“Once we have the awareness to see our own story, we discover there is another way of creating the main character.”
I’ve tried on three occasions to be hypnotized. It doesn’t work. I analyze every sound and each picture that appears inside my mind is filed away as fantasy.
It is two days before I turn 59 years old and a week since I visited my hypnotherapist friend. My story fantasy has always been an utter and complete dedication to remaining 21 and when that proved to be ridiculous, 35 seemed like the perfect stopping point. My knees worked well then. Arthritis was something my mother and grandmother dealt with.
At age 40 I fought depression induced by my divorce. It made no difference that we mediated and wrote our own agreement, which I typed up and we paid to make legal. I was unable to divorce the guilt. And then my brother in law was killed and shortly afterwards, I was put on depression medication because the doctors said my brain required it. All kinds of traumatic events came pouring into my inner mind as a result. Remembering them crippled me. That same year I was laid off from my job, started my own business, went off the meds, survived the suicide watch stage and never looked back.
Well, maybe I do sometimes.
I had courage then.
“If we don’t like our story, we are the authors; we can change it.”
This last time I visited the hypnotherapist I had no requests, no plan, no demands to make on any Guardians who work diligently to keep me on my mission. As many times as I’ve tried to discover what that mission is, all I get is puffy clouds and the faint sounds of angelic giggles. I even know what my true name is. It’s the name I identify with. I told my hypnotherapist what that name is and she didn’t laugh. Some things are not meant for a judgmental public.
Maybe the next step in my life story of discovery is admitting that I’m a coward.
The last few visits I’ve had with persons with extra abilities beyond human sight all described seeing me surrounded by Native Americans. I can sense them and have since my physical memories first kicked in. My inner name is tribal. I used to have dreams that took place in the early colonial days of America, watching the white men come. My ancestors were the early founders on Tennessee and Missouri, with some of them directly involved with the Sioux as teachers and ministers. Logically, I think that none of this matters. But for my fantasy, maybe it’s useful.
I am becoming an ancestor.
When I was in the first grade, they discovered my eyesight was quite poor. There was no possible way a young girl, in my opinion, could be attractive wearing pussy cat glasses. During the 60’s and 70’s, every kind of glasses frames I wore were frightful gadgets that covered up the one asset I personally favored. I grew up never knowing what I looked like without glasses until I was 23 years old and someone saw me take off my glasses to clean them. She was shocked and said, “My God, you’re beautiful!”. She took two pictures of me so I could see what she saw. I lost them a long time ago.
I wanted to be beautiful. Almost as much as I wanted to remain 21. I wanted to be able to wear sunglasses. I never knew what that was like. Wearing sun glasses.
My eyesight is very bad. The technology that allowed me to wear contact lenses finally came about and at the age of 25 I invested my entire tax return on buying gas permeable lenses. The eye doctor said he’d never seen anyone adapt to them so fast. I remember putting on a borrowed white cotton dress, belted at the waist, and showing up at an outdoor party wearing that dress, my long hair flowing, wearing my first awesome aviator shades. Nobody on earth remembers their first time wearing sunglasses, but I do.
It’s vanity.
I know that vanity, greed, lust, hate, and Brussel Sprouts are on the “bad things” list. Fear is too. Regardless of having ditched the glasses, my eyesight continued to deteriorate. They refer to me at my eye doctor’s office as a “challenge” to help. I’m monitored well. Tested often. They can fix anything but they can’t fix my age.
I’m wearing glasses again.
During my visit to the hypnotherapist, which is something she does for me because I made a website for her, while in my relaxed state I floated in between the room in Bethlehem and some other place where I also was. I could feel a warm breeze on my face that had no glasses. I was outside, surrounded by tee pees and animal hides, and horses were nearby. I understood that my love for horses is ancient and I need them. In that place, wherever it was, I felt no pain. In that place I could leap on a horse’s back, ride away and see where I was going.
I have no idea why I spent 30 minutes there. Or why I’ve been incredibly sad ever since.
“We create the story, we give our personal power to the story, and the story is living our lives. But with awareness, we recover the control of our story.”
My eyesight can be corrected. I have two pairs of progressive contact lenses, since my eyes no longer tolerate one pair for long hours. I’ve worn progressive glasses, with thick lenses, for years and just got a new pair. I hate wearing glasses. I should be grateful. It’s vanity.
My great grandmother was blind. Her glasses were hit by lightning out in Missouri somewhere. She had 20 kids and was widowed. She was poor. Minnie left a line of offspring who went on to prosper and live good lives that created my cousins and me, and our kids. From just one woman, faced with a husband whose death was never recorded anywhere and remains a mystery, came a wide net of lives that includes me. She must have been very brave.
The age related dry eyes and presence of a new batch of floaters sitting directly on my right eyeball will be resolved. Age, however, is this new thing that is finally here. I can see Age in the mirror now, so it’s no longer possible to play a pretend game of “She’s 35”. I looked in the mirror today, and saw two faces. My mother’s and my aunt Wanda. I didn’t see my own.
The truth is, sight is not about seeing.
It’s about being afraid to look.
Credit for quotes: “The Voice of Knowledge”, Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills
Originally published in Medium May 25, 2017
