While I was attending The Gesell Institute to study how to treat children with learning difficulties, we invited John Streff, OD, an expert in the area of child development and vision therapy to give us a lecture on his wonderful approach.

During his presentation, he did the most amazing demonstration for us. He called up one of my classmates, and he took out this device called a Retinoscope and began shining it in my classmate’s eyes to observe them. Dr. Streff instructed this man to imagine that he was playing tennis and then Dr. Streff proceeded to tell my classmate every single time he hit the ball in this imaginary game. After the third time my classmate started laughing, and asked Dr. Streff what it is he was doing. Dr. Streff said that he was just watching my friend’s eyes.

Then Dr. Streff said he wanted to do this demonstration again. This time, as the classmate imagined his tennis game, Dr. Streff again watched his eyes using the Retinoscope. Streff predicted every time the man hit an imaginary forehand, backhand, or lob. Dr. Streff’s predictions were so precise, we were all speechless. It was a profound demonstration for our class.

I realized from this demonstration that light not only enters the eye but it also exits the eye. It is how the light exits our eye that reflects our creativity and self-expression. Next time you have the chance, look at an infant playing and you will see the glimmer in his eyes.

Another aspect I realized back then was that, in the vision care field, we are led to believe that the eye is meant “to look” at something. But the eye looks at nothing until the light grabs it. The eye is not looking for the light, but the light is actually looking for the eye. That is why we say “it caught my eye.” The “it” causes the eye to reflexively move toward the light, then the body follows to re-orient itself and align with the eye, and we begin to be guided along our journey in life.

The light creates a oneness between the eyes and body, and we experience a clarity. But I am not talking about an optical clarity, rather the clarity is an insight where we may say: “I see”! The moral of the story is that instead of looking at life, what if life is looking for us! When life looks at us, our awareness helps us be in the flow, and we can experience effortlessness.