Life Beyond Tunnel Vision

When you're a decisive person (like I am) it's really easy to find yourself fixated on one idea of how things SHOULD work out for you. If you're a planner or a dreamer or a manifester, you probably spend lots of time mentally and physically sketching out your desired scenario, and when you think it begins to present itself, you want to hold onto it like a bass fisherman reeling in his biggest catch.

I did this more than once when I found a guy I liked. Particularly, Mr. Perfect-on-Paper. I was so convinced that he was the ONLY guy who would ever so precisely fit my criteria, I dug my fingernails in and put my man blinders on, pretty much the minute I met him.

Gripping one outcome so tightly not only has a tendency to energetically repel what you desire, it can also close you off to opportunity and hope.

I don't know if it was my desperate grasping that drove away Mr. P-o-P, or if he would have moved on no matter what, but I do know that my tunnel vision deprived me of being hopeful for quite awhile.

Believing there was only one way things SHOULD have worked out left me completely defeated when they didn't. 

I had a chance to re-learn this lesson last week when, in the midst of escrow on a house in Santa Ynez, my Mr. W and I hit a few bumps. My immediate reaction was to hold on tight and feel scared and sad that we might lose our dream home. But then I had the fortune of stumbling onto our real estate agent's website, and as I began looking at other options in the area, I felt renewed confidence that everything was going to work out.

I realized that I had been thinking things were supposed to go only one way, but maybe the Universe had something different in mind. Something better. Something I wasn't capable of understanding yet.

I loosened my grasp and opened my eyes wider to let new possibilities come into my line of vision.

The funny thing was—as soon as I let go, things started moving more smoothly with the original plan. 

Great lesson on having faith in the process.