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Wearing optical glasses has become far more enjoyable with the near endless style options available at our fingertips. This is old news I realize, but as someone who has worn contacts most of her life, I recently acknowledged that I was throwing away a style opportunity basically staring me in the face. 

Gradually, I have been finding frames that suit my face, as well as colors and designs that suit my tastes, and as wearing the frames is quite comfortable (and thus sometimes preferred over my contacts), they are worn more and more frequently, but the lenses do need regular cleaning. 

There is nothing more immediately irritating than dirty lenses. And with one smudge or many, trying to see clearly becomes more and more difficult. Not only does vision become impaired, my frustration increases, and all I can think about regardless of what else is going on around me, is that I cannot see, and so my world shrinks and doesn't shrink into anything positive. 

If we view the world, our days, the people, any person, around us with a "smudged" filter, we tend to see frustration and struggles were there really aren't any, but because we are so focused on the "smudge" (an incredibly simple thing to fix and remove), we negatively tint everything else in our life and how we see the world around us. 

I share this parallel because often we get in our own way when it comes to celebrating our life and yep, our everydays. We stand in the way of opportunity and growth, stand in the way of building the dreams and experiencing the amazing things that we once didn't think could be possible but are waiting for us to just say yes. Very often, we stand in the way unconsciously, and this has to do with the 'lenses' we look through. 

If we were raised to always be prepared for a rainy day and so never felt it wise to invest in our dreams and take that risk, any time we consider stretching ourselves temporarily financially, the fear that wells up has been conditioned to well up to try to prevent you from exploring a change that could have awesome outcomes in time. Or maybe we've been raised to not be too hopeful and always be on the safe side, so we've always tempered our joy, tempered our enthusiasm because life really can't be that amazing, can it? 

I implore you to ask yourself, how differently would it feel to let go of the lens of caution, the lens of worry, the lens of 'getting by' for a clear lens that sets you free to revel in a life you love? 

I know many might way, but you have to prepare for the 'what ifs', and while you need to do your homework and yes, you need to make well-considered decisions as opposed to rash and reactive ones, when you know yourself (something written about in detail in a post shared below), you know what you can handle regarding unknowns, and that is why, a negative lens of the world, a survival focused lens holds you back from living and experiencing an amazing joy-filled and exhilaratingly vivacious life. Why? Because you know how to navigate the life you have built when an unwanted moment arises. You also know how to dismiss naysayers because you've done the work and have experience under your belt doing what others who caution you have never done but seem to have an opinion about. And so you move past those unhelpful suggestions and you live and relish doing so. You live a life that is a pleasure to live as you engage fully, dance with what speaks to you sincerely, and set yourself free from the perhaps unconsciously self-imposed shackles that weighted you down - but no more.

It will take time to make this mental shift regarding how you approach life, but so long as you choose consciously to take note of each time a 'red flag' goes up, and after exploration you realize it comes from conditioning, not evidence, you will gradually unburden your being and begin to live a life that is full of so much to savor. 

A quick business note to all TSLL readers who have utilized the Favorites button to save posts into their TSLL Library on your personal Dashboard (so for BASIC and TOP Tier members), we will be updating the plugin (Favorites), and unfortunately in doing so, the current Favorites button needs to be replaced. Which means, by September 9th, please save the posts you have collected (either by taking a screenshot of all of the titles so you can go back in and resave them when the new button is up, or physically click and save the links on your personal device to easily access them and then "favorite" again). 

I tried to find a way for your saved posts to simply be transferred over without any work on your part, but it is not possible unfortunately; however, the new Favorites button will function the same way and be seen in the same spot on each post for you to save the posts you love and wish to revisit, and will be up and functioning in a matter of hours on September 10th. 

So just a reminder to save in the way you prefer all of your currently Favorited posts by September 9th! Thank you for your understanding, and I apologize for this inconvenience.

Now to the newsletter! Thank you for subscribing, and wishing you a wonderful long holiday weekend if you live int he states, and for everyone a seamless transition into the new schedules that carry us all out of summer and into autumn. Until the final day in September, Monday the 30th, I will see you on the blog!

—Shannon

~To explore every post you wish to read, be sure to become a member to one of the two tiers - BASIC or TOP as non-members can only read five non-exclusive posts a month (it will reset on the first of each month - tomorrow!).

PS: If the site (TSLL) has been slow to load for you, please know we are working on improving its upload speed and hope to have it back up and humming along smoothly and swiftly as soon as possible.