Losing vision, finding determination to make things better

I love that I am able to quickly process my emotions and thoughts. I am in touch with my body and mind and when a pot hole in the road of life occurs, I am able to notice it, slow down, go into the hole, face the darkness, and then climb back out and get back on the road again.

It was disheartening to hear from the eye specialist on 3 April, five weeks post surgery, ‘I’m really sorry Natalie, you are not adjusting to the customised lens like I thought you would. It is a bigger and stronger lens than normal...’. His sentence literally trailed off there. There were no further words or explanations to help me understand what was going on. What was going wrong.

He asked me to move with him to another room and I instinctively reached for my glasses, which were sitting on his table after my eye exam. I get chills as I recall my hand gently reaching for the prescription glasses and the specialists’ hand jutting out and preventing me from picking them up. He looked at me with concern and bewilderment and said ‘you can’t even walk to the other room without them?’

The concern on his face brings a tear to my eye. My amazing eye specialist really thought this was the gift of sight. There was no reason in his mind that this surgery wasn’t going to work, that it was going to give me the freedom and independence I had longed for.

Seeing a grown, professional, man looking at you with concern and disappointment; disappointment in himself, disappointment potentially in my brain’s integrity to handle such strong device, is heart breaking.

There was no flippant look, no dismissing of the double vision, no ‘I did my best’.

He explored my double vision further and without glasses I could read only the top two lines of the eye chart. All of the lines on the eye chart were in soft focus, a dull grey, with illegible letters and lines joining them up together. Basically one big mess.

The specialist said that with the help of prescription glasses he hopes to be able to clear up the double vision, but we’ll need to wait another month or two. He took out the final stitch and said he hopes this will loosen my eye a little. Any extra vision – I’ll take that.

Digesting this information was not easy.

I was mindful that the surgery might not reduce my headaches and give me sight. But being aware that may happen and dealing with it are two totally different things.

I have friends who are healers, hey, I even call myself a healer and like to use my energy centres and coaching skills to heal people. So why can’t I heal myself? What is wrong with me? What am I not wanting to see? Why am I blocking this opportunity at sight? There is an artificial part in my eye that is programmed to do the seeing, so why won’t my brain allow it to see?

Why did I have sight for a week or so and then lose it?

Why?

Why?

Why?

I know that it is important to feel the feels, to let you mind, body and soul grieve. To allow the energy of your thoughts and illness to move through your body and not get caught in another illness, you need to slowly go into the pot hole, face the darkness head on, and then crawl back up to the light feeling free and refreshed.

So I did.

I was lucky enough to have planned a trip to visit a friend in Marlo, a cute little beach town in East Gippsland.

The beach is my happy place. If there is anywhere I am going to connect with spirit and go through the emotional process that gets me to acceptance and moving forward, it’s going to be the beach.

Note to self – move to the beach asap.

There were tears. The ‘why did this happen to me again?’ and the ‘Why the #$%^ can’t I see?! of frustration.

And you know what? All of that is ok.

I leant on a couple of friends who I called or messaged. When I’m in my deepest and darkest of moments I’m much better at typing my concerns than speaking them.

I surrendered.

I walked into the icy cold oceans of Victoria in autumn and I squealed, each squeal was like an awakening, a mindful moment of ‘holy @#$% I am alive! This water is freaking cold!!!’, wait, I am alive. That’s right, my vision is only part of me. The migraines are there but if I surrender to them, they can’t take all of me. I am still Natalie the awesome and life changing meditation and mindfulness teacher, the girl who is going to change other people’s lives and help them move out of hardship to love and happiness.

The prognosis is not the end. It is just a pot hole on the path.

After two days at the beach, being surrounded with love, support, good food and coffee, I awoke with a clear thought:

I have the tools to heal my vision. My brain hasn’t been able to adapt to the customised lens because I’ve been so used to not seeing, to losing my vision.

For two years after the cornea transplant I woke up every morning hoping I wasn’t blind. I had created a program in my mind and body that I’m not able to see, my brain isn’t used to the concept of sight without the assistance of glasses.

As a meditation teacher and buddhist, I know that the mind can heal all. As a Nuero Linguistic Program Practitioner I have the tools and have read many studies on how training the mind can heal all kind of physical and mental ailments.

It can heal if we give it the time and space and relaxation to do so.

And sometimes, we need to retrain the brain.

I have spent the last week shifting belief patterns using the Source4Shift technique and my version of tapping the stagnant energy out. Shifting from my brain, body and soul the belief that I need glasses to see; that this surgery was meant to gain sight and I’ve somehow stopped that; and that I’m defined by my vision loss.

So from today I am going to go back to Meir Schnider’s Miracle Eyesight Method. The program that stopped me from going blind in 2015. A series of eye exercises, massage and relatation methods that are meant to strengthen sight. You can read more about Meir Schnider's work here.

And a bonus of the surgery not going to plan and not being able to work... (because when life gives us lemons there is always the opportunity to make lemonade), His Holiness the 42nd Sakya Trinzin is coming to Australia for six weeks. His Holiness is the head of my Tibeta

n buddhist lineage, one under the Dalai Lama (the DL for those who know him intimately ;) ).

By not being able to work, I am able to follow His Holiness and attend his teachings, retreats and auspicious buddhist moments. What better way to immerse myself in healing and peace and create my own inner calm?

So with a bit of Meir Schnider, and a lot of buddhist healing magic ... I will be able to still my mind and connect back in with my body.

I am hoping that in 4 weeks time I am going to be able to write a blog that says I have tamed my mind and refocussed the double vision to single vision.

I believe I can.

I believe I have the power.

Do you?