Perception: The Art Of Choosing To See Things In A Different Light
How can I choose to see things differently when they are going so wrong? This is a question I have been asked many time & have asked my self numerous times as well. The answer is not through rose-colored glasses. The answer is within. We have this innate ability to see things that are around us persons, places & things in the way we want to see them & even more specifically in the way that we were taught how to see them through previous conditioning.
We first started identifying with the things around us as children according to the labels & names that the people around us gave those things. Not all of these labels were bad, however many were given due to the labeler’s misconception of the thing, person, etc. that they were describing.
So is a banana a banana? Well in English yes but in another language it’s something else. And we can call it something else entirely if we wanted to. As we do not have one universal language for everyone to adhere to (thank goodness because that would be boring!) so too we do not all see the same things in the same way. For one person a banana’s good, but for someone that dislikes them they might see them as bad.
The coffee that you spilt on your shirt the other day was just an inconvenience to you, a hot uncomfortable one, but an inconvenience nonetheless because you had to rush back home & get another shirt. However for someone else whose day was already riddled with other inconveniences they may chose to have a bigger reaction than you did to the coffee spill. A few expletive’s perhaps? Maybe throwing something? Yet another person whom had an even more stressful morning in comparison to the other two examples might shrug it off, keep heading to work, knowing that some how that spilt coffee was not that important to the overall scheme of things.
How did they do this you ask? Will power. No matter what we experience in our lives we have the active choice in how we respond to each experience, no matter how debilitating it might seem on the outside, it is how we look at it, our own choice of perception that will define the situation for us.
Is it hard, changing your perspective? Sometimes yes, because we have many ingrained programs since birth that have told us how to see the world around us. When we come to a point in our lives were we can identify why we think such things, “Well because mom always told me that those people always act that way…” Then we can start to move forward & ask ourselves, really ask ourselves if those beliefs fit us any longer.
It does take work but with every step we get closer & closer to a space where we can start living our lives in a state of grace allowing things that happen to happen & not illicit an adverse reaction from us. Are we just talking about spilt coffee here? No, but that’s a start. Looking at the little things in life that get under our skin & learning to master those things not allowing them to get under our skin in the first place enables us to cope with & successfully handle the bigger things that we encounter in life.
Do you have to choose to see everything as wonderful & beautiful? That’s your choice, & it can be a good one if you are in a space where you are truly feeling that way. However, it may be a simple choice to say to yourself “I choose not to let that experience to effect me in a negative way all day”. Did I like it? No, however I will focus on whatever else I need to get done today.
Everything is a choice just like I choose to write this. Is it for you? Maybe. But I have a feeling, an intuitive one that it still applies to me too.
With Many Blessings,
Tabby Sapene MSW, LISW-S
Oasis Of The Heart, LLC
