I believe as deeply as I believe anything that there is no Truth, only perspective. What I think is reality is only one possible interpretation of what is, what could be. I have vivid examples of how, over time, my opinion has changed. My memories are altered by how I and life change over time. Nothing is fixed, unalterable. The ability to revise, awaken, evolve, to change, is the glory of human consciousness, human spirit.
And yet over and over again I fall away from those beliefs and buy into the "reality" of whatever is in front of me. I hear the negative voices in my head as speaking the Truth. I censor my opportunities and then believe that censorship. When my mind says, why bother, or, what's the point, I think that's the truth so in fact why bother, there is no point.
Of course, we couldn't function if we didn't accept there are "really real realities" we live in and by. We need a certain clarity of vision that depends on fixed ideas and things. But that vision is only useful if it enables us to live more fully and productively. We need guideposts and landmarks to navigate the world.
But there is a world of perception that isn't useful or productive. That world is filled with every no I say to myself, every habit that defeats me before I begin, every negative story I tell myself about who I am and who I can be. This is the world that imprisons me and limits all that I am capable of doing.
I keep coming back to this idea - there is no Truth, only perspective - because I need to remind myself again and again that the negative world in my head isn't the true one, that my thoughts have no other reality but the reality I confer upon them, that there are limitless potentialities in me. When I remember this I feel the possibility of freedom, and though I have to keep reminding myself of it, it's there for me to find again and again.
Showing posts with label perspective. Show all posts
Showing posts with label perspective. Show all posts
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Monday, December 28, 2015
THE POSSIBILITY OF A NEW PERSPECTIVE
Years ago, my days were pretty much filled with nothing but anxiety. A terrible tension, as if it were 3 o'clock in the morning and I had to figure out everything by dawn or else some unknown phantom would take me out and shoot me. It didn't matter how I tried to calm or distract myself - fear of some undefined future, dread of the abyss I was certain was up ahead kept me in a paralysis of indecision -- how could I choose anything when that choice might be a fatal error, a mistake which would consign me to a lifetime of loneliness and failure?
Then one day I was talking to some friends and someone said, "One day at a time." Such a cliche, I thought, but for some reason the words stuck. \ I heard, really heard them, and with a jolt, my constant inner tension gave way to a new realization. If I actually saw my life as one day at a time, it meant I didn't have to be haunted by the failures and mistakes of the past, and I didn't have to live in dread of whatever was to come. I could focus on the present, a place where one action leads to another and then another. No choice could be fatal or final; it would only lead to a new set of circumstances out of which I would make new choices. Each action was part of a continuum, the slow unfolding of my life. An image of the abyss had been constantly in front of me, I thought it could engulf me and so I feared a fatal error, the possibility of complete destruction. But the sense of a continuum which was now opening out felt like solid ground, a path made up of events and accidents and the unforeseen and the wonderfully unexpected, all of it grist for the mill of my ongoing evolution. There was spaciousness in the unfolding, ample room for steady deep breaths.
On that day, I began to find a new perspective from which to view and understand my experience. The overarching image of the abyss began to give way to the image of the continuum unfolding day by day. I began to understand that the circumstances of my life might not change, but my view of those circumstances could be transformed.
It is this I keep coming back to: out of the miraculous consciousness our brains give rise to, we always have the possibility of a new perspective, a new idea
which can set us free.
Then one day I was talking to some friends and someone said, "One day at a time." Such a cliche, I thought, but for some reason the words stuck. \ I heard, really heard them, and with a jolt, my constant inner tension gave way to a new realization. If I actually saw my life as one day at a time, it meant I didn't have to be haunted by the failures and mistakes of the past, and I didn't have to live in dread of whatever was to come. I could focus on the present, a place where one action leads to another and then another. No choice could be fatal or final; it would only lead to a new set of circumstances out of which I would make new choices. Each action was part of a continuum, the slow unfolding of my life. An image of the abyss had been constantly in front of me, I thought it could engulf me and so I feared a fatal error, the possibility of complete destruction. But the sense of a continuum which was now opening out felt like solid ground, a path made up of events and accidents and the unforeseen and the wonderfully unexpected, all of it grist for the mill of my ongoing evolution. There was spaciousness in the unfolding, ample room for steady deep breaths.
On that day, I began to find a new perspective from which to view and understand my experience. The overarching image of the abyss began to give way to the image of the continuum unfolding day by day. I began to understand that the circumstances of my life might not change, but my view of those circumstances could be transformed.
It is this I keep coming back to: out of the miraculous consciousness our brains give rise to, we always have the possibility of a new perspective, a new idea
which can set us free.
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