflections work (yes, there’s some light science in this one!), how lighting, angles and movement all play a part, and why the mirror you trust at home might not be showing you the “real” you either.

Some insight and reassurance for when your reflection catches you off guard.

I’m talking about:

• Why your reflection changes depending on where you see it
• How mirrors and windows are made (and why that matters)
• The brain’s reaction to conflicting reflections
• The answer to “Which reflection of me is true?”

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Transcript

1:17

Welcome to the Intuitive Eating and Body Positivity podcast. I'm Terri and I'll be talking about all things intuitive eating, body positivity, and health for every size. And shaking off weight stigma, diet, culture, and food rules so that we can all have a better relationship with food and our bodies. Oh, hello. How are you? Are you all right? I am good. I think nothing much going on again. That's not a bad thing, it's just the usuals, you know, bit of pool playing, bit of work, bit of coaching, and yeah, just nothing to report back on. Really gotta take Luna to the vets in a couple of weeks though for some more work. Bless her heart. Some more work. But I will update you when that comes around. Fear not, uh, more tales from the cat. Diaries will come soon. Mm. Other than that, nothing exciting to tell you about really. I did have a really good Eat From Within session this week. You know, my membership, remember that? Um, we had a workshop session this week and we were talking about habits. Talking about habits and how they show up in life, whether they're good habits or not. So good habits. We talked about the things that the ladies would want to build on and the things that they would want to kind of reduce or do away with altogether. And we did a really fun exercise. A really fun activity. It was really good fun. It was. You can listen back to that and you can do the activity yourself as well if you are a member, because the replays go into the members hub and if you want to join the membership, then that will be available for you to go in and listen to and do the activity yourself too if you want to. The links in the show notes, obviously, if you wanna come and join the membership. I've got like two spaces left because I cap it. I cap my members and I do that so that it stays nice and cozy and very intimate and so that everybody's got a chance to speak and have a bit of coaching and stuff. So I've got two spaces left, so if you want in, I would get in, do it now. Hit the link and join. Anyway, what we also discussed in this week's session was mirrors. We started talking about one thing and then we wandered off somewhere completely different. And then we landed on the topic of reflections, right? Not to the deep, meaningful journaly type reflections. I mean like actual reflections, looking in the mirror, seeing yourself in a shop window, that sort of thing. And one of the ladies in the group said, she said something I hear pretty regularly. She said, I look in the mirror in the morning and I like what I see. But then I catch my reflection in a shop window later, and I don't look like that anymore. I don't look the way I thought I looked when I looked in the mirror in the morning. And then she went on to say how it throws her day. You know how that makes her feel. And then actually she goes home and she looks in the mirror again and she thinks, well, oh, actually I do look the way I looked this morning. So what's that all about? And I know so many of you will have felt this. You will. Leave the house feeling quite good about yourself. Maybe you've done your hair, maybe you've actually managed to find a top that makes you feel put together, and then boom, you catch sight of yourself walking past a shop window and it's like, oh, is that what I look like? And I had this just myself this morning. I promise you. I went to town, I went to collect some bits and pieces, and I came out of one shop, turned the corner, looked in the mirror. Not the mirror, the window caught sight of myself. I was like, oh. And it took me by surprise.'cause I was like, that's not how I saw myself when I got dressed today. There were bits of me that stood out more than others. My clothes looked different to how I thought they looked, and immediately I had to kind of check in with myself and be like, well move on please. Thank you. What I want to do today is just explain what's really happening here, because there is an actual science behind this and why it happens, and it might just help you to breathe a little bit easier the next time you get caught off guard by your reflection. So start, start in the mirror in the morning. You're getting ready in the morning, and you stand in front of the mirror and you think, all right, this will do. You might even give yourself a little nod, A satisfied glance. You stand and you angle yourself one way and then you turn and you stand and angle yourself a different way and you're like, alright, I quite like this. Yes, this outfit is working for me today. I look all right. And that moment can feel very reassuring. Even if you've had body image wobbles before, it's a little checkpoint of I'm all right today. Maybe you don't love how you look completely, but you are at least happy with it. Later in the day, you're walking along the high street, you're minding your own business, and then suddenly you spot yourself in the shop window and it's a bit jarring. You know, your proportions look different. You might think you look bigger than you did this morning, or rounder, or slighter, or maybe you can't put your finger on it. It's just different. Maybe your clothes don't look the way that you saw them this morning. Maybe a body part is now the first thing you saw when this morning. You thought it was