Out of Focus

Module 33: Laser Focus: Learning to Focus on What Matters the Most

When I think about focus, I think of how the Very Best Most Wondrous Things in my Life have come when I stopped TRYING to make them happen. Trying to will them into BEing. Trying to BE Good Enough to finally deserve them, or their generic equivalent.

As someone who lives a lot in her head, I have had to learn to separate my automatic from my zoom focus. I’ve had to try an entirely different lens. I’ve sometimes even changed my camera.

When my 12-year relationship was rolling into its 14^th year I started to see something I’d completely missed and long misunderstood. Love is NOT meant to BE two people living apart. Love is NOT something to BE earned or deserved. And Love is definitely NOT about keeping score.

Love is patient. Love is kind. And OH!! YES!! Love does NOT envy. Or boast. It’s NOT proud and wait… oh-oh-no it’s NOT rude or self-seeking…

Ummmmmmm… How’d I miss ALL that?! Had I been living in a fantasy World???

Apparently so. You see I spent a good bit of my childhood separated from my one or both of my parents. When I BEcame a mother I A] didn’t think twice about taking OUR son 3000 miles away from HIS dad when we divorced; and B] didn’t catch on to the wrongness of then spending the bulk of my son’s childhood 3000 miles from HIM.

I can see how I got confused. I can even see how I may have totally BElieved that focusing on the quality versus the quantity of time shared with my own parents or my own child was the point. [but I gotta say, that quality sure wasn’t anything to BE excited about…ever]

It makes sense to me, Now, that I could BElieve my ex-partner and I would benefit from BEing apart, that we could “make it work” [even though it was clearly NOT working] and whatever benefits we were receiving surely weren’t DOing either of us any discernible good.

Back on point, however, I was looking at Laser Focus and that which really matters MOST to me. The fact that I still had some relationship with my parents growing up, and later, with my son as he grew up seemed enough. I mean, why should I expect anything MORE than enough?! And why, since apparently my ex-partner needed that first year, then one more year on her own, and our house wasn’t selling and well, I was okay on my own keeping myself preoccupied with, well… Why didn’t I SEE there was trouble, with a capital “T” and it wasn’t JUST in River City!!??

Today I see with that perfect focus: hindsight. I see my misunderstanding self DOing what she thought was “best” or “right” under the circumstances.

I see, NOW, that survival doesn’t equal enough.

I see it was my focus got in the way of what I could see.

Ohhhhhhh…