My Eyes. My Journey.

The woman responsible for my perspective shift is in the pink. {My wedding day}

I’m never quite sure where my blog post ideas are going to take me. It is interesting as I try to pull together my recent brain wanderings, put it out into the world and hope that somehow it might help someone else. That is always my intention.

Lately I have been picking up a message about self belief, acceptance, love and potential. I love when an idea feels so powerful to me that I think… this is it! I mean this is probably the secret to the universe! What usually happens is I explore the new idea and revel in my new found wisdom and by the next week, end up moving along to a new topic or perspective. This one, however, may just carry more punch than all other ideas combined. Maybe.

In order for me to go to complete self acceptance and love, I need to embrace myself as a whole and complete person. Both my strengths and weaknesses because, after all, that is what makes up me. Also, another related message that keeps coming under my radar is the idea of looking at things from your own perspective rather than others. I love how Dr. Jennifer Finlayson Fife* points out that when we are young {children} that our self concept comes primarily from those around us. As we mature, emotionally, we are able to find our own identity and differentiate ourselves from others.

As part of my journey through differentiation, self acceptance and seeing things with my own eyes, I have decided to share with you my eye story.

I need to start at my very beginning. Obviously, this is only taking bits and pieces of what I have been told was my experience. I was born with crossed eyes {Strabismus}. When I was 18 months old I started going to the eye doctor. On the regular. I was fitted with glasses and had my first eye muscle correction surgery. Apparently, the first surgery didn’t bring about the desired results as I had a second surgery when I was six. I remember having restraints on my arms to keep me from touching my patches. I hated being restrained. I remember just wishing they would trust me to not pull off my bandages. The second surgery brought about better results, apparently because I didn’t have another until I was an adult making my own medical decisions.

The goal of the surgery was threefold:

1. To get my eyes to work together

2.To create depth perception and if neither of those were achievable to at least

3. {look} like my eyes worked together.

Neither of the two surgeries met the first two objectives, and the third was only marginally met. If I was wearing my glasses and not too tired, then my left eye would stay straight {centered} and my right eye would keep busy providing 90% of my vision experience. Translated, I would be classified as someone with a “lazy eye”. My left eye would turn in quite a bit. Why is this a problem? When you are a kid and trying to navigate life and other kids notice your difference and make comments etc. this is something that begins to define you. The confusing part for me was that when I was at home, no one EVER talked about my eyes. I mean I remember it being sort of hushed. My parents did a good job pointing out what things I was really good at and helping me to develop talents etc but the “eyes” were not discussed except by bully types at school, I guess.

I didn’t ever verbalize or even realize I was “focusing” on my eyes until I hit the rough age of middle school. I remember the day where I learned a concept that changed my view and perspective forever. I was at a youth activity planning meeting for my church. There were four youth and one leader in attendance. Thankfully for me, our leader was sensitive to the feelings in the room, stopped the planning session and asked us all what was going on? It turned out that every one of us {no surprise, we were all mid teens} were having self esteem issues. As we were getting into our discussion and sharing, another one of our youth leaders stopped by unplanned and stepped into the conversation.

This new-to-the-conversation leader was someone I looked up to as only a young person can. She seemed to have it all; she had a really cool husband, darling kids, she could drive a manual transmission van and back a boat trailer down the loading ramp like nobody’s business. She was unstoppable, in my eyes. But, this woman also had scars running up and down her legs. They were serious scars: several inches wide that ran the length of her leg. They grossly deformed her legs. We had all seen her legs as she had not been shy about donning a bathing suit and taking us waterskiing many times. We all admired this woman and her strength: physical, emotional and spiritual. In my eyes, she was a giant. It was what she said to me that day that changed the trajectory of my thinking.

She said, “If someone is going to judge you because you have an eye that turns in, they are not worth your worrying about anyway. Why would you want them in your life? The kind of people you want in your life will love you no matter.” BOOM! She further explained that she had to decide whether her scars were going to determine how she enjoyed her life…was she going to stop playing tennis, water skiing etc just because of what her legs looked like or what others would say? Of course we all knew what her decision had been.

Her shared thoughts gave me permission to stop caring what anyone else thought about my eyes. I had the freedom to just move along. It was the first time I considered that I didn’t need everyone to get on my fan bus. Other people’s interpretations of me did not need to define me. It was {is} my belief or view that mattered most.

As you can imagine, this shift was a big one for me. I do believe that I matured emotionally much quicker and more deeply than if I had not been born with Strabismus. Strabismus is most often associated with extreme farsighted vision which I have had my whole life. I believe that the perspective I have gained due to my eye journey has been unique and expansive rather than debilitating. I realize that some may feel that I am disadvantaged due to my lack of depth perception, but I believe that while I don’t visually perceive depth, I actually am a deep thinker. I often see things in a more perceptive way than others. I like to think this may be a way my brain has compensated. Afterall, my eye doctor did explain to me that my eyes not working together is a brain issue rather than an eye issue.

Kind of a fun side note is that when I was 29 I had a third eye surgery which actually was quite successful in straightening my eye. When I was considering whether or not to go through with the surgery, my husband {who had been looking into my eyes for 12 years} was not sure he wanted my eyes “fixed” because they were me just the way they were. Awww! I told him that he’d get over it, he did:)

I have been told by those who love me most that they don’t even notice my “wandering eye”. Sometimes I remember to explain to strangers to just watch my right eye if you can’t tell where I am looking but usually I don’t even think about it. I have found ways around the vision challenges with contact lenses+glasses. I have given up on ever being a tennis player or making contact with bat and ball. Don’t try throwing me my keys or anything else for that matter. I have learned to scale teeth like a pro, navigate rocky trails while running and my heart is opened wide with love for those who may not look like everyone else.

Speaking of the everyone else’s: Thanks for reading about my eyes. Have you considered what parts of you {or your life} have significantly affected your journey? Often the things we once viewed as painful or limiting lead to the most growth and definition of character. Self acceptance is our ability to see it all; we then get to decide what we believe about what we see and where our journey may potentially lead us.

If you would like help making sense of your journey, I’d love to help you. I am an active life coach helping women move through life with eyes wide open.

xoKathleen

*An interesting post note: Dr. Jennifer Finlayson Fife was also born with Strabismus. I like to think that’s why I “get” her.