hidden. You know, it could be anything really. Whatever it is. It feels like the confidence that you had when you were getting dressed, when you looked in the mirror this morning disappears really quickly. And then the question creeps in which version of me is real? Which one do I believe? And the short answer is none of them. Neither of them is telling the full truth and also neither of them is lying. You just can't trust a mirror or a window. That's the, that's it what this comes down to. Um, but let me, let me tell you the kind of nerdy but useful bit. This is, we're getting science now. All science, bro, um, mirrors are all different. Windows are all different. No two mirrors or windows will give you the same reflection, and that's because of lots of different factors. Mirrors are essentially designed to reflect light back to you. So a standard household mirror, for example, is made of a piece of glass with a thin layer of reflective material behind it, and it's usually aluminum or silver. That's aluminum for my. US based listeners. I dunno why I thought of that. I don't know why that came to mind when I was writing this, but I was thinking, oh, some people are gonna go, oh, Terri, it's not aluminum. Well, it is, it's aluminum. Uh, anyway, back to the topic. Um, yeah, it's a piece of glass with a thin layer of something behind it, which is usually aluminum or silver, and it's usually painted onto the back. And that layer is actually what causes the reflection. That's what creates the reflection. The glass is just there to protect it. So when you stand in front of the mirror, the light bounces off that reflective coating and back into your eyes. So you will see a fairly crisp, evenly lit version of yourself. It's clear. And because you are still. You are facing it head on. You get a direct view of yourself. You are probably standing in your usual lighting with a familiar background, and maybe you are stood in your usual favorite angle pose without even thinking about it. We've all got ways that we like to stand when we look in the mirror to decide whether we feel good about ourselves or not. We tend to place mirrors in spots where we like the look of ourselves too. You would not put a mirror in a position where it's badly lit and you can't quite see yourself, and you have to stand really close to it to get a full length view because it's in a tiny little space. You know you're not gonna put a mirror somewhere like that. You are going to put it somewhere where the lighting works for you. You've got space. It's an angle that is comfortable for you. It's got space around it. Did I say that? I can't remember. But over time, what happens is we get used to seeing ourselves in that exact spot, in that exact way, and that's what makes that version feel normal or flattering. So it's not that the mirror is lying or telling the truth either, which way, it's just showing you. The version that you have become more familiar with. So now let's take a shop windows or car windows or anything glass that is not a mirror glass on its own is only partially reflective. Glass is actually designed to let light through it, not bounce back at it. So. When you catch a reflection in a window, what you're seeing is this weird mix of light bouncing off the glass and light passing through the glass. And the result is this weird, dull, slightly ghost-like version of yourself, which is overlaid onto whatever is behind the glass. So if you've got a Brightly lit shop display. Behind that glass, your reflection's gonna be harder to see If the lighting behind that glass, say inside the shop is low. If it's darker in there, if there's a dark backdrop and it's brighter outside, then your reflection might look more visible, but still distorted because it's glass Windows are also rarely. Flat. They look flat. You think they're flat, but they're not. They can be ever so slightly curved or rippled. And especially in older buildings or older commercial displays that curve or rippling in the glass might stretch or squash what you see. So, you know when you go to the fair and you go to a fun house and they've got the um, the house of mirrors. I don't even know what that's called. Is that just called the Fun house? I don't know. But you know when you go in there and there's all these different mirrors and some make you look really tall and some make you look really short and some make you very thin and some make you very fat and some make you look a bit wonky and make you look like you're the, like you are an S shape or something, you know? Or they, they make your head. Look like it's half the length of your body, that sort of thing. Um, that's because what they've done with those mirrors is they've distorted the shape of the mirror so it's not completely flat, and that is what gives you the distorted view that is what's happening in the shot window or whatever glass you're looking into, just very, very subtly. Because you can't see those curves. It's not a funhouse mirror, it is just a piece of glass, but it's got these defects. It's, it's not completely flat. And don't forget, you are probably also moving when you see yourself in a window. You are mid step or you are turning round, you're juggling shopping bags. You are not posed, you are not standing still. So your body isn't at its most. Um, intentional shape should we say. So when you compare a still well lit mirror with a passing glassy light bouncing window moment, it's no wonder that you feel like you're seeing two different people. The quality of the mirror itself makes a difference too, not just these little defects. Cheaper mirrors are more likely to be slightly warped, so they're gonna give you a stretched or a compressed image without you even realizing it. And some mirrors have a tint of the glass or a thinner layer of that reflective coating, which can also