Perception

It’s been awhile, but here I am back to share more insights and reflections. Like the weather, hot and intense, so my life seems to have been for the last few weeks.

But, then again, perhaps this is just a perception, which is defined as the way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted “definition from Oxford language dictionary. A friend said one day when he came round and I started to talk to him at nineteen to the dozen, “Woah, slow, down.” He made me realise how much I need to work on my natural tendency to perceive my life as hot and intense, making me want to go faster than time itself. As the saying goes, that results in more haste but less speed. (My naturally calm and collected friend has been a beneficial influence on me.)

Analysing further, my haste probably comes from a sense of lack, so I try to cram the most possible into the day, sometimes leaving me exhausted and doing things that make me lose time.

This was the case when I came back very late from tango last night and believed I had lost my phone, maybe left it at the place where I went dancing. I lost half an hour writing to the person who’d given me a lift and to the people where we went to dance the tango. Also, despite efforts to calm myself down because it didn’t seem logical to have lost the phone, I had a restless night. Finally, this morning I was woken up by the ping of my telephone and found it on a chair with something placed on top of it.

These are very ordinary events in the everyday routine of one’s life, but it’s important to be aware of them because they reveal the way we function, always trying to move away from pain the example being me trying to eliminate what bothers me. But our methods are not always what we need in order to do so.

As I’ve often said, when patterns show up we need to recognize that they are there to show us the way to a better and calmer way of handling things.

To break patterns and habits we first have to be aware that they’re part of our life. Then we must realise how to break them.

I, for example, need to believe that negative thoughts of how I have a tendency to lose things might be controlled better by giving myself the time to do each thing correctly and with the time it deserves. Like putting things away carefully as I noticed my friend does.Then all that precious time I lose looking for things and the stress it causes will disappear!

It really is a question of being here now, in the moment, present, concentrated on the task at hand and not getting ahead of yourself.

You may remember my post “Thought about Thoughts.” Here’s a little reminder:

Someone somewhere has gone to a lot of trouble to examine the number of thoughts we have a day, and the conclusion is that we have at least 60,000 thoughts daily, but what I find more interesting is that, according to Wayne Dyer in his book Excuses Begone, almost 50,950 of those thoughts are disadvantageous for us. Think about it! That only leaves 50 thoughts moving us forward in a positive way.

First of all, we must examine our thoughts. For instance, somewhere deep down I’ve labelled myself as distracted. So, without beating myself up about it and without accepting it, how about better labels, like creative … and organised. Then I can put those labels into practice. Finally, one must just be aware that one can have lapses, but ultimately less and less.

To conclude, remember the famous phrase of Descartes, “I think, therefore I am.” Well, let’s take that a step further: be careful what you think because what you think becomes your reality.

Take a look at this poem “ Pretty Ugly” by Abdullah Shoaib an Asian poet, keeping in mind that perception is everything:

I’m very ugly

So don’t try to convince me that

I’m a very beautiful person

Because at the end of the day

I hate myself in every single way

And I’m not going to lie to myself by saying

There is beauty inside of me that matters

So rest assured I will remind myself

That I am a worthless, terrible person

And nothing you say will make me believe

I still deserve love

Because no matter what

I am not good enough to be loved

And I am in no position to believe that

Beauty does exist within me

Because whenever I look in the mirror I always think

Am I as ugly as people say?

(Now read bottom up)

So, wonderful beautiful reader, may you have a day that a beautiful person deserves!

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