Acceptance

[ronart]

Hello, I'm much older than I would like to be. I have trouble accepting things.
Should I accept that I have trouble accepting things ?.
How can you stop things bothering you that do ?
I want to improve my tolerance of others.
I don't drink alchoholic drinks or smoke and I am not very good
at tolerating people who do these things.
I can't accept that some people are not concerned about their
health.
I would like to travel abroad but as soon as I go anywhere I want
to go back home, this feeling of wanting to go back home spoils
any enjoyment I might have of being somewhere new.
I am terrified of blind people and cannot bring myself to interact
with them.
I am not religious and constantly wonder why others are.
What are they getting out of religion ? It seems like nothing
at all to me.
Love You Ron

[Rose of Cairo]

Hi Ron,

first of all, welcome to this forum!

I liked your post, it's very interesting

You're interacting right now with a half blind person, are you half terrified?

Seriously now, it's absolutely ok to have trouble accepting things. I can imagine that you're having trouble accepting this habit of yours, but I find it perfectly fine.

One very empowering way to stop external things from bothering you is to recognize that it's not the things themselves that bother you, it's what you think about them. Care to share what you think exactly when you're confronted to blind people, religious people, people who don't care about their health and all that? By changing what you think about them, you can change the way you feel about them too.

Another approach would be to say that you're experiencing resistance against what is right now. You could stop resisting and practice full acceptance of what is here and now by concentrating on your inner body instead of the situation bothering you. Feels good.

I look forward to getting to know you better!

Love you,

Rose.

[theknightwhosaysni-NI]

As Rose says, It's absolutely ok to have trouble accepting things.

you say

I want to improve my tolerance of others.

, that is a great intention in my opinion.
However you notice that you cant' help resisting some behaviours in others, you don't accept them. that's perfectly ok, because it's normal. Every improvement takes time.

The key is if you resist, then don't resist your resistance.

Look at your resistance, aknowledge your fears and bad feelings and accept them.
When I do that it usually feels good, even physically.

For instance, if you don't accept people drinking and smoking around you, you could say to yourself :
"ok, these guys bother me right now, I know it is about me, and this is how I feel right now. I feel anger inside me, but that's ok, let it be." The anger will vanish if you accept it is totally ok to be angry, but don't blame the others for you anger (or any other feeling).
Of course, don't act on the anger if you're angry, but just watch it and accept it is about you, without shame or anything.

[ronart]

Many thanks for your warm welcome, I feel I can tell you more, a lot of my
intolerance and things that bother me stem from the same incident.
In 2003 my wifes daughter, Helen, was blinded in one eye in a motorcycle
accident. She and the driver were both drunk at the time, late at night
after visiting a bar. Neither of them wore any protective helmets or
clothing.
I have not been able to look Helen in the eye,(make eye contact)since
then. I am told Helen has no physical sign that she has no sight in her
left eye. I refused to see her at all for three years following the accident.
I obsessively think about how it must feel for a young person to be
changed in that way. I had a cataract in my right eye and eventually it
became so bad I had it operated on, I can see alright now with glasses.
I was dead scared I would lose my sight in that eye and end up like Helen.
Helen still drinks but has given up motorcycles. I would like to ask her
why she hasn't given up drink too? I limit my conversation with her
to avoid looking at her. As I write this I can't see me ever being
able to socialise with Helen without thinking all the time about her
blind eye.
I'll have to finish, Lot's of Love Ron

[Angela]

Ronart, Helen is a mirror for you that you are not currently willing to look into, although by posting here, I think you are beginning to intuit the value for generating a life you love by boldly looking at what you've been refusing to see so far.

You think it's her blindness that bothers you, but it's really your own. You are as blind as a bat, as a matter of your own choice!

I have not been able to look Helen in the eye...I refused to see her at all for three years following the accident...I limit my conversation with her to avoid looking at her....As I write this I can't see me ever being able to socialise with Helen without thinking all the time about her blind eye...I can't accept that some people are not concerned about their health.

Big welcome to you here, and best wishes in *seeing* the difference between "can't" and "won't."

