People ask me how I cope with being blind and this often comes with a remark that says something like,
“but you’re so positive!”
I thought I might share how I dealt with both losing my sight initially, but also how I face up to all the things I can’t do on a day-to-day basis because I am blind, without it getting me down.
Over the years I have practiced trying to take control of my thoughts. This isn’t an easy challenge to conquer. I am someone with quite a vivid imagination and can quickly come up with a hundred scenarios and probably 90 of them play out in a very negative way. To illustrate this, if I ever have an argument, if I don’t stop myself, I can spend hours thinking about all the retorts I should have said and didn’t. It took me a long time to realise that this type of thinking is extremely demotivational. It evokes all the horrible emotions – sadness, anger, frustration, revenge – and, worst of all, it is a complete waste of time and energy. It is entirely unproductive, and the only person it hurts and has a negative impact on is me.
Now, this is going to sound a bit simple, but the only way I was able to combat this, both when I went blind, and even now when I have a 'woe is me moment', is to dwell on lovely things and things I am thankful for. For me, at the time of losing my sight, I focused on being in a position to start a company, the people around me that supported me at the time, I had just met the love of my life, and my wonderful family. Once you spend a few minutes using your imagination to picture these people, consider the love they have for me, dream about the future of the business and where it might go, it doesn’t take ever so long for the corners of your mouth to lift. I am sure there will be psychologists out there who could turn this into methodology but, for me, this practice prevented me for ever feeling resentful about sight loss.
There have been moments of sadness, but they are brief and most of them are brought on by not things I miss out on, but things my children do. My 14-year-old daughter, like many teenagers, has needed reassurance regarding image. It is very hard to be believed when you say, "you are beautiful", when you are blind. My son at nine years old has mentioned he is sad I have never seen his face and prays for the day I can look him in the eye. These things pass quickly though, and I think my kids get loads of benefits of having a blind mum. Hopefully, it will make them kinder, more thoughtful people.
It has been a challenging 15 months due to the pandemic and so many of us have experienced loss. I would not dare to suggest my simple way of thinking could help everybody but, hopefully, for some, adopting discipline on how you think, might help. In terms of frequency, this isn't something I do just on a daily basis. It is probably more hourly or, on a good day, bi-hourly. I have a busy work and personal life and a constant stream of emails, phone calls and messages. And then, there are the usual things that irritate me: straightening my hair to find out it’s raining, husband snoring and keeping me up, kids leaving their dirty clothes on the bathroom floor etc. Quite frankly, if I didn’t take my thoughts captive and train them to focus on productive and good things, it is likely I would be in a bad mood by 9am, which might follow me through the day.
Please don’t think that I am advocating avoiding difficult conversations or dealing with hard issues because I wouldn’t want to focus on the bad. That isn’t at all my point. Personally, I think, by taking your thoughts captive, puts you in control, means your emotions don’t get carried away, which brings balance. This helps bring clarity to decision making.
Had I not learnt to think this way, my life would be very different, and the worries of managing and coping on a day-to-day basis would have overwhelmed me. The threats of what might happen could have frozen my ability to act, leaving me in a prison of a very small comfort zone. Life is short and we only get one go. None of us know what tomorrow brings and so it is really important to make the most of today. Live in the moment and maximise all the opportunities that lay in front of us in each of these 24-hour periods.
I think one of my favourite quotes is from a bit of a cheesy film, Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium:
Life is an occasion, rise to it!