Stepping Back to See Clearly

Sometimes my life lessons are so obvious that I know they will end up in one of my weekly stories while they are happening. Recently, I experienced such a lesson.

I felt an eyelash or some small object in my left eye while doing my yoga routine. Without thinking, I wiped my eye with the back of my hand and immediately felt my contact lens dislodge and move under my eyelid. Having worn contact lenses since 10th grade, this has happened before. Past experience told me I just needed to look in a mirror, lift my eyelid, locate the lens, and remove it. It wasn’t terribly uncomfortable, so I decided it could wait until after my practice. That was probably a mistake.

Little did I know that during that time, the tiny piece of plastic continued to travel somewhere contact lenses were never meant to go. When I finished my practice and looked for it, it was nowhere to be found. Since my whole eye was now red and irritated, I couldn’t feel where it was. I used the flashlight on my phone to search my eye, but with no luck.

By then, my discomfort was growing and I was becoming frustrated. I splashed water in my eye, thinking it would loosen things up or flush the lens out. Unfortunately, that only made it feel worse. The more I searched for the lens, the more irritated my eye became.

That’s when I decided to give up the search, remove my right lens, and take a shower. Maybe the running water would loosen it for me. That didn’t work either.

Now I was beginning to panic. It had been stuck in there for over an hour. I was nowhere near my trusted eye doctor in Fort Lauderdale, and a trip to the emergency room was the last thing I wanted to do.

In a moment of inspiration, I asked ChatGPT what to do when a contact lens gets stuck in your eye. I followed the suggestions, but to no avail. Every tactic I tried only made the situation worse. Either the lens had found a really good hiding spot or it had already been flushed out. My eye was so angry at that point that I couldn’t tell.

What was abundantly clear is that I needed to stop poking around in my eye and let it rest.

Gratefully, a dear friend and prayer partner asked if I was available for a phone call that day. Talking with her would help me feel better and distract me from my eye situation, so I called her. She asked how I was doing, and I told her about my rogue contact lens. She kindly offered some suggestions because the same thing had happened to her a few years ago, but the advice was the same advice I had found online that hadn’t helped.

Not wanting to dwell on it any longer, I asked her what was going on in her life, and we continued our conversation for over an hour. All the while, I did my best to ignore the discomfort in my left eye so I could be present with her.

Then, as our conversation shifted to the topic of deep clarity, I suddenly had the urge to look at my eye in the mirror again. I pulled down my lower lid, and there was my contact lens…folded in half and about to drop out of my eye.

What a relief. And what timing.

Of course it revealed itself while we were talking about clarity.

The metaphor was not lost on either of us, nor was the life lesson. When we have a problem, we usually try everything imaginable to relieve the discomfort as quickly as possible. But often, the more we try to force a solution, the worse things become.

Sometimes it is more beneficial to stop obsessing over the problem and focus on something else instead. Preferrably something that brings us joy or lifts us up. Even though the problem may still be there (and may still feel uncomfortable), stepping back from it may be exactly what is needed for the solution to reveal itself.

I hope reading about my unpleasant experience will help you avoid similar ones in the future. And if something in your life is causing you great discomfort, it would be my great honor to help you step back and see it from a different perspective with a series of Spiritual Coaching sessions or a private Family Constellations session. To learn more about these healing opportunities or to schedule a session, please visit my website.

Until next time, if you find yourself caught in a situation that seems to have no clear solution, I invite you to step back and give it some space. The answer just might reveal itself once you stop trying so hard.

Now you need but to remember you need do nothing. It would be far more profitable now merely to concentrate on this than to consider what you should do.

A Course in Miracles ~ T-18.VII.5:5-6