How earth-shattering it was to realize I had NEVER seen what was in front of me! As it was.
This realization came almost 14 years after I had consciously embarked on the healing journey. I was 36 and just had the very first breakthrough in my life in regard to one of my childhood issues, the issue around my mother. The lifeless gray world around me became a bit brighter and some colors emerged; a thick veil was lifted.
The breakthrough happened during my vacation. Refreshed, I returned to the classroom to pick the lecture up where I had left off. I looked over the familiar students and came across some new faces.
That cannot be! This is an ongoing class! I did the roll call, carefully connecting the new faces to the names. The names were all familiar, even those of new faces. I was shocked as I had always tried to look at each face when I’d called their names.
Why do I not see what I have looked?
I carefully observed the new faces for some time and became aware that the owners of those faces were the students who were not engaged in class one way or another: absent minded, not listening, or often absent. I must have excluded them from my world.
My own breakthrough, however, brought them back. I realized that their attitudes were the reflections of their own problems. They were simply too preoccupied. Some family members may be sick. Some may be depressed. Who knows what they have?
I was unable to take their attitudes as calls for attention but conveniently labeled them as “problem students.” What was behind my inability? What preoccupied me, then?
It dawned on me some time later that I was unable to face my uneasiness, aroused by their attitude. They were mirroring my pain, which was too big to accept as my own and therefore had to be suppressed. I looked at their faces but excluded them from my world because they served as too powerful reminders. I was not ready.
The breakthrough helped me see my suppressed wounds, and thus guided me see all the students.
A precious lesson: we do not see what is. We only see what we are capable of, and we see as we want to. If 10 people look at one scene, there will be 10 different views.