People as mirrors

If the people in our dreams always symbolize the dreamer - can life be the same way? Do we have to seperate the subconscious from the conscious? Can the people I meet be as symbolic and "objective' as they feel in my dreams? 

Teal Swan teaches that everytime we are rejected, or sense rejection as a child, we have no choice but to triangulate (seperate ourselves) causing fragmented parts of ourselves. At the time it was the only way to feel safe and cope. And then as adults we identify with the fragmented part of us that keeps us the most safe. But she teaches that we can get curious about the supressed/exiled/fragmented self. Because our supressed self is still energy. It still exists whether we are aware of it or not. Which is what makes suppression so dangerous. She said the people in our lives are mirrors. 

Which sounds the same as the dream interpretation - that the people in our dreams are not the people we see, they are symbols of what they represent to us. Well my question is, would it help to see the people we meet as mirrors or symbols of the fragmented/exiled parts of us so we have opportunty to see them, heal them, and bring them "back home"? So we can feel more whole again? Would we be able to heal the subconscious without the mirrors? Without each other? 

I think it is important to remember then that the people I meet are just that, mirrors. Not to be identified with. These mirrors are only guides to show me where my body and soul may have fragmented. Not to identify with them or allow them in but to see it as the part of me that I need to get curious about and love and hold and fulfill her needs. And nothing more. To maintain boundaries. To not hate myself for someone else's actions or words or chaos or duality or egos. But I COULD identify with the part of myself that I had to reject, that this person may be mirroring. 

An example would be the way men have spoken to me most of life. A man used my full name this week to publicly shame me on a website - saying I was "A Karan not worth its salt". That I was "dim-witted". That I called the police on myself. When I was appropriately setting boundaries on a business transaction with a man that was potentially quite dangerous and delusional. 

I have suppressed most of the ways my dad has spoken to me most of my life. Calling me names, shaming me, manipulating the good parts of me to be his accomplishments. And this man's comments above were fractions of the shaming I suppressed. I was overtly blamed for being abandoned. I was overtly blamed for existing. I was overtly blamed for having needs and being a child. I was shamed out of my innocense and childhood. I was overtly rejected for needing a man and his presense was fleeting and verbally violent. I was overtly blamed for being perfect. I was blamed for being imperfect. I was blamed for being my mom's child... If each rejection leads to fragmentation then no wonder I isolate myself regularly. No wonder I can't sustain and feel safe in intimacy. No wonder younger parts of me come up and stay for weeks sometimes. No wonder my nervous system is fragile and triggered on early evolutionary levels. It makes sense that "I belong" was my biggest breakthrough - though I know this I still don't feel this. But I can validate that the fragemented part of me "I was rejected for existing" exists and make space for it and get curious about it and know that it is just fragmentation. 

I can remember that, "Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed." - Thich Nhat Hanh.