[ronart]

Originally Posted by Angela

Ronart, Helen is a mirror for you that you are not currently willing to look into, although by posting here, I think you are beginning to intuit the value for generating a life you love by boldly looking at what you've been refusing to see so far.

You think it's her blindness that bothers you, but it's really your own. You are as blind as a bat, as a matter of your own choice!



Big welcome to you here, and best wishes in *seeing* the difference between "can't" and "won't."

Many thanks for the wisdom of your reply, right now sitting at my computer
I am determined to treat Helen differently. It is not really who I am, to not
accept what happened to her and move on. I feel sure if she had say lost
a leg or a hand I would not have had a problem accepting Helens condition.
I keep on blaming her for placing me in a position where I have not been
able to be my usual kind and caring self. I just happen to have a strong
dislike of blindness of any kind. She did not choose the way she was injured.
I feel I have had my thoughts on blindness too long to eradicate them.
I will probably chicken out on good intentions when I see her next time
I will try to think of all you people and try not to let you down.

I think you people on this forum are all angels. Love Ron

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by ronart

I obsessively think about how it must feel for a young person to be
changed in that way.

Ron, I really don't understand. You said, Helen has no physical sign that she has no sight in her left eye. So I suppose she's not horribly disfigured? So why do you suppose it must be terrible to "end up" like her? And how can you know how it "must" feel to be like her? You don't know at all how it is.

I am like Helen, my left eye is blind. So what? I live perfectly well with it and I can assure you, it's not horrible at all. I can see no 3D, but that's all. No biggie.

What does being blind represent for you? Weakness? Lack of understanding?

What is blind inside of yourself that you are afraid of?

[ronart]

Many, Many thanks Rose for your prompt and welcome reply to my posting.
I am sorry to hear that you, like Helen, have a blind eye.
You say" it is not horrible and you can live perfectly well with it."
When I had a cataract in my right eye and it was at it's worse I thought it
it was horrible. I felt lop sided and I kept colliding with people in crowded
situations, worse of all, I felt degraded by it as though I was no longer
complete like most other people. When I had the operation and could see
well again I was over the moon and since then I never take my vision
for granted, I think it the most valuable sense I posses, my eyes are my
greatest gift next to life.
I hope all this, I am saying is not upsetting you, I am trying to explain
where I am coming from.
I am not afraid of you, in the way that I am with Helen, I don't know you
or your circumstances, how you came to lose your sight, or know you before
you lost it.
The fact that Helen has no outward sign of her lack of vision is what she
is most pleased about. I can't though, unknow what I know, when she is
present and at many other times I can think of nothing else. I get strong
feelings of wanting to run away. If she were not my wife's daughter, I
would have nothing to do with her.
I keep away from Blind people I see in the street, I once had a blind man
sit next to me on a train, he tried to converse with me but, I made an excuse
and got away from him. I think it is the lack of eye contact which for some
reason seems very important to me when I meet people and talk to them.
A lot of information can be gleaned from peoples eyes that they are not
actually saying in words.
You asked me what blindness means to me, as someone who's interests
and career have all been visually orientated, I was a Design Engineer
my hobbies, are photography and art, I have two 3D cameras.
I have seen the Grand Canyon and the Pyramids but better than these
new born babies, my son and my wife, sunrise and sunset.
Our eyes are the windows to the soul and I can't see the soul of blind
people. I am afraid of mentioning visual things, which I habitually do, to
blind people, if I spoke to them.
If I were to lose my sight I would seriously consider suicide. I felt very
depressed when I had the cataract, the only thing that kept me going
was the hope that surgery would correct it.
Perhaps, Rose, something in my childhood triggered my fear of blindness,
It would require deep Psycho Analysis to find it.
Lots of Love Ron

[Rose of Cairo]

Hey Ron, I really find you very interesting

Originally Posted by ronart

I am sorry to hear that you, like Helen, have a blind eye.

Again, you don't need to feel sorry about that, I'm perfectly fine.

I felt degraded by it as though I was no longer complete like most other people.

Well that's a thought that would be worth working on!