alter the color and the sharpness of the mirror. Higher quality mirrors tend to give you a more accurate, consistent reflection. Whereas the older ones, the budget ones, they might subtly distort your image without you even noticing it. It's just enough to influence how you feel about what you see though. So your brain then has to try and make sense of all of this. More often than not, it gets it wrong. Your brain does not like surprises. So when it sees that second version of you in the shop window, it starts trying to work out what is going on. It's suddenly going, hang on, you didn't look like that this morning. Have you actually changed? Have you let yourself go at some point in the day? Do you actually look like this all the time? And the mirror this morning was lying. If you've ever struggled with your body image, which I'm assuming you possibly have since you're here listening to this podcast, especially in diet culture where you know your body is something to control and monitor and check all the time, then that questioning that your brain is doing, trying to figure out what reflection is really you, then that becomes a bit overwhelming and it's just confusion. Your brain is comparing two different data sets, data sets that were captured in totally different conditions. It's like comparing a selfie to a blurry screenshot from a video call, both technically you that neither is the full picture. Does that make sense? So then which version do you believe, which version of you is the real one? This is what I think, and it's not gonna be clear, I promise, but this is, this is what I think both are real, but also both are fake. Yes. Contradictory much. They are just reflections. They are just. Things that you see filtered through light, through glass, through angles, through motion. They do not capture your energy. They don't know what you are like when you laugh. They don't show how you light up when you are talking about something you love. They don't reflect your kindness and your strength and your softness. They don't feel your energy coming off you. They can't tell you that. So the shot window. The mirror, neither of them, they are giving you the whole truth. They're just little glimpses filtered through different lenses, and neither of them gets to decide and tell you which one is the real you and how worthy you are and how good you should feel about yourself and how beautiful you are. So which reflection is the real one? Who knows? Like actually, who knows? Who knows? With all of this at play, how can you possibly know which reflection is showing you the closest version of yourself? You just can't answer that question. You'd have to set up a scientifically controlled space to get a true exact reflection of yourself that you could a hundred percent rely on. The mirror would have to be so precisely made that it has zero imperfections and the perfect layer of coating on the back of it. And the lighting would have to have been scientifically controlled and reflected at the right angles in a room where the light is controlled, so no windows and things like that. And then you would have to stand perfectly still and in such a precise position. To get that snapshot of your actual true reflection, the actual true version of you and what you look like. It is an impossible task, isn't it? We can't have that. Well, we probably could have that if we were willing to throw an awful lot of money at it to get it done. Oh, I think I'd quite like that though. I would like to see the actual perfect reflection of myself, and then I could go and look in these other things and go, you do not look like that. That is absolutely not you. That looks ridiculous. That is not you. You know what? Even people looking at you, I'm just thinking about this now. I've gone on in my brain. It's kind of gone. Gone on a tangent. I was about to say that the, the only. The only person that gets to see the true you is somebody else looking at you. But that's not even true because their eyes will see and function differently to somebody else's eyes and somebody else will be stood in a different position to that person and the light comes into play and how you are standing, you will be moving and all that sort of thing. Nobody. Nobody knows the actual true view of you. How mad is that? That's blown my tiny little brain. Oh, well that's gone further than I thought this episode was gonna go. Hmm. That's interesting, isn't it? That's interesting. So to get an actual 100% reliable view on what you look like, you'd have to throw a load of money at it. If you do that, please let me know where it goes. I'd like to know. And then I'd like to know where you can do it and how much it costs. So yeah, let me know. Ooh, who works in a lab that could do this? Oh. This is, this has gone on too far. Now let's, let's reign it in a bit. So let's go back to our household mirrors for those of us who do not have the money and scientific resources to set up that experiment. Uh, how about you choose the one that you like the most and you believe that one? So for me, my bedroom mirror, when I get ready in the morning, if I feel good, that's what I'm believing. I believe that over the shop window that I accidentally looked in. I am believing my bedroom mirror, and then I am dismissing the rest of them as poor, unreliable variations of myself. And that is what I would like you to do. Choose the one that makes you look and feel that's more important. Choose the one that makes you feel the best version of yourself and go with it. You don't need to compare to the other ones. You don't need to just know that when you looked in that mirror earlier in the day, you felt happy and you were, yeah, you were happy with what you looked like, and you felt good and you felt confident. Go with that. I hear this all the time, right? I hear it all the time