21/05/2015
Looking through a peephole
Complete focus is a nuisance! Looking at my life in a “horse- blinkered” way makes the object of my narrow focus, sharp and intense, whilst everything else, which includes the good, is shut out, as if, it ceases to exist.
My sole focus and obsession becomes what I see around my life, my needs, my unmet desires, my disappointments, my challenges and my difficulties.
And a deep, sharp looking at my grievances and disenchantments, makes them appear bigger than life itself.
It might be an important skill to be able to use a peephole selectively for an activity that needs our full focus and attention when we are on a project for a short term.
However, when I use this skill out of context, it creates suffering and misery.
This peephole devoids me of noticing other things and people and sometimes even my whole, complete life, which includes many seasons and tunes.
I propose to you instead, a wide-angle lens, which offers a more complete, broad and real view. For, as I look at life through this new lens, I notice that, other than the red of hurt, the brown of frustration, the sepia of helplessness, the black of being lost, there exists a myriad of colours.
In this bigger focus, I might also look at my life in its entirety, the plateau and the pinnacle, the lochs and the desert, the sleet and the harsh sun and everything in between.
Through this lens, I notice other people and their challenges, their love and their struggles, their joys and their lows. I have conversations with them and partake in their dances and songs.
I feel not just for myself, as, in that ephemeral moment, I am looking at someone else’s story and forgetting mine. And in forgetting, I let go of what I hold onto so tightly, as it’s in this unyielding gripping and clamping, that blood as well as life stops to flow and there is a restriction, a narrowing, a being and living small.
Looking through a wide-angle lens, lends a softer holding of my life and myself, I notice others and their life comes into focus and mine moves into a hazy, unfocused background.
Listening to a story in a taxi, speaking to someone in an old age home, being present to someone’s story at the hospital or just fully seeing a friend as they giggle when they share a story.
To make space for another’s story to enter, there is a gentle emptying of yourself. And in this emptying there is a suspension of thought and ego, a leaving of the white knuckled hold of ourselves.
For, to be able to be curious of another, my heart and mind need to be open wide and gentle.
At night when I pray for me as well as others, the hold there was, around what was missing for me, loosens and lets me breathe.
For as I am breathing in calmness and presence, more agency is available to me. I am able to notice more than the pinhole I started with. When I breathe I am able to see beauty around me, I notice joy, I notice my struggles are similar to someone else’s, I notice my blessings, I notice people’s strength’s, I notice how someone’s journey is really arduous, I go from feeling alone to a knowing that I am surrounded by humanity.
I breathe for all the souls I connected with, not just for myself.
So I urge you, when life becomes overwhelming and difficult, and you feel lost, check to see if you are looking through a pinhole only at yourself. Go pick another lens and start looking. Like a beautiful and gentle wave take in your fold all that is around you.
15/09/2012