(Today's blog written by Devon DeLauro)
When I was ten years old, I got glasses for the first time, and, oddly, I didn't really like the sudden clarity of vision. In all the previous years I had become accustomed to blurry vision, and it gave me a built-in excuse to ignore many of the dangers of the world around me. So I tossed the glasses in a closet, where they remained for four years.
Eventually, I tired of navigating life in a blur. I couldn't see the blackboard at school, I experienced tension headaches from squinting, and the whole effort was exhausting. So, despite my uneasiness about this new life view, I began wearing the glasses again. Initially I wore them only for brief periods in the privacy of my home, so no one could see me. When I finally wore them to class one day, my heart was pounding and hands shaking. Despite my fears, however, nothing bad happened, so I wore the glasses routinely, and eventually I couldn't imagine being without them.
Before Real Love, I lived in an emotional haze just as real as the visual one I endured without my glasses. I was blind to how I was living, so I constantly made mistakes-running from difficult situations, isolating from other people, and compulsively pursuing Imitation Love. Blind to what I was seeing and doing, my behavior actually perpetuated my pain. I was so afraid and so desperately clinging to being right, that I didn't even entertain the possibility that I was blind to a better way of living.
Even after learning about Real Love, I clung to the old familiar patterns of doing things, and it took almost two years of e-mail coaching with a Wise Person for me to consider taking the first leap of faith-to attend a Real Love seminar in person. I was terrified-much as I was afraid of putting on the glasses.
What I found at the seminar changed my life forever. For the first time I saw that people could love me without my trying to please them. I also began to learn that my previous pain was entirely the result of believing lies taught to me by other blind people.
I was overwhelmed and disoriented as I put on Real Love glasses for the first time and saw that I'd lived my entire life blind and crippled. I didn't know where this Real Love would take me, but I chose to have faith in the wisdom and love of Wise People, who saw infinitely better than I did. It was a great choice, like finally wearing the glasses as a kid. I discovered a new clarity of vision, coupled with an unconditional love that filled me with peace and power, replacing the fear I'd known all my life. It's a dream filled with Real Love and happiness.
