I Can See Clearly Now

3 Ways To Keep Your Life Vision In Focus

Recently I picked up my new pair of glasses from the eye doctor. I had held off getting a checkup through the initial phases of COVID-19 and was reluctant to switch to much needed bifocal lenses!

The attendant came out of the office and delivered my new glasses to me curbside. I popped them on to try them out…and was stunned! Everything came into focus crisply and clearly! Quickly, I put the old pair of glasses on — then popped the new ones on again….what a difference! I had not even realized that my eyesight has slowly become so fuzzy!

Each experience we have in life helps us see things clearer — and this experience of seeing so crisply got me thinking about a couple of different lessons I have learned during my life.

I AM WORTH IT

Ten years ago I had an all-out fight with myself in the HBA aisle at Wal-mart. I was standing in front of the contact lens solution and had just put my preferred brand of solution in my cart — and then taken it back out and put it on the shelf. Then stood there looking at it with tears in my eyes while an internal battle raged. You see, I was used to putting everyone else’s needs in front of my own. My health and well-being had taken a far back seat to everyone else in my life. That meant I was more comfortable spending $17.99 on my kids — than on the double pack of contact lens solution I needed for my eye health.

In fact, I had just recovered from an eye infection from trying to “stretch” my solution. It wasn’t even that I didn’t have the money. I just felt I was not worth it and everyone else was.

Things were changing though. I was going through a divorce and had begun to understand the toll it had taken on me putting everyone else’s needs first. In my head, I knew it was time to put myself first — in fact, I was WORTH putting myself first. So that day — with every fiber in my being screaming at me not to, I put the contact lens solution back in my cart and headed to the checkout.

Acting upon what I “knew” that day was hard but it was a first step to validating my own worth.

One of the next lessons I have taken away from my glasses experience this week is this:

WITHOUT REGULAR CHECK-UPS THINGS GET FUZZY

One of my favorite analogies (although a bit yucky!) is the frog and the boiling pot of water. The story goes that if you put a frog in a warm pot of water and gradually turn up the temperature he will boil to death instead of trying to escape because of the gradual temperature change. If you dropped him straight into a pot of boiling water he would do EVERYTHING he could to get out! (PITA — I just HEARD this I did not TRY it!)

That’s life right? Situations shift and change around us — but they don’t seem too bad — only slightly different than before. So our world becomes jaded. Maybe your world was even jaded to start with. You may have grown up in a home where arguments, shaming, and blame were common and accepted. Or you are in a marriage that was great at first, yet things have slowly deteriorated, yet since it’s happened over time and you have made excuses and justifications it doesn’t seem “that bad.” That’s also about the time we quit telling our friends and family what is going on because they would see the sharp difference.

So, it’s important to get out of your own head. Have regular check-ins with yourself, a coach, or a friend who can share a genuine view of what they see. It’s also super important to have regular check-ins with your own intuition (this is the MOST important check-in!) Your intuition is the voice of your soul. In the worst of times, I quit listening to mine completely. Today it’s my most trusted check-in partner!

It’s also important that we build structures into our lives to help us with this. Let’s look at how to do that next!

HEALTHY HABITS KEEP US SEEING CLEARLY.

There is a reason the eye doctor and the dentist want you to schedule annual check-ups. It’s a strategy that keeps people consistently in tune. It’s important for your health and for your mental, emotional, and financial well-being.

Regular check-ins keep you on track — headed in the right direction. It’s easier to make micro changes on a regular basis than it is to make massive pivots infrequently.

Years ago I used to be surrounded by people who constantly complained. As I worked on personal development, I made a consistent habit to choose to be around people who were positive and tried to see the best in people instead of the worst. It took a few years to make that shift complete. Occasionally today I cross paths with someone who is a complainer and now it stands out like a bright neon light — and they don’t hang around long. When I was completely surrounded by debbie-downers I never noticed one more — yet today when one shows up it’s almost a shock to me that people still act that way!

So cultivate your habits carefully. Some that have supported my own growth and happiness are regular meditation, quarterly financial check-ins, weekly intentions and results, coaches who keep me on track, and friends who I trust enough to listen to when they see something out of whack with me.

These three things keep me seeing clearly in life. They keep me focused on the direction I choose to go. When the moments come — like the one I had in the parking lot of the eye doctor — where I realize I have not been seeing clearly — I am grateful for the wake-up call.

Where do you feel out of focus in your life today? Where are you not valuing your own worth, avoiding a check-up, and where are your habits not creating what you really desire in life? Journaling always helps me see clearly so here are a few journal questions you can use to explore where your vision is foggy!

What is keeping me up at night?

What issue/person dominates my thoughts?

What am I disappointed in?

What’s the one thing I wish for but can’t bring myself to say out loud?

What are you avoiding? A conversation? A person?

These questions will get you started. Negative emotion is a sign you are resisting seeing something of greater importance. When you drop the resistance and dare to see the thing that seems so fearful the clouds will clear. Your vision will become 2020.