Grabbing every morsel of goodness with both hands.
“There has been no change – at all.” The mother delivered this news with a mix of irritation, exasperation, and fading hope.
The stakes were high. Her daughter, a beautiful little five year old girl, had been diagnosed on the severe end of autistic spectrum two years previously when she was three.
She had all the classic symptoms. No eye contact, no affection, no connection, no social engagement. She would sit in the corner facing the wall, completely withdrawn and cut off from the rest of the family. Everything had to be done for her.
From her Mother’s point of view, the goal of our sessions was for her daughter to become like any other little girl.
If our sessions were like a target, this was the bull’s eye and like many people who came to see me, she had an understandable fixation on the bull’s eye.
The difficulty with this fixation is that changes often begin not at the bull’s eye itself, but at the periphery of the target, the outer circle, the edge of the edge.
This was their fourth week of coming to see me. In our previous sessions, I had felt great releases and changes happening in the girl’s system.
From working with lots of other people I knew about this fixation on the bull’s-eye, so I probed the mother a little further.
“Is there nothing that has changed at all? Any little thing can help me see how the changes I am feeling in her system are being reflected?”
The mother thought for a moment and said, “No, I haven’t seen anything.” and then, almost as an afterthought, said, “I mean she has started singing to herself, but other than that, no change at all.”
From the outside, it is easy to see how this Mother’s fixation on the bull’s eye was blinding her to the very obvious changes that were happening in her daughter.
But we are no different.
Think of any fondly held desire about ourselves.
“I want to be 20lb lighter.”
“I want to be fully healthy again.”
“I want to be more decisive.”
“I want to be in a better financial situation.”
“I want to be more conscious.”
“I want to be pain free.”
“I want to be more attractive.”
“I want to be less awkward around people.”
“I want to be enlightened.”
It doesn’t matter what the goal is our natural tendency is to fixate on the bull’s eye.
It is something I see regularly in my one-to-one sessions with people – a reluctance to acknowledge improvement.
It is almost as if by acknowledging the improvements at the periphery, we will somehow be kidding ourselves, and diminishing our desire to hit the bull’s-eye.
This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Let me lay another analogy on you.
Our system, and by that I mean mind, body, spirit – the totality of us.
Our system, when it is in disharmony, is like a bowl that has become a colander.
Energy that flows into our system and is supposed to be contained within the bowl of our system flows straight through the many holes, or energy leaks, of our colander instead.
I have had instantaneous, seemingly miraculous healings occur with the people I work with, but these are the exception. For most people, it is a slow process.
We grow into disharmony and we grow out of disharmony.
The process of growing out of disharmony is like sealing up the holes in our colander one hole at a time. The bull’s eye being all the holes closed and the re-establishment of the bowl that contains all the energy.
From this perspective, one hole is no more important than another. And the beautiful part of the process is that with each hole, or energy leak, that is sealed, there is more energy retained in our system to seal or heal more holes.
This is why it is so important to claim and celebrate every improvement no matter how small it may seem in comparison to the gigantic bull’s eye we are aiming towards.
Claiming seals the energy, and celebration consolidates the seal.
There is nothing new here. It has been expressed in many different ways, one of them being the new age maxim – what you focus on expands. Focusing on the little goods when you see them, add up to a large good.
Make no mistake, this is not toxic positivity, blind optimism or self delusion. It is very practical.
Change begins at the periphery.
Every change claimed seals the energy leak.
Every celebration of small change solidifies the seal.
Every energy leak sealed leaves more energy in your system to help with the sealing of other holes.
So claim and celebrate every morsel of improvement with both hands, because it is the most helpful thing you can do for yourself.
One last thing, this approach also works for your reality.
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Photo by Volkan Olmez on Unsplash
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