What does sight mean to you?
As you read this sentence, for example, do you acknowledge the magical way in which the letters come together to form a word? Or do you immediately start trying to make sense out of the words without ever observing the individual letters?
When we allow ourselves to perceive what’s in front of us with a fresh approach, we are truly engaging our sense of sight and enjoying a host of facilities that this sense can provide us with. These include:
Beauty
Colors
Shapes
Sizes
Forms
Sight gives to us the difference between light and dark, between colors and shapes and figures. It is the ultimate guiding sense that underlines the use of all our other senses. But do we realize its importance?
In order to realize the importance of sight, it helps to acknowledge that what we see rarely has to do with the vision that is actually in front of us. The appearance of something often triggers a particular memory of that vision and activates a feeling or reaction in us that we are not even aware of. Yet we live the whole experience based on that feeling or reaction. The physical surroundings of a happy event, for example, may lead to a bout of excitement in us that we cannot explain. Similarly, the same surroundings might invoke sorrow.
If I have a particularly happy memory of enjoying reading a book while watching a storm outside my window, every time I see a storm, I may recall that happy feeling, even years later. If instead, I was once caught outside in a storm and had a bad experience, every time I see a storm I might feel sad.
In what way can we enjoy the magic of what we see in the present moment without defining everything based on past experiences?
Here’s a little exercise that may help. Think of an incident that is the strongest in your memory. It could be happy or sad, but just the one that you feel has impacted you most. Got it? Good.
The next would be to close your eyes. When you close your eyes, re-create that situation, and focus on the physicality of it, more than sound, smell, taste or feel. Re-create the colors, the shapes, the structures, and the light. Focus on just that. Make a mental note.
After this, you may open your eyes.
Write down everything you saw. Whether the sun was shining brightly, whether the rain made the sky grey.
Write down everything you saw. Whether the sun was shining brightly, whether the rain made the sky grey.
Now, the next time you see these things simply notice your reaction.
This is what I call the moment of choice. The moment you acknowledge that you are using your mind to interpret what you see in front of you, you are at the pinnacle of the moment of choice. At this moment you can choose to continue creating your present based on the past, or you can choose not to do that any longer.
It is true that the mind is generally prone to distraction. But when we acknowledge this tendency, we can then consciously choose to see what’s in front of us with a fresh view from the present without comparing it to the past.
Something different can show up in the present and we can appreciate the importance of sight in a whole different way.
And what about the future? Is it possible that the way we see things can help the creation of our future?
The truth is that we usually only realize the importance of something when we don’t have it anymore. Why do we close our eyes when we concentrate? When we meditate? Because when we cut vision from ourselves, it removes huge influential elements—the physical surroundings we are present in.
Let me give you an example.
Last month I organized a 7steps Prelude dinner at a St. Petersburg restaurant called Dans le noir, which literally means “In the Dark”. There were about 12 of us and we started conversing in the light of the lobby while selecting our food menu. We were then lead into the dark dining area, where we continued talking. Gradually, in the absence of light, the initial predictable conversations began to transform into meaningful dialogues on unusual topics. Even though we had all met before at my 7steps workshop, the absence of light inspired us to approach each subject with a delicacy and authentic curiosity that inspired an atmosphere of a first-time encounter. The evening was called “Beyond the Veil”—one of the steps in my book 7steps to Flawless Communication. At the end of the evening, once we returned to the light, we allowed the gift of the sense of sight to enhance the magic of our experience and continue creating a future of possibilities.
The feedback from this workshop has been amazing. Participants have shared how they now see people and things anew every day, allowing their sense of sight to gift them with new choices for the creation of a future beyond the veil of past behavioral patterns.
What if we could simply enjoy the beauty, shapes, faces, and awareness we receive in every millisecond thanks to our sense of sight, without trying to identify them and make sense of them beforehand? Might that possibly change the future we create?
Hmmm
Well, now that we are aware of the vastness and importance of sight, comes the question:
What else is possible? What else can we create when we are willing to truly recognize the importance of this sense of sight?
Well, here are some reminders that hopefully will help you explore the possibilities with the sense of sight and open you up to a vision of the future that goes beyond your wildest imagination.
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Be Present
Take in your surroundings fully and completely.
What shade of blue is the sky today? Does the dew in the leaves make it look even greener?
Trace the features of your loved ones, with great detail. This will help you be more aware and notice and appreciate things you hadn’t before.
Trace the features of your loved ones, with great detail. This will help you be more aware and notice and appreciate things you hadn’t before.
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Learn to distinguish between your sight and your feelings.
When we correlate what we see and how we feel, we are forever altering our perception of that sight and that feeling.
Recognize that the way you feel is based on a whole lot of different elements coming together to form a unique experience and emotion.
Appreciate it as a distinct experience, and when you experience those sights again, be aware that this too is a distinct experience and allow it to be new and fresh.
3. Close your eyes. Sometimes, just by closing your eyes and allowing the other senses to contribute to your perception, what you see when you open your eyes again can take on a very different sparkle… the magic of the sense of sight.
At the end of the day, we realize that it is true: sight does not exist alone. It finds its friends and support in our other senses as well as our mind. Still, we can do our best to appreciate the gift of sight and take full advantage of its value, even when we are dans le noir.
Usually, we only use sight to confirm the road we have already decided to choose. What if we allowed the sense of sight to enhance our exploration of new possibilities instead of repeating past experiences.
So, how can we utilize our sight to enhance the experience of the present?
Kass Thomas
Kass Thomas
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