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LightHearted Musings - The Eye in Your Heart
Posted by Dr. Bruce Roberts on October 6th, 2008
You got to look at things with the eye in your heart, not with the eye in your head.
- Lame Deer, Medicine Man of the Oglala people
It was probably what attracted me to her the most - her ability to see with the eye in her heart. Molly has a unique gift of seeing right to the depths of your soul, and she saw right into mine. She saw past my flaws and insecurities. She saw who I really was - who I was meant to be. If she had seen me only through the eye in her head, I’m sure she would have left skid marks!
I envied her gift of being able to see with the eye in her heart. I coveted her ability to connect with spirit and trust her intuition. Whenever I was unsure I would turn to Molly and ask, “What does spirit have to say about this?” At first she would respond graciously. Gradually she became more reluctant, and eventually she began to pull away. Slowly, and unwittingly, I was sucking her dry!
You see, I didn’t trust my own intuition. I didn’t trust the eye in my heart. So much of my life and my training as a physician was geared toward developing the eye in my head that I forgot that there was another way to see. I was a Cyclops who didn’t realize that my second eye lie dormant deep in the echo chambers of my heart.
I was attracted to Molly, in part, because I thought she possessed something I didn’t have. It took me several years, and perhaps the most stressful year of our marriage, to realize that Molly was simply a mirror reflecting those shadow aspects of myself that remained hidden and undeveloped. I needed to stop looking to Molly for the answers and to nurture and develop those parts within myself in order to become whole. It was only through my own inner work that I was able to become an equal partner and co-creator in the most incredible relationship I could ever imagine.
Often our greatest gifts lie hidden in our shadows. The truth is, we cannot be attracted to something in someone else unless we possess the seed of that characteristic within ourselves. The eye in my heart was there the whole time. I simply had to learn how to open it.
It is time for all of us to open our eyes and see the world as it really is. Yes, we live in a material world. And yes, from a certain perspective, we are all separate beings. But this is a myopic view of the world and, quite frankly, has gotten us into quite a pickle!
We are so much more than we can see with the eye in our head. When we learn to open the eye in our heart, we begin to see all the beauty and grandeur that surrounds us. We begin to appreciate the incredibly intricate web of spirit that connects us to each other, to the plants, to the animals, and to Gaia, our Mother Earth. With both of our eyes wide open we can begin to heal ourselves, our relationships, and our planet.
It is never too late to open our eyes to who we really are!
Dr. Bruce
I found your writing of “The Eye In your Heart” Very interesting.
I wish you write more about this.
You left me wondering if I use the eye in my heart, or not. I’m also a bit confused by the greatest gift lies hidden in our shadow, and how Molly mirrors the shadow.
Thanks for opening us up to interesting subjects, me must already know, but never take the time to meditate on.
Comment by Joanne — October 6, 2008 @ 2:34 pm
Hi Joanne,
Thanks for your comments. The concept of the shadow can be confusing. Carl Jung described the shadow as consisting of those parts of yourself that aren’t honored, cherished or reinforced and, therefore, get pushed into the background. For instance, if your artisitic talents weren’t appreciated as a child, those latent skills would get pushed into the shadow. If you weren’t allowed to express your anger, those feelings would end up in the shadow. Most of what got reinforced for me growing up was intellectual, the eye in my head, and medical school certainly reinforced the superiority of intellect over intuition. Intuitive skills weren’t honored or appreciated - just the facts! As a result, my intuition got pushed into the shadow. Molly served as a mirror to reflect back those aspects of myself, including my intuition, that were hidden in my shadow. Sometimes our greatest gifts are not appreciated by those around us - girls shouldn’t do this, or boys shouldn’t do that - and so they don’t get expressed. We can begin to germinate the seeds of those gifts when we recognize that long dormant aspect of ourself in another.
You might be interested in reading Beth Ford’s book “The Dark Side of the Light Chasers” for an excellent discussion of these concepts. Also Molly and I discuss all this in more detail in a book we are in the process of writing - so stay tuned!
Comment by Dr. Bruce Roberts — October 6, 2008 @ 9:50 pm