For you blind or half blind people are "degraded" and "incomplete"? Do you mean they lose some of their value as persons? They lack something? They're helpless? Or they're not real persons anymore? Or does it make them worthless? Would you explain that exactly to me? I have some ideas, but I need to know what you exactly mean.

I hope all this, I am saying is not upsetting you

Not at all Don't worry.

A lot of information can be gleaned from peoples eyes that they are not actually saying in words.

That's true, absolutely. But not only from their eyes. You get information from many many other things too. There is the complete body language, plus how they smell, how their voice sounds, how they behave, and you can also feel them even without seeing them at all.

Our eyes are the windows to the soul and I can't see the soul of blind
people.

So if I understand you correctly, you are an extremely visual person and you need to see specifically other people's eyes to really connect to them? So blind people for you are scary because you feel disconnected from them? You can't reach them? You can't know who they are inside? Or what is it exactly?

Perhaps, Rose, something in my childhood triggered my fear of blindness, It would require deep Psycho Analysis to find it.

You can do something about it here and now without deep psycho analysis
You could deliberately change your beliefs about it.

First if you're a very visual person you get your information from your eyes, that's true. But I suppose you don't look only at people's eyes, do you? There is the whole body language you can look at. And blind people have that just like you.

Plus you have to realize that not everybody is like you. Many people are not visual like you are. For example, I'm not. I get information mostly from feeling, hearing and smelling. If you sit near me, I can feel your soul without seeing you When I cross the street, I hear if cars are coming, I don't look. When I remember someone I know, I don't see them in my mind, I hear their voice, I smell them, and I feel how they felt in that moment.

I'm telling you that for you to realize that having no sight is not as horrible for everybody as it was for you with your cataract. Some people are not like you, they just function differently. Which brings us back to your first post. Why does it bother you so much that some people are not like you?

[ronart]

Hello Rose, I am so pleased that you have posted me and with such positive
comments and helpful advice. I have not been able to speak to Helen and
get from her how she feals about life since her accident. Now, I feel that too much water has gone under the bridge to broach the subject even if I had the
courage to do so. Receiving your thoughts is filling that void for me and helping me to dispel the negative thoughts I have.
To answer your question about me feeling degraded and as though I was
incomplete, I was not infering that blind people were seen by me as in any way inferior, I was only relating how I felt.
The cataract I had was only bad for about three years, and really bad
for one year. Perhaps, if I had had it for longer, I would have overcome
my lack of self esteem.
I know when I got my eye fixed my confidence was boosted but, I felt
a guilty feeling that I was fortunate with my eye unlike Helen who because
she damaged her optic nerve was no so lucky.
On the question of feeling disconnected from blind people there is not
only their lack of eye contact and response but also my thoughts to
deal with. I am over conscious of their blindness and this fills up my
thoughts so that I can't behave in a normal relaxed and lucid manner
with them. I am, so to speak, lost for words.
This does not happen if I meet disabled people who have say, a missing
leg or are in a wheel chair. In fact, I have gone out of my way to speak
to people in wheel chairs because I know that they complain that no one
notices them.
Although, I am able bodied I am not a kinetic person and so lack of mobility
does not bother me. It would be interesting to know if athletic people
are inclined to be more, bothered, by wheel chair users.
You are right to point out to me that not everyone is like me and puts
a high value on sight. Hopefully,Helen, is like you and appreciates her other
senses. Without being sexist, I tend to think women are better at picking up
moods and other body signals than men.
You asked me, Why does it bother me so much that some people are not
like me?. It is only that I get such pleasure from seeing that I can't bear
the thought of not seeing. I think we only have this one go at life and to miss out on a sense so wonderful as sight is to miss "The Show."
I am forever grateful that I haven't missed "The Show."
I want to say something about the value to me of being able to post to you
my thoughts even though they may be seen as negative or inconsiderate
from your standpoint. Please fogive me if I have stepped on your toe.
I am now, with your help, wanting to see Helen as a young attractive woman,
which she is, and not as a "Blind Eye".
I thank you for showing me that there are many other aspects to a person
than physical ones.
Loads of Love and happy Valentines day. Ron.