Day 1 of 14 days of Love: Opening our Eyes
Monday, January 31, 2011 at 10:08PM 
A few months ago a friend, Tracey, shared these words: "if someone stops seeing how beautiful you are it's not because you stopped being beautiful, it's just cause they closed their eyes..."
I had to deeply breathe those words in.
When I read those words it felt like they opened up a place of forgiveness in me. At first it seemed like I was feeling forgiveness for past relationships and the way perceptions shift at the end of them. It soon became clear that the place of forgiveness was actually towards myself.
I was forgiving myself for closing my eyes to my own beauty, potential, worthiness and to love.
When it feels like someone stops seeing our beauty, all sorts of stories have the potential to appear, attempting to write themselves into our identities. Just as when we stop seeing our own beauty, these stories appear.
But they aren't true. They are just stories.
Let's think of those powerful words again:
What are the ways that we have closed our own eyes in our relationship to self?
Maybe we've closed our eyes to our worthiness, our relationship to success, our creative potential.
When I look at it in this way it doesn't feel quite as scary to approach healing. We need to open our eyes. Even if we don't know where we are going on our paths, just having our eyes open to potential might make all the difference.
But what could be going on outside of our closed eyes?
Could there be a gorgeous sunrise with radiant colours reflecting our potential just asking to be witnessed?
I well know that it may not seem as simple as opening our eyes. Especially when we've had stories that have existed for our lifetimes that feel now like cement bricks in our identity. I wonder though, if in the big picture it is that simple. If when we finally get through the process of breaking down those heavy bricks of stories if what is left there is simply opening our eyes to potential.
Which reminds me of the poem by Mizuta Masahide:
Barn's burnt down --
now
I can see the moon.
Perhaps having our eyes closed to our own beauty/potential/worthiness is actually with purpose. What if they are there so they can be a barn we burn down to see the moon?
***
Do you want to join me today in noticing moments that we might be closing our eyes to our potential or how we might re-open them? Feel free to share things that have helped you open your eyes again, even just a little bit. Perhaps it is a poem, an experience, a lesson learned, feeling seen...do share!
Reader Comments (13)
Ohmyword! I got goosebumps (no, not because of the cold here in the NorthEast!) - love this!!
I've had a number of experiences where I forgot my stories -- got busy enjoying myself and just forgot - I remind myself of those times because when I live outside those stories I know myself to be beautiful.
Looking forward to days 2 - 14!!
What a great February project! I really like this quotation but I do wonder if maybe there's another approach to this. You've mentioned both opening our eyes to our own beauty and also our tendency to weave stories (our own stories, stories about us that others have told, negative stories, positive stories etc.) into the fabric of our being. So perhaps opening our eyes to our own beauty is only the first step. After that we need to write new stories. I've found that if I compose new stories about my own reality that new opportunities emerge from the narrative.
Great post. I look forward to the next 13!
I loved the quote so much I wrote a whole blog post about it. (and linked to your page, of course!)
I used to tell my friend's little girl that she should be like a rose. a rose is beautiful and magnificent even if no one notices. alone in a field, amidst hundreds of other roses, in the pouring rain or hidden from view, a rose is beautiful in all conditions and it knows it. it doesn't sulk waiting fro someone to notice it. or try to hide its fabulousness. it just is. so when classmates were unkind or hurtful or didnt notice my little friend's pretty new haircut, I'd say "be the rose" and she'd smile.
I'm so glad I stopped back. This is something I really needed to hear today. Thank you!
Note to self: don't read 14 Days of Self Love at work - it's embarrassing to burst into tears...
You really hit a nerve, Vivienne!
Vivienne, this is so wonderful. You really made stop and think. Can't wait to see what is next.
Stumbling upon your blog at this point of my life, where life and work and busyness has clouded my view of who I have become...
Sometimes it is so the case as you mentioned that we live our lives upon the stories, because we haven't stopped to take a look around.
My word for 2011 is Grow/Growth.
And to 'grow in love' toward all things is definitally one of my top goals.
Thankyou.
Vivienne, this is beautiful. And I've been thinking something similar to your friend Tracey's quote above, all through the Wading In class so far: If you don't find someone beautiful, you aren't really looking at them. That can certainly include ourselves, although I do think it's generally harder to see our own beauty.
But boy howdy, is the Wading In class opening my eyes to a lot of things--and a lot of it is stuff you're getting at here, I think. I've been bowled over several times by the pictures I'm taking--not by the images themselves exactly (though what a relief to have images of myself that I love!), but rather by something that lies behind or beyond the images. As I look at them, I'm having these visions of what I can do, things that have nothing to do with my physical appearance, or with taking pictures of myself or anything else. And the visions aren't anything I'm consciously calling to me--they're just these powerful, overwhelming feelings of creative possibility that stem from the pictures themselves. Amazing.
It keeps occurring to me that "imagine" is a more powerful verb than we give it credit for. Even when we're deeply committed to acts of creativity, I think we don't often hear the literal meaning the word "imagine" carries: That a mere image can call reality into being.
you my girl . bring the shine.
thank you for sharing today.this
really hits home.
Love this post Viv.. love IT! this part of Jewel Mathieson's poem always brings me back to my body.. now the trick is to stay there in that beauty.
We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.
The slap the apology from our posture dance.
xo
Karen
I love your word . I get it. In my case its almost like I am not ready to see myself but slowly I am peeking in. I am letting go of alot of stuff I was holding on too that was shielding me from seeing me. I am forgiving and looking at that person with more love more empathy than before anything happened. I feel that is what I am needing to give myself too. Forgiveness than more self love. I am slowly taking it in and I am loveing the process...
This is so beautiful Viv. So beautiful.
I had never though about it that way but now I can see that is truth. When I close my eyes to my beauty or the beauty of others the relationships shift(usually for the worse). I think I am really guilty of closing my eyes to my own beauty. One thing that has been on my heart is how to really love myself and how I look.