"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
The times in your life that turn your world upside down are there to serve you.
That’s right. Read it again if you must.
Difficult times force you to see your world, your life and yourself, from a new perspective.
Use them to your advantage!
Covid, the pandemic, and the ensuing chaos continue to change and challenge our world, both individually and collectively.
Perhaps our world needed changing. Perhaps we needed changing.
Wayne Dyer was a personal hero of mine. My very first teacher on a 30 year spiritual path who taught me how shifting our perspective, the way we look at things – at life, at our circumstances, at our relationships, anything at all but, most of all, at ourselves – changes everything.
Science backs this up. The well known particle and observer experiment shows us the impact an observer has on the outcome or behavior of the particles being viewed.
We spend so much of our lives trying to control things – mostly things outside of us – things completely outside of our control. Then, one day, we wake up to realize the power we had to change everything was inside of us all along.
The pandemic brought us to a collective halt. The universe hit the emergency brake. We were blinking red.
Looking back, it feels as if, most of us, were like George Jetson, trapped on the proverbial treadmill of life going faster and faster, until life is out of control. Until, we are out of control, begging for someone to “stop this crazy thing.”
Lyme Disease was like that for me. My life, the crazy out of control treadmill I was on, was stopped in an instant. I was forced to pause, to become the observer of my life.
I didn’t like what I saw.
Now, I do.
What changed?
My perspective, beginning with how I saw myself.
I also realized that I was not simply an observer. I was a creator with the power to change my perspective.
I believe that’s why meditation is so powerful. Any time we spend time being the witness, the observer of ourselves and our lives, we have the power to shift ourselves and the direction of our lives.
When I began to change the way I looked at things – the way I looked at myself – with love, compassion, empathy and forgiveness rather than judgment and negativity – everything began to change.
Doors began to open that were closed.
Relationships fell away paving the way for newer, healthier relationships.
Opportunities began to show up …
Because I began to show up.
Life isn’t easy. I don’t believe it’s meant to be. The very friction, obstacles, challenges, pain, and struggles are the exact things that force us to change – to turn our worlds upside down so that we can begin to see and experience our lives from a beautiful new vantage point.