What is Blocking your View?

My daughter woke up in the night and could not see her digital clock.  She assumed that the power was out until she turned and could see the tiny lights on her phone and laptop.  She then, probably as it was the middle of the night, went into a bit of a panic that she had somehow lost part of her sight since she could not see the glowing blue numbers that usually cast the time across the room from her dresser.  Her heart beating in the dark, she tried to scan how she felt, tried to look at other things, her mind just a jumble of panicked thoughts.  Then our cat Jynx jumped down from her dresser to the floor and she could instantly see her clock in the dark room.  In her defence our cat is black and was clearly still and quiet in these few minutes.  Made me think about the old saying that you find what you are looking for, or in this case you find it after the cat moves. If you set out to have a good day, there is a good chance you will.  If you tell yourself day after day that you are overwhelmed, exhausted and bottomed out, there is a good chance what you are looking for to back that up, you will find.  Except my story here involved a cute cat that completely blocked out what was expected.  Does that happen too?  When we decide what we are looking at is a certain way, or jump to conclusion, do we also look for what is getting in our way?  What old patterns, rotating worries, habits and bias might be blocking our view of the full picture.  It takes a degree of curiosity and patience to make sure that your vision is not blocked, or that you are not blocking out that which does not reinforce your preconception.   A cat blocking the time in the middle of the night caused a cascade of worry.  Maybe when we get really sure about where we are, what we must do or how we feel about a person or situation, we could take another few moments to make sure that there is nothing more we could see if we widened the glance, moved any blockages or called out the cat that was in our way.  There may be more to do to unblock the view to the next step that moves us to a bright light in the dark.