Daily Gratitude: What does my vision have in common with your growh? Another strange question but with an intriguing answer

One day last November I woke up with blurry vision. After months of evaluation, they think it’s just a need for different, stronger glasses.

The thing I was hung up on was the sudden onset. Did my eyes change and get so bad overnight?

Not in this case. There were tiny minute changes over time – since my last pair of glasses.

All these unnoticed changes accumulated and finally there were enough of them that their effect became noticeable to me.

I think this is lilke any growth we have – or wish to have.

When we put our minds towards changing something in our lives, we expend large amounts of energy on it. Do you know the saying – “Every day in every way I get better and better.”?

It doesn’t say “in just one day I’ll BE all better”. It says every day.

So you keep plugging away, being disciplined with the techniques you’ve learned to make the changes happen.

I’m sure you know that so many times, you see nothing happening.

You get discouraged

You wonder ‘’is this working?” and sometimes you even say “why bother.”

You’ve seen no evidence of any change, any growh.

But then one day, some personal crisis occurs and you surprise yourself at your response. It’s not like you. Even your friends or family say “wow, what happened to you. Where did the Joe I know go?” because you’re not reacting the way YOU ALWAYS DID. They are astounded . You are pleased.

Did this change happen overnight.

No

It built up but the effect of the “day by day you’re getting better and better” became apparent after all those months (and sometimes years) of change.

It’s only then that you realize something was really happening and it was worth it.

Then comes another intersting part.

I had to get used to my glasses. You’d think that the magic would be for everything to be seen perfectly once I don the new pair.

Not necessarily. I wear trifocals so there’s a bit of a high wire trick to balance the three different fields of vision.

Oh and then then there’s the difference between night and day

Your brain has to get used to the change in the lenses. It requires a period of adjustment. Whereas something looks great for me up close, I still have problems with night distance vision. So all is not hunky dory in the OK Corral.

More adjustmennts are necessary.

Same with your growth. In both cases we can call it fine tuning. You may have used some specific techniques to learn how to better handle condition A. But it’s possible that those same techniques are not as ingrained to help you with Condition A if it’s prolonged for instance. Or maybe if it’s more intense. It takes more adjustment. And that’s ok too.

It’s like getting different colored belts in martial arts. A different color for greater levels of skill.

That’s what we should be striving for with change. So, next time you’re discouraged, touch your glasses if you wear them and look at someone else’s glasses if you don’t. Hopefully by then it will trigger you to remember that it’s a process and changes have occurred and are accumulating. Remember the song “The Rose”?

Daily Gratitude: How can your dashboard help change your life?

I want to introduce a concept that involves mental pictures or imaging.

This is called the Thought-o-meter. Thanks to Napoleon Hill for this idea.

Put an image in the front of your mind of one of those meters on your dashboard. It’s always there as you drive and you’re usually checking it out as you move along.

Once you get this image in your mental dashboard you will constantly be checking it.

On this meter put the word negative on the left side and the word positive on the right. You can color code them if that will make them more impactful for you.

This is your thought-o-meter.

All day long practice periodically looking at your thoughtometer and see where it is. If you see it on the left (negative) stop and figure out what thoughts you’re having.

Then pretend you’re driving your car and mentally put your foot on the brake – find a thought or image that will make the needle on your meter zoom on over to the positive side

If you can find something funny to take the place of your negative thought, it will be even more effective.

The point is twofold. One, you want to get your mind from the negative side of the dial over to the positive side.

Secondly you can’t erase a thought (whether positive or negative). You have to replace it. That’s easy to remember.

Replace don’t erase!

Does it work?

This morning I was reading something political and started to get upset.

But I immediately recognized it, stopped and asked myself “can I control this? Can i do anything about this right now?

And of course the answer was no.

That’s all well and good and it stopped me from reading any more but it didn’t totally get rid of the anger and frustration I was feeling. You know when they say someone is stewing over an issue?

Well that’s what was happening internally even if I had turned off the burner. All I’d read and thought was still simmering inside.

What to do?

This works Even if you haven’t totally become aware of what’s causing those internal yucky feelings. (That’s a medical term – yucky.)

First I visualized my thought o meter and saw that the dial was over on the left (negative). I wanted to get it over to the positive side and since I said I was stewing, I thought about making a stew and then having it served up to me in a fancy dish and it made me laugh. That process enabled me to replace my thought and get a good laugh too.

I think if you practice this all day long it will become a habit and then when you really need to deal with something hard, you’ll already have the tool in hand.

Daily Gratitude: This is great. Talk about tunnel vision. You’re staring at the same thing over and over all the while missing everything that’s going on all around you.

I also see this as another way to say you’re beating your head against the wall.

Here we have someone long ago advising you not to do what metaphysics calls “outlining “.

What is outlining?

Deciding what we want, and in what exact form, and in what exact timing.

The universe looks at that and laughs because we think we know what’s best. We don’t.

I had a perfect example. Since I was 4 I planned everything, focused on becoming a doctor. “Do this do that and in 1972 (I think. It was too long ago) I can hang out my shingle.” After all I know what is best for me, right?

Ha! The universe stuck its tongue out at me. And said “not so fast buddy”

So I got rejected. And there went all my carefully laid out plans.

My immature and inexperienced reaction at that time was anger pain and rejection of God. After all God told me I was going to be a doctor and here I was stonewalled.

If I knew what I know now I’d have said. “Oh I wonder what the universe has in store for me. I know it will be better Than what I had planned”. I would have just gone with the flow and listened for the message.

But my anger and indignation kept me from realizing that I really didn’t know what was best for me. I just kept staring at that same old worn out locked door.

I wouldn’t have been so miserable, and depressed. I should have stood back, took a deep breath, said thank you to the universe, and then looked around at all the doors that had opened.

And as with many doors, they may not be labeled, and you don’t know where they go, but you just have to be brave enough to explore what’s behind the doorway.

So much was opening up for me, but i couldn’t see any of the doors
because my perfect plan had been derailed. I could do nothing but stare at that darn door expecting that if I looked harshly enough it would open. Ha. Not going to happen.

Now I describe what I want carefully and in detail, but I always add “this or something better”.
I don’t give a specific time but add a phrase like “with or in divine timing “.

Try to think back to times in your life when you missed out on happiness because you were staring at that one door!