Over the past week in my therapy sessions I have noticed that many of my clients brought up the same metaphor.
Specifically, they stated they find themselves “looking at life through rose colored glasses.”
I have heard this metaphor before, but decided to look it up to get a deeper understanding of their experience.
Looking through rose colored glasses means:
An optimistic perception of something; a positive opinion; seeing something in a positive way, often thinking of it as better than it actually is.
Then I thought to myself, why is this such a bad thing? And could these glasses serve as a useful tool to find solutions?
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My dear colleague and friend, always tells me that she believes all people are good in nature.
She always strives to see the best in everyone.
She inspires me to do the same.
So I realized: This could be the reason we want to see the good around us.
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People tend to feel uncomfortable with pain and disappointment. People *want* to feel pleasure and satisfaction in all areas of life.
But, there is a great amount of truth in the saying: “what you see is what you get.”
Many people struggle because they tend to see life through a darker, perhaps even discolored, lens.
One where everything around them seems to be negative. This leads to feelings of depression, anxiety, helplessness, hopelessness, etc.
Sometimes, we need to utilize our rose colored glasses to see something different than what we normally see.
Rather than keeping any pair of glasses on constantly, try focusing on the times where you need to challenge your belief system and utilize your glasses accordingly.
After all, you certainly don’t wear your sunglasses in the dark, do you?
No, of course not. You wear them on the beach or out running errands on a sunny day.
The same rules should apply to your rose colored glasses.
Use them when you feel you need to.
When things seem like they “can’t get any worse.”
And when you feel you are at peace, remove them and put them to the side until you find you need them again.
