Heaven or Hell? 😇 👿
Our perspective creates our experience
Ever find it curious that two people can have the exact same experience, but completely different perspectives on what happened? One person could experience traffic as a huge inconvenience; another might experience it as an opportunity to spend time alone thinking. This is because each of us has different lenses through which we see and experience the world.
We’re each the product of our own belief system. If you’ve spent your life looking at the world through glasses that view the world as dangerous, you experience a life of difficulty. If you’ve spent your life looking at the world through glasses that perceive the world as full of opportunity, you experience a life of more ease.
In Paradise Lost, John Milton writes, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” Essentially, Milton is saying that our perception creates our reality.
One person could be on a beach in Hawaii and still have a miserable time because they see only the negative aspects of their surroundings. While another person could be in a concentration camp and experience a sense of purpose and fulfillment. This is what psychiatrist Viktor Frankl describes in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning.
A holocaust survivor, Frankl observed, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
It’s impossible to imagine a more horrendous experience than a Nazi concentration camp. How could anyone have a positive attitude in such circumstances? But Frankl believed that we get to choose our attitude even when we experience hell. We can literally turn a hellish experience into a heavenly one if we change ourselves and our perspective.
This week, consider a challenging situation you’re currently facing. How could you shift your perspective and turn it into an opportunity? List at least 2-3 positives about the situation. For the next 24 hours, every time your mind goes to your perceived negatives about the situation, shift to thinking about the opportunities.
How does that mental shift make you feel? More optimistic? Calmer? More determined? Note how you feel and how your perception can change the entire experience and outcome of the situation. You can begin viewing the world from a much more conscious perspective. And by shifting to higher consciousness thoughts, you can change the world around you.
“Change your thoughts, change your life.” – Dr Wayne Dyer
Work happy. Live happy. BE happy.
Meredith
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The way we work and build teams is rapidly changing. Leaders often feel unprepared to navigate the transition. As a conscious leadership coach, consultant and communicator, Meredith helps leaders and their teams create new ways of working and relating so they can prepare for the future by consciously co-creating it.
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