My New Spectacles

My new glasses arrived yesterday. I feel lucky and amazed at the clarity and seemingly perfection of my sight. Yesterday in my dad’s yard the gravel and petals, grass and trees seemed to be glowing. I could see well before through my old lenses, but it had been three years since I had had an exam.

What old lenses do I still have in my life behaviorally? Sometimes I am afraid of fear and anxious about anxiety. I am so afraid of the possibility of symptoms arising that I create worry and anxiety in my life unnecessarily. I am doing well, and practice at maintaining a routine and many healthy observances in my life, have revamped my mind toward mindfulness and patience, and rarely do end up feeling the symptoms that used to be regularly prevalent in my day to day. I need do update the prescription of my lenses I look through relating to my mental illness. I am doing well and am capable of more and more all the time.  I am able to soar through my day with a positive outlook. I've stopped dreading work the night before, and when I am running and busy I am able to switch gears and find time to relax in order to recharge. Meditation and yoga have played a big part in this mindfulness of my day to day; working hard at developing a routine full of good habits and positive thoughts.

Another prescription I need to rewrite is my outlook on success. I have in the past learned and had to adapt to many things I could not achieve, perhaps for the time being, and perhaps for a lifetime. I am unable to have kids, though someday I may adopt, I am unable to receive a degree, yet I am able to learn, read, and excel in disciplines such as yoga and technology. I am unable to work full-time and have a career, yet am still able to develop many skills. Perhaps I will write a book, become a yoga teacher, an expert on herbs, I paint, play music, and am excellent with children and teaching. All this aside my true success at this point in my life revolves around where I have been and where I am now. I appear to most as a typically aware and functional adult. That I am not institutionalized or barely stable is a miracle and a huge feat. I owe a lot to Faith, God and Steve, as well as myself. The fact that I am doing this well is a huge triumph. Very few with a mental illness as serious as mine ever approach living such a full and healthy life, and I hate to say it, and wish to reach out to those that are still where I was, but few make it this far.

So sight and perception need to be adjusted every now and then. We grow and change, evolve and transform, and with these accomplishments we must constantly adjust our views of ourselves and the world. I am blessed and a success. I am smart and capable and healthy. I am grateful for this but also need to remember as I change my inner spectacles, where I have traveled while imagining all of the places I can still journey onward to.