I Had to Become Blind to Learn How to See

My son made me lunch after my eye surgery since I am unable to see.

How I lost my vision, regained it, overcame my limitations, and created a life and job I love.

My Road to Blindness

My road to blindness was paved with good intentions. I wanted to do better, and I tried to do better, but the actions I took didn’t make things better. What I needed was a way to find and permanently fix the root cause of my limitations. I looked everywhere for solutions, but I couldn’t find any until I became blind.

For most of my life I’ve been stressed, frustrated, impatient, and angry. I was a perfectionist, righteous, and judgmental. I worked long hours but wasn’t progressing fast enough in my career. I was very critical of myself and others. I put tasks over people. I didn’t get along well with anyone, I had few friends, and I was divorced. I needed to exercise every day after work to get rid of the negative energy I had accrued, and to stop my heart and mind from racing so I could calm down.

As time went on, I became more stressed, frustrated, impatient, and angry. I became less able to control my emotions, and my outbursts became more intense. My body suffered, my health declined, and I started to gain weight. Negative energy manifests itself differently for everyone. When I was younger, my negative emotions would often manifest in nose bleeds, but now it was going after my eyes.

My First Vision Scare

In 2005 I was diagnosed with a version of shingles that affects the eyes. It requires immediate attention to prevent permanent damage to the eye and vision loss. It went after my right eye, but luckily my ophthalmologist administered antiviral medications in time to save my vision.

In 2009 I was laid off, but it had more to do with the fact that I didn’t get along well with my boss. I was going through my second divorce, and I was raising two young kids on my own without any family or friends around. I was 85 pounds heavier than I was just ten years earlier, and I had to declare bankruptcy. I was out of money, and I came within a week of being homeless. I was physically, emotionally, mentally, and financially bankrupt.  It took me three years to find a job that barely paid my bills. And, of course, my stress, frustration, impatience, and anger went through the roof.

Left Eye Vision Loss

The pattern continued at my new job. I was critical of others and thought I was smarter than my upline managers. My stress, frustration, impatience, and anger continued to increase, and I struggled to manage my emotions. I had good intentions and I wanted to improve, but I couldn’t find the answers I was looking for.

Just before Thanksgiving in 2013, the retina in my left eye started to detach. Unfortunately, the surgeon couldn’t restore my vision, and I became completely blind in my left eye. My right eye was unaffected, and my vision was still good in that eye.

My Determined Search for Answers

Up until this time, I had blamed others and circumstances for my problems. But by early 2014, it became clear to me that I was the problem. With this realization, I began a five-year quest to improve myself by trying everything I could find that could possibly help me. I joined a company that encouraged its employees to take personal development classes. I started to read self-improvement books again, over 30 books each year, and I attended every training program and personal development seminar I could find. My assigned mentor at work and my manager both spent a lot of time coaching me. Additionally, I hired an external coach to help me, and I was in therapy.

Getting Worse

Committing myself to continuous self-improvement and training wasn't enough. I had some limited success with these mainstream methods, but nothing I tried made my life significantly better. They provided Band-Aids and quick fixes that made things look better in the short term, but it didn’t last. They treated the symptoms but not the root cause. The negative patterns I had engaged in throughout my life were only getting worse.

I could tell there were still obstacles in my way, but I didn’t know what they were or how I could get around them. These obstacles seemed to be getting bigger, which only caused me more problems. I was becoming more judgmental, frustrated, impatient, irritable, and angry. I was being triggered by a lot more things, and the intensity of my reaction was increasing. As a result, I became more stressed and worried. It was a downward spiral that was picking up speed. I felt destined for bigger problems, unclear how to change course. I didn’t have any hope that things would improve.

Complete Vision Loss While Driving

On Friday March 8, 2019, I lost my vision while driving to work. I was traveling in the fast lane on the 405 Freeway, going about 80 miles an hour in heavy commuter traffic in Seal Beach, California. I was lucky to exit the freeway and get my car into the nearest parking lot. I could barely see blurry shapes as my vision continued to darken. I couldn’t read my cell phone. I had to ask a stranger to call my daughter and tell her where I was. It turned out that the retina in my right eye had detached. Since I had lost vision in my left eye in 2013, it was basically lights out now.