from clients and members. So if this is something you wrestle with as well, if your reflection regularly makes you question yourself or brings up a lot of emotion for you, then you don't have to carry that alone. Hopefully, this has helped explain it. And explain why that happens, but if you want help working through it, that's exactly the sort of thing that we can explain, uh, what, that we can explore in coaching or in the membership. Sometimes you just need a safe space to unravel your thoughts and find a new way of working through the stuff. And that is what I have for you. So the links are in the show notes there, but. Next time you catch yourself in the mirror and you think I look nice today. And then hours later the shop window tells you something. Otherwise, then pause. You haven't changed. You're still the person you were this morning. The window just did not get you in your best light. That is all. Ah, now you know what I didn't do last week. I didn't do listener comments, did I? I have just gone and had a little look at what I've got. I've got some lovely comments lately. So nice. I love hearing from you, especially if you listen and you comment regularly because. It's nice to know that you're listening to more than one episode for starters. Um, but it's nice to know you're there and it's nice to know that you're there regularly. I love it. Um, even I've got, um, a few messages that I like, this resonates with me so much, and that's, that's still what I wanna hear. It doesn't have to be a massive message full of deep and meaningful thoughts. Just send me a little message. It's lovely. Uh, looking out to the comments. What have we got? Uh, right. Thank you for your message. You said something that resonated with me. I dwell on the fact that I don't make peace with food and eating for comfort when I was younger. You said something like that just wasn't my story when I start beating myself up. I remember that. It just wasn't my story. So this is, I know what this is relating to. This is from the, what I'd say to my 10-year-old self episode, and I was saying in there that some people have have grown up not having food and body issues. And when you get older it's hard to. Understand that as a person who has eating and body image issues, it's hard to see that somebody else doesn't have that. That you know, somebody doesn't have the food and body issues that you do and you're like, how, how do they possibly not have these hangups that I have? That just wasn't my story. My story was everything that's brought me here. Um, so that's lovely. I love that you've been able to take that and be like, it just wasn't my story. That's nice. Um, what else? Uh, Sarah, I have just listened to your podcast and it made me laugh out loud when you said something like, not actually rolling from the counter. Thank you. I needed this today. So I was saying how we'd been to. Um, a social club. When I was younger, we used to go there regularly and I used to like a fizzy drink and a roll off the counter, and then I was like not actually rolling off the counter. Um, because that's what I heard in my head when I said it out loud. I was like, I have a fizzy drink and a roll off the counter. And what I meant was, I have a fizzy drink and a cheese roll off the bar, but it sounded like. A fizzy drink and I was rolling off the counter. Anyway, go listen to the episode and you'll know exactly what I mean. But I'm glad that made you chuckle. Um, oh, Tasha, somebody said to me recently that I was looking. Well, that's lovely. Um. Oh, I like this one. Ray. I find berating someone for not making food from scratch. Scratch is as extreme as condemning them for not growing or raising the food to start with and bartering. Yeah, so this was about the episode that's called There's No Shame in a Jar of Sauce, and I was talking about convenience foods. Go back and listen to it. It's all about how we accept and we. Include convenience foods in our lives. And so Ray is saying that when you berate somebody for not making a meal from scratch, it's as extreme as condemning them for not growing the food in the first place. That is such an interesting take on it. Such an interesting take. Yeah, I, yeah. Yeah, it's good. Thank you. Um, oh, there's so many. There's so many lovely, lovely messages. Um, hi Terri. I'm on your email list. Yay, Tasha. That's brilliant. I don't use LinkedIn or Instagram. That is so good. This is the thing, so hang on. Rewind. I have said in several episodes actually be on my email list because you get things every week that. People don't get on the podcast, people don't get from social media, that sort of thing. You'll get an extra message on a weekend, a little story or an update from me that nobody else gets. But not only that, social media is not a given. It can get taken away at any given time. My email list is mine. You can't take that away from me. So if you are on my email list and I suddenly disappear of social media. Then how do you stay in touch with me? And that's quite interesting in that this also, yes, I hadn't thought about this, but it applies to people who are not on social media. Some people are not on Instagram and LinkedIn. I've decided to take a massive step back from Facebook for reasons, which I won't go to now because you don't have the time or the will to listen to my round about that. If you are not in the places I am, how do you stay in touch with me? So please do join the email list. If you're not there yet, the link is in the show notes. You can just add your first name and your email address and I will send you the weekly emails. Easy as that. And on that note, I will be going and you'll be free to go off and sign up for my email list. Okay, I will speak to you next week. Take care of yourselves. I look forward to hearing from you. In the meantime, um, te Pew over and out.