Seeing is believing

Dear Reader,

I often find myself contemplating the saying:

“Seeing is believing.”

It’s one of those phrases we repeat without really stopping to examine it.

Yet the more I think about it, the more I wonder if the opposite might sometimes be true.

After all, what about people who have never seen?

A person born without sight has never watched a sunrise, never seen the colour blue, never looked up at the stars. Much of what they know about the visual world has come through description, trust, experience, and interpretation.

In many ways, they have had to believe long before they could ever “see.”

Perhaps that is why I have always found the phrase interesting.

When people hear the title Lost My Sight, Found My Freedom, they often assume it is simply a book about sight loss.

It is.

But it is also about much more than that.

It is about the things we think we know because we have looked at them.

It is about the stories we tell ourselves because they appear true.

It is about the assumptions, labels, expectations, and identities we carry without questioning them.

Because sight and vision are not the same thing.

One happens with the eyes.

The other happens with understanding.

Losing sight taught me that lesson in ways I never expected.

There were things I could no longer see clearly that somehow became clearer than ever.

I began to notice patterns I had previously missed.

I became more aware of what people said, not just how they looked.

I started paying attention to what was felt rather than what was presented.

And perhaps most surprisingly, I realised how much of life is built on trust.

Every one of us is navigating a reality we only partially understand.

We trust maps we did not create.

We follow advice from people we have never met.

We believe stories about ourselves that were sometimes written years ago.

We assume we know where we are going because we can see the road ahead.

Yet some of the most important things in life have never been visible.

Love.
Hope.
Grief.
Purpose.
Belonging.
Freedom.

None of them can be held in your hand.

None of them can be proven by sight alone.

Perhaps that is why I no longer believe that seeing is believing.

I think understanding is believing.

Experience is believing.

Trust is believing.

And sometimes losing what you thought was essential reveals what mattered all along.

Losing sight taught me that vision and seeing are not the same thing.

One happens with the eyes.

The other happens with the soul.

Until next time,
Jennifer