Gaining Perspective Through Vision Therapy
Part 11 of a series. Click here to start at the beginning or here to go to the previous post.
Do you believe what you see? This week I learned that we can't always when I had yet another ah-ha moment at vision therapy.
TWO?
From birth, I've used either one eye or the other which only allows me to see in just 2 dimensions. Six months ago I heard about vision therapy which holds the promise of allowing me to see in 3D.
It'll change my life.
The vision therapist continues to patiently work on getting my eyes to work together. This week I wore prism glasses with red over one eye and green over the other. I stared at a ball hanging on a string and the therapist asked me how many balls I saw.
Well that’s crazy. I know there’s only 1 ball there so how could I see more?
I answered her question obediently, ‘one’.
She prodded, ‘Keep looking at it. How many do you see?’
‘One’.
Then we tried another pair of prisms.
This time I saw 2 balls. Then it got weirder. As the therapist moved, I saw 2 of her too! I screamed out and tore the glasses off my face. What the . . . ?
She giggled and said, ‘good work’.
We sat about 18 inches apart at her desk and talked about the day’s activities. She held one finger up between us and said, ‘if I hold my finger here and look at you, I see 2 fingers’.
Waaaa . . . hhhaaaattt?
‘Yeah, one on each side of your head. But the mind doesn’t see it as a problem’.
I wore a big question mark on my face. My mouth fell open and my head cocked to the side. I was incredulous. My hands flew out, palms faced upwards as I asked, ‘you mean everyone’s seeing double?!?’
She smiled, nodded, and said, ‘yeah’.
I felt like someone had just told me my mother is the Virgin Mary or my friend is a mass-murderer or that everyone on earth is from the planet Mars and I'm the only one from Earth. It can’t be true.
SECOND OPINION
My mouth hung open all the way back to the office where I asked a co-worker about the finger thing. Indignantly I asked, ‘If you hold out a finger between us and look at me, how many fingers to you see?’
‘Two’ he said nonchalantly.
WHAT????!!!!????
He laughed. ‘What do you see?’
I SEE ONE! I KNOW THERE’S ONLY ONE FINGER THERE . . . SO I SEE ONE!
‘How do you do that?’ he asked innocently.
‘How do YOU do that?’ I asked desperately.
DISADVANTAGES
And so goes my vision therapy. It’s exciting and scary. Sometimes I feel sad that almost everyone else is seeing something I can’t and other days I’m proud of myself for hanging in there with this disadvantage. Today I’m honestly scared of seeing more than one of anything. I’m afraid I’ll be stuck in a fun house not knowing which way is up and which way is down.
But my story is no different than yours. We all have some sort of disadvantage.
· Maybe you don’t believe you’re enough because someone told you you wouldn’t amount to anything. If that’s what you believe, you can’t see the truth.
· Maybe you compare yourself and find someone who’s better at any given thing than you are. You can’t see how wonderful you are.
· Maybe you don’t notice the blessings God is raining down on you because you’re too focused on the minor difficulties of your life. You can’t see the beauty of the spiritual world.
· Maybe you don’t allow yourself to dream because you’re afraid they won’t come true. You can’t see an amazing future.
· Maybe you don’t know your potential because you’ve limited your thinking to what your parents or peers have accomplished. You can’t see what you were made for.
Are you afraid like me? Does the uncertainty of the future cause you to not make changes? Do you want to quit trying and convince yourself that they way things are now aren't so bad?
Or do you have the courage to keep moving forward with hope?
What's your disadvantage?
Letting it go will free you to see new things.
Click here to go to the next part of the story.