I sat in my car alone as I waited for my daughter. I was unable to see, I was unaware of exactly where I was, and I had no idea what the future looked like. I felt completely lost and alone in the

dark without hope. How I had chosen to live my life up to that point in time wasn’t working and had led to complete disaster. I had reached rock bottom.

Paralyzing Fear

The fear was paralyzing and yet the message was clear: if I wanted to survive, then I would have to change everything. My problems were getting bigger. The frequency of vision loss problems was increasing and getting worse each time. I would need to start with a blank piece of paper and completely reinvent myself. I would have to find the root cause of my stress, frustration, impatience, and anger, and I would have to find a way to eliminate these unhealthy emotions from my life once and for all.

It was a very scary time. I was a single dad with two kids, and no family or friends around. My savings account was empty, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay rent or buy food. I didn’t know what I would do for work. I wondered if my kids would be better off with me living or with the proceeds from my life insurance policy.

My doctor said the vision loss was caused by blood filling my right eye as my retina tore and then subsequently detached. The way I interpreted it, my anger had become so bad that I was literally seeing red, before things faded to black and completely stopped me. The morning I lost my vision, I was dreading going into the office, and I was thinking about all the negative things that were going to happen. My stress and anger levels were quite elevated.

Vision Restoration

I worked with a different eye surgeon this time and he was able to restore vision to my right eye. I went back to work a month later but was still unable to fix my negative emotions. My vision slowly got worse over 5 months until my doctor took my driver’s license away.

I was legally blind for 5 more months. After two more surgeries on my right eye, my vision slowly improved. A whole year had gone by since I lost my vision driving to work, but I now had my driver’s license back and my vision was fully restored. I was extremely lucky.

Seeing New Things

There was one strange thing about my renewed vision though: the world looked much different to me. Yes, I could see what we all normally see, but I could now see things I couldn’t see before, and I could see things very few people can see. I could see why the world is the way it is, and why people behave the way they do.

When I looked at myself, I was able to see what had been causing me so much stress, frustration, impatience, and anger my entire life. I could see the root cause of my problem, and I could see how to fix it permanently so I would never experience it again.

I discovered I could do the same thing with others. I can see why a person does what they do. When they ask me to help them with what they think their problem is, I can see what’s really going on. I can sense the real problems they need to solve. What people want and what they need is often very different. I can diagnose the root cause of their problem, and I can prescribe a solution to fix it permanently.

I can see how the inner conflict and negativity from each person gets projected outward, causing problems for others, and aggregating to cause even bigger problems in the world. Evidence of this happening is all too common today. The world needs more people who project positive emotions.

Helping Others

Being blind helped me to see. I had spent my entire life looking outward for a solution and never found one. When I was blind, I had the chance to look inward and I discovered my own wisdom for how to improve my life, my body, my relationships, and my job.

I experienced firsthand what happens to your body, career, relationships, and life if you don’t quickly and permanently fix the root cause of your problems. I knew that everyone has some degree of challenges that hold them back from achieving their highest potential. I decided to leave my job and start coaching full time so I could maximize the number of people I could help using my rare gift.

I developed a process I named the WLB Process, which is what I used to transform myself, and I perfected it by using it with my clients. I wrote a narrative nonfiction book called The Wise Loving Being, that tells the story of a person who goes through this process.

At first, I used the process only for life coaching, but I soon discovered that it could be used anywhere. I was able to apply it in the work environment to help people become better employees, leaders, and managers. I helped them be more valuable to their organization and I showed them how to get a raise and promotion and create a job they love.

I was also able to apply it to relationships to help couples save their marriages. I showed them how to restore love in their relationships. I taught them how to communicate better and how to collaborate to find win/win solutions to their challenges. I worked with each of the partners separately and showed them how to heal their individual problems and resolve their past trauma that negatively affected their relationship.

My Mission

I’m on a mission to help people create a life and job they love. I help them identify and fix the root cause of their limitations quickly and permanently. If they don’t, their problems will just come back again and get worse each time. The toll on their body, career, relationships, and life can be substantial. Everyone deserves to live a life filled with love, peace, joy, freedom, and fulfillment.