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Keep Your Eye Off The Ball

You often hear the expression “keep your eye on the ball.” What you really want is to keep your eye on the goal or target

One day a friend of ours asked us to look over a letter he had written to his mother. The two of them had, from his recollection, always had a confrontational relationship. They saw each other very rarely. They practically never talked, even when they were together.

The letter was written after they had an argument. It was, to say the least, very negative. We asked him just one question, “What result do you want this letter to have?” He looked at us with astonishment. When he came back to the moment he said good bye.

The next week we saw him again. He had a big smile on his face. He told us that he had rewritten the letter. He told his mother about the pain he had from their relationship. She had read the letter and gave him a call.

The result was that they got together. They talked, not yelled. They got to be friends. The change in the letter was taking his eye off the ball and putting it back onto the goal.

He had two goals. First was to let his mother know how he felt and how she contributed to his feeling. The second was to break from the hostility. He let her know that he did not want to hurt her or be hurt by her. He wanted to be friends or strangers. Either way the hostility would end.

By setting a clear goal and releasing the pain and suffering that each had experienced it empowered both of them. It made it easy to get a new start. They took a few minutes to see the situation from the other’s viewpoint. They found that they had the same goal. They found that they both knew the steps they would need to take to rectify the situation.

One of our clients came in and was looking for calm. They tried to mask the real issue. As we have stated before, it is almost impossible to hide things from people who are in your field. Having spent much time in this client’s energy it was obvious that there was something deeper.

We asked one simple question, “what is really bothering you?” and it all came flowing out, along with some tears. This client was experiencing some marital issues. And then there was that phrase we have heard so many times “there just seems to be something missing.” The kicker was the work “something”. Any noun would have shown some focus. The word “something” let us know that they did not know what they wanted.

The client stated that they wanted to confront their spouse. Our response was, “what do you want them to say?” They had no idea. We recommended that if they were to confront their spouse they should not go into the discussion with the attitude that our marriage is broken and you need to fix it, especially when our client did not know what in the marriage was broken.

If they were to go to their spouse they should go in asking for help. They might want to start with a statement like, “I feel like there is something missing in or marriage. Please help me find out what has left and how we can fix it.”

Like most of these types of cases our client stated that their spouse did not really hear what they were saying. Their spouse did not seem to notice that there was something wrong. They meant that their spouse had not said anything to them, but then again they had not said anything to their spouse.

It is impossible to keep your eye on the goal when you do not know what the goal is. Think of sports for a minute. In golf the lower the score the better you are doing. In basketball the higher your score the better. Yet in blackjack, we know that is a card game not a sport, the goal is 21 points. The higher your score the better, provided you do not exceed 21 points. If you start to play a new game and do not know the goals and rules you can never win.

Like our friend and this client, you first need to determine what your goal is. Like anything else you want that goal to be positive. So being pain free is not a good goal, while being able to go kayaking or playing racquetball are good goals. Being able to win the constant fights with your spouse is a poor goal, while finding the mutual joys from the first days of the relationship is a better goal. Having your boss fired is not a positive goal, which having everyone at work recognizing your value and contributions is a constructive goal.

There are many disciplines in energy work that talk of breaking the cords, strings or threads. Each of these old attachments drains energy from us.

As the Dalai Lama says, you will not exit this existence without experiencing pain, however, it is your choice if you will suffer or not. We all know people with chronic illnesses, who are in constant pain but do not complain. We also know the person who has a good income and perfect health who is always suffering.

Being into healing we are also into spirituality. Many people confuse spirituality with religion. We often hear people say “They must be spiritual; they are a minister (or priest or nun).” There are many people in these positions. Some use religion as a business. Others study religion and do not live it. They are too academic. Others are very spiritual.

Each of these three types of “spiritual leaders” may be pursuing their goal. The first two may mislead those who follow them. The academic is often someone who has lost the goal by keeping their eye on the ball. They decided to study religion to find the meaning of existence or to get closer to the source of all. They have lost that goal and only pursue the knowledge.

In a similar way many people go to retreats or enter a monastic order to bring their life into balance. They loss the goal and the monastic life becomes their life. In all traditions the ascended masters live in the real world among the people they inspire.

We have known people who wanted to be popular. Some decide that being thin and looking good is the way. A few of these keep their eye on the ball, or in this case the scale, and keep trying to take off the weight. They start to look like walking skeletons. They become grotesque and look sick or sickly. They loose their original goal. We had one acquaintance that ended up dieing from an eating disorder.

Look at the workaholic who works to give their family everything that they want and deserve. They end up spending no time with their family. They either work themselves to death, get divorced or turn around one day and realize that their family has grown and they do not know any of them. The ball that they kept their eye on was the money. The goal was a healthy family.

In all spiritual pursuits the goal is to find balance and harmony. In our society we have separated the body and mind from the spirit. We have gone even farther down the road of differentiation. We have broken happiness into many parts. We have separated spiritual happiness from physical, mental and emotional happiness. We have lost it to the point that many people feel that lack of pain is pleasure or lack of torment is happiness.

We need to find the balance in our lives. The whole ball, the one we need to keep our eyes on, is a life that is in harmony, which is balanced. When we find balance we come into harmony with our environment and the people we interact with. Our body, mind and spirit become one. We open ourselves for enlightenment.

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