Perception shapes our experience
A recurring theme in the courses that I teach is how PERCEPTION SHAPES our EXPERIENCE.
With which lens we look at a situation will determine how we experience it. What makes this valuable is that we can train our minds to respond in more flexible and supportive ways when confronted with stressful situations, or difficult thoughts and feelings.
The glass is either half empty or half full. Whether we can embrace the moment with curiosity and care, or succumb to unhelpful thought patterns, beliefs and attitudes (fear or resentment, for example) will determine what one sees, how one feels and acts next.
Training our minds to become AWARE & LETTING GO of habitual thought patterns offers us this remarkable freedom of CHOICE, that can significantly impact our wellbeing and that of people around us. We can learn to make space in a given moment to reframe the situation, and perhaps see it from a different light.
And so choices emerge..
John O’Donohue wonderfully describes the mind as a ‘tower of windows’ - each window representing a different perspective:
“There is a beautiful complexity of growth within the human soul. In order to glimpse this, it is helpful to visualise the mind as a tower of windows..
Sadly, many people remain trapped at the one window, looking out every day at the same scene in the same way. Real growth is experienced when you draw back from that one window, turn, and walk around the inner tower of the soul and see all the different windows that await your gaze..
Through these different windows, you can see new vistas of possibility, presence, and creativity. Complacency, habit, and blindness often prevent you from feeling your life.
So much depends on the frame of vision - the window through which you look.”
- John O’Donohue
