I happened to see the back of my head the other day in a mirror, and it wasn’t pretty.
I was in this little gift shop that had these two perfectly positioned mirrors that allowed me to see just how bad my hair looked from behind! As soon as I saw my reflection, I reached up to try to sort the situation, but there was no undoing it. One side of my hair was pushing away from the other side like there had been some kind of ugly battle line drawn, and now, all of the strands of hair on the opposing sides were mortal enemies…
I felt myself shrink into a moment of regret because I know I have a super bad cowlick on the back of my head, and so I usually try to address that situation when I’m blowing drying my hair with more intention. But lately, I’ve been kind of busy, and so I haven’t really been all that focused on my hair-do. I wonder how many days this mutiny of strands has been happening on the backside of my noggin?
I’m sure I’ll never know…
But that embarrassing reality got me to thinking about other kinds of blindspots I don’t see about myself all that easily. It’s one thing to not know how your hair looks from the back, but another thing entirely to not see yourself at all the way that others do. I think that kind of blindspot is way more worrisome to me than my wild and wonky cowlick these days. Since I’ve started to put myself out there a little more, I’m constantly wondering if I’m showing up in a way that I can totally understand myself, and, I’m hoping that the things I say at least have an honest dose of empathy for others mixed into them.
I do know one thing for sure: I could’ve never written anything very useful on this blog any sooner than during this particular season of my life. I’m sure I’ve always had a lot to say — writing is my favorite form of expressing thoughts, even the ones that are just for me! But whenever I have a random thought or experience that blooms into something in my spirit these days, the words start to take shape in me in the form of a post, and that’s still very new for me!
I guess what I’m realizing right now is that I’m very thankful for all of the life experiences I’ve had that have created a new kind of awareness in me — an awareness the has actually expanded my understanding of some of life’s biggest extremes.
Sickness and health…
Wealth and struggle…
Wholeness and brokenness…
Purpose and wonder…
Each time I’ve come out of an experience that slides my reality from one extreme to the other, I gain perspective and a vocabulary of emotions that give me a better sense of things, I suppose.
But I know I’m still very prone to having blindspots.
Sometimes things happen to me — even now — that later on end up surprising me so much, and that’s when I realize how easily I can live under a shadow of thoughts and beliefs that aren’t really true. It bothers me so much that I can get a little hood-winked from time to time, and more than anything, I feel sad when I consider how much time I’ve wasted in my life believing in the things that people have told me, but with hindsight, I can see that they were just lying to me. It turns out, unexamined beliefs are dangerous, and for me, I know now that I’ll only stay stuck if I’m not willing to shine a Light on everything I see.
I never want to get cynical or jaded in my life, but I also want to be the kind of person who has the right kind of discernment that helps me spot things with more confidence — and then acts accordingly when the information is presented. I believe I was built with a muscle that has a great capacity for hoping and believing, but lately, I’ve been wondering if that muscle flexes a little too easily. Maybe I need to be more suspicious of others? Or, at the very least, less willing to believe things just because I want to (or, maybe because I need to…)
[NERD ALERT] I’m listening to a really heavy podcast right now called Believed. It’s about that gymnastics doctor, Larry Nassar, and it’s really, really sad. But I’m just struck by how no one believed the girls and women who came forward to say he’d done things to them that were highly inappropriate. The number of times that this doctor was in the crosshairs of the authorities is just baffling — yet no one ever did anything to investigate further, or to prevent him from abusing more girls after the complaints were lodged. But the bottom line is this: no one wanted to believe that this man would do such things. This doctor was incredibly good at manipulating the beliefs of others with his words…and that belief he created gave him the perfect blindspot to hide his despicable deeds.
As is often the case in my posts like these, I’m rambling a bit here, so I apologize. I think I’m just trying to work out some twisty thoughts about how sometimes my blindspots are shaded by my own unexamined beliefs. The mushroom in the dark that feeds on lies is a very real thing, and when the shadow is lifted, and the realities are presented, it’s not easy to forgive yourself for not seeing things that were there all along.
I’m not going to figure out all of these thoughts in one blog post, that’s for sure. But I do feel like I’m picking at some old wounds from my past so I can uncover somethings useful and put the Light of love and healing directly on them. And I should also admit that I’m carrying a burden in my heart these days that’s not just mine, but one that I know very well, and so I’m willing to carry the load if it will move me toward some added wisdom.
It’s funny how something like a bad hair day and an unruly cowlick shows up in my life as a teacher with a lesson. The beginning of course correction for me always starts with where I place my intentions, and the back of my head clearly needs some! But in my spirit, I know I can intentionally move toward the Light because there, I can find forgiveness. And with self-forgiveness in my heart, I can then bravely face my blindspots and find my way to the Truth of who I really am.
