Rose-Colored Glasses Syndrome (& How to Deal With It)
Potential vs reality, it's a constant tug of war. Potential could happen, but it could not. Some buds don't grow and we get frustrated. So often we fall in love with someone’s potential or the potential of a relationship—whether it’s a romantic relationship, a friendship, a relationship with family member even. The hidden danger is that we use these glasses to mask reality. Trust me, as Pisces, I love my rose-colored glasses—I'm a romantic at heart and it’s my preferred lens, afterall, everything looks better with a slight hue of pink. The danger is that it can keep us giving to something that isn't evolving for a reason that we can't see, or its serving as a coping mechanism for not facing a seemingly hard truth. Therefore, we must take off our glasses and look at the 3D world, what’s in front of us right now in all its saturated glory.
Rose-colored glasses syndrome can be a coping mechanism for sensitive people. This translates to in life, when we want to believe everyone has good intentions, good rather than realizing people have different psychologies. We risk projecting our sense of reality onto another instead of being more discerning and objective. Applied to love or romance, we risk projecting our needs onto another, when really we may need a more realisitc lens. So what do we do when we catch ourselves with our rose colored glasses on? We first aim to see another's point of view, and second we can learn to meet our own needs in other ways. That requires asking the right questions, such as: What are my needs? What do I want in a situation, a relationship, a friendship? What do I expect in any relationship in my field? Am I communicating well? Where am I avoiding confronting this to, or with another?
We can also do the following:
Pull up our big girl/big boy pants and take a hard swallow of reality. Call a spade a spade and have the sense to look at what's really happening vs what we want to be happening.
Give ourselves compassion and love for our needs and desires. Being dreamy is a gift, how can we funnel this capacity into our creative projects?
Turn your disappointment into self-focus—how can we change our focus onto what's in our field of agency to what we desire to manifest?
Recognize we can’t morph people into being ready when they aren’t, to being kind when not, to being generous of heart when not. We can only do that work within ourselves.
Putting your head under the covers is not a strategy, and doesn’t change reality, it just delays our growth. Take one step forward to the life of your dreams (whatever that means for you). Baby steps have huge ripple effects, so don't underestimate them!
Look at the self more realistically too—where do I need to still heal, to grow, to leap? Am I projecting onto someone else without taking accountability for my own actions or lack of action? My own energy vs the others.
Take action. The brain recognizes action and rewards us in the form of confidence. Even if the action is small, they ultimately compound to a breakthrough.
Finally, there is a gift in those of us who wear rose-colored glasses. We see everything as beautiful, in all its flaws, in all its imperfection. Everyone is human, every bird sings, the earth still moves around the sun. May we celebrate every day we are given the gift of being alive....
Soul-Prompt: Do I wear rose-colored glasses? How does it serve me and how does it hurt me?
Tell me in the comments below how you use your rose-colored glasses syndrome to your benefit vs being the source of detriment?