The Option Method is all about dissolving self-defeating beliefs so that you can go for what you want.
I love to tell stories about people who are living their desires, against the odds, because whether they used the Option Method or not, they give us hope.
Today I want to tell you the story of Sabriye Tenberken.
Her story
Sabriye was born with a degenerative retinal disease, and lost her sight at the age of 12. At first she felt embarrassed about her blindness. She tried to hide it from her schoolmates, but they saw she was different and taunted her.
Sarbriye now says, “I was constantly compensating and pretending. Not until I accepted my blindness did I begin to live.”
When Sabriye enrolled in a boarding school for the blind, she studied academic subjects, but also horseback riding, white-water rafting, Braille, and particularly, self-reliance.
After boarding school, Sabriye went to the University of Bonn, as the only blind student among 30,000. She decided to study the difficult Tibetan language, and no one could dissuade her. She had to create her own system for translating Tibetan into Braille.
At the age of 26, Sibriye had the desire to establish a school for blind children in Tibet. When she arrived there, she found that many Tibetans were deeply prejudiced against the blind, believing they were cursed or even possessed. Some blind children were hidden away in dark rooms, and one boy had been tied to his bed for 10 years.
A lone white woman on horseback, Sabriye traveled from village to village, collecting children like discarded clothing, to attend her new school, Braille Without Borders.
At her school, the children learn to read Braille and to speak three languages: English, Chinese, and Tibetan. They also become proficient with computers. Once hidden away in dark rooms, they now have become the main breadwinner in their families!
In addition to practical knowledge and skills, Sabriye wants these children to have self-confidence. She wants them to say, “I’m blind, so what?”
Sabriye says, “Maybe it’s good that I’m blind, because people who can see, see all the reasons why they can’t do something. I don’t see the obstacles. I only see the one reason I can do it . . . and that is because I WANT TO!”
What do we get from Sabriye’s story?
Do we think, “She could do all this because she is different, she is special?” When she was 12 years old and became blind, she believed she was different, too. But not in a way she wanted.
We are just like Sabriye because we have self-defeating beliefs that we can dissolve. When those shift and fall away, then the power of our desires has room to gradually — or suddenly — push out into the world and create.
Sabriye received help in discarding her self-defeating beliefs when she attended a high school for the blind. For me, and for many others, the gentle inquiry of the Option Method is our sure way to unlock the shackles of beliefs that have been binding us, and walk – or ride horseback – down a new path.
What’s between you and your sweet life?
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