Allow me a moment to rant about the power of perception. When things seem hard, painful or overwhelming, my natural inclination is to resist, to spend a lot of time and energy pushing back against whatever it is I don’t want. But here’s what I’ve found; “No” is simply resistance to Now, to the present moment. Now is the only place from which you can create your own life - choosing Now instead of “No” is saying “Yes” to life, and to possibility (Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle).
Personal power and freedom come from knowing that your perception of things may or may not be completely true. The way you see and interpret things can be your prison or the doorway to lasting happiness. The thing is, we have a choice, and what unlocks the choice is awareness - awareness of what our thoughts and feelings are. If we know what our thoughts, beliefs and feelings are, we have a chance to choose different ones which serve us better.
Perception is a slippery concept, because it has no past or future. It lives, moves and changes in the present moment. This is also its greatest strength. If we assume that all we ever really have is the present moment, then this is where we create our reality. If I forget, or become unconscious for a few minutes or a year, the force of all the other perceptions and intentions and beliefs out there in the energy soup of the Universe will decide for me what my current reality will be. Nature hates a vacuum. If I choose nothing with my conscious awareness, then I’m likely to get whatever is nearby, especially if parts of myself resonate with that nearby energy, even if it’s unconscious. Have you ever gone into a room of people, feeling neutral and OK, only to find yourself growing anxious, depressed or irritable for no apparent reason? It could be that making no decision about your own state of being makes you more prone to “catching” whatever mood, perception or energy state is present. Staying “awake” and being consciously aware of what you are thinking, saying and feeling makes all the difference.
I believe this ability to choose and change our perceptions is our Divinity - the expression of God that lives in us. If you have ever thought about omnipotence, (being all-powerful) this is it! Instead of looking at this as a monumental task too big for ordinary mortals, look at every choice point as a clean slate, filled with endless, wonderful possibilities. Dismiss nothing! That new thought or hare-brained scheme just might be the Universe working through your uniqueness to give you just what you’ve always wanted.
Why not act as if I do have the power to be, change or do anything? If I normally act based on how I perceive things to be, based on what I think I understand, then why not try it the other way around? It could be that acting as if I am already enlightened, all loving, all forgiving, all joyful, all peaceful, all connected or whatever else I want, is going to produce a life with more of those things in it.
I recently had this tested in my own life. After having invested almost all of my retirement savings account into a real estate project, the company called to say that they had hired a con artist, who managed to get past the security measures, and took all of the money in my account. I wasn’t a big time investor; this was all I had. I was driving when I heard this, and I had to pull over. My legs felt like jelly, and my heart started to race. I had about one quarter of a second to choose my response. I stopped, took several deep breaths, and started looking for the gift in this. I knew that if I chose to look for such a gift, I would find it. As it turned out, not having this account made it impossible to move forward with buying a small business I was ready to sign papers for. Only a week later, I received information that it would have been a very bad decision to buy it after all, and without this “disaster,” I certainly would have.
So many times, what we see is what we want to see - whatever reinforces our core beliefs. I could have sat in the car and cried about being betrayed or victimized - both things I used to do, related to actual events in my past, but what good could that have done? The question is, do those core beliefs really serve us and support us in being who we say we want to be? Are those beliefs even true? Consider that our perceptions come from our own projections, the untended, unhealed parts of us. When we bring these things to light by monitoring our thoughts and feelings with non-judgmental awareness, we can become the authors of our own lives, one perception at a time.
So, I’m working on choosing my projections, my beliefs, my thoughts consciously, in the moment. I ask myself, “which way brings me closer to a life of joy and purpose?” If I choose for my own highest good, I am already choosing for the highest good of all, because we are not separate.
Choosing your perception with conscious awareness is the act of creating everything you experience. You are watching the birth of your own perceptions unfold in your life - the image and mirror of your inner world in every moment. When you choose to see the Universe as a field of infinite possibilities, it becomes that.
So how do you go from resisting your present circumstances, to being present to all the possibilities? Look for chances to “catch” yourself wanting things to be different than they are, and just start breathing. Focus your attention on your heart, and on being gentle with yourself. Let yourself have the feelings that come, but don’t let them take you over. It’s something like finding yourself in quicksand; the last thing you want to do is struggle because that will make you sink faster. Instead, become still, breathing and listening. From this still place, you will more easily see the best way to move through those difficult circumstances, and into a life of greater joy.
