How You See

June 28, 2024 by

Humor me and look at this picture. What do you see? What is it? What could it be?

When a friend and I first saw this earring, it looked like a tiny figure with big ears.
Or maybe, I thought, a ceremonial figure with a headdress on.
“Odd choice for an earring,“ we thought.

Then, I turned it.

Suddenly, it looked like a rabbit. We laughed.
Which is right? Maybe either. Maybe neither.

What you think is dependent on your sensory input and experience. What you see depends on how and from where you’re viewing it. Your thoughts are limited by your perspective. It is not the whole truth. If we could remember this maybe we could stay curious.

And maybe we might learn something.

Filed Under: Perception, We are creators Tagged With: ,

Not Feeling “Christmassy”

December 16, 2023 by

If you find yourself in this familiar time of year, but are seeing and experiencing it with what feel like unfamiliar eyes, may your vision be sharpened to take in what you missed during all those years you saw what you expected to see and felt what you expected to feel. May you experience the unfamiliar as an unfolding and not as an undoing. And may you not take any of it, or yourself, even a tiny bit more seriously than absolutely necessary.
Nadia Bolz-Weber Dec. 16, 2023

I’m not feeling “Christmassy”. I don’t know why. I find myself trying to come up with a story, even though I know stories are just that. I’ve driven around looking at Christmas lights because that always brings me up…only it doesn’t.

My mind is in overdrive.

How do I let go of everything trying to get my attention? Wars, disasters, pleas for money, friends who are sick, endings… Everything is changing. Is it really unfolding?

I don’t know. So maybe I’ll just exhale and believe what my T-Shirt says:

Filed Under: Life, Perception, We are creators Tagged With: ,

Beliefs

May 17, 2019 by

Beliefs about the world,
God and ourselves
Shaping our lives
coloring our perceptions
determining our experience

Some beliefs known
others lying hidden
in cellular memory
to be unraveled
like a Gordian Knot

Slowly cutting the string
they’re brought to light
where in consciousness,
examined, we can decide
Is it true?

I’ve been in touch with the power of our beliefs for some time. Beliefs influence our perception, both what what we see and how we see it. And, as a result, beliefs determine our experience of things.

I’ve known my belief “themes”, for lack of a better word, for some time. Mainly “I’m not good enough” and “I can’t play with the ‘big guys’.” I’ve learned with help to see the consequences of such beliefs, e.g., self-sabotage, self doubt…. But I never felt a real shift.

Recently, in my work with visioning and meditation (translation, a form of prayer and listening to the small voice within), I received the core of what’s been driving me: “I was rejected by family, God, it was a done deal, there’s no use trying.”
Note: My family would be horrified to know what conclusions I came to as a very young girl. I’ve long sense done the work of understanding and forgiving those involved. Still, the belief was operating out of sight in my cellular memory. It’s what unrecognized beliefs do.

So, when this belief came to me and resonated so deeply, I knew it was what’s been driving me. With the consciousness I hold now, I could see it is not true and never was. I feel lighter. It has lost its power over me.

We all have stories. We all have hidden beliefs. I want to testify that we can be free of them. Be free to love more fully ourselves and others. And so it is.

Filed Under: Choice, Perception, We are creators

And that bird is….oh, just a robin.

March 1, 2017 by

 

 

“Maybe it doesn’t want to be identified.”
    from The New Yorker Jan. 9, 2017

 

 

Maybe, just maybe, “it” doesn’t want to be identified because once it is, people stop paying attention.
“Oh, just a robin.”

We all yearn to be seen and understood. Yet too often, once we “identify” someone or something as being a certain way, we stop paying attention. We never really see them again, blind to who they are now. We see what we expect to see. We stop being curious.

True, we come by labeling legitimately. Identifying things and making distinctions have been key to surviving: knowing a poisonous mushroom from a morel ; a copperhead from a harmless garter snake, a stranger from a member of your tribe.   It’s how primitive man (and woman) lived long enough to discover the world. An unidentified difference equaled a perceived threat until someone, brave enough, curious enough, got to know it.

Practically, the ability to identify something also means we don’t have to think about everything all the time. “I know [fill in the blank]. It’s OK.”   It’s the practical side of stereotyping.  You don’t have to start from scratch. You draw on your experience, cultural norms, what you’ve been taught. You can build up a “that is safe” pile. But then, by default, you also have a “that is dangerous” pile you tend to fear.

So what’s the downside?  Our preconceived notions limit our experience of the world, as well as our experience of people.

When labels or how we identify something becomes the primary mode of interacting, we stop experiencing life. You see what you remember as being there, what you think should be there: the uniqueness and diversity within groups is missed, change unnoticed, exceptions dismissed if seen at all.

So yes, “that’s a robin.”  But maybe it doesn’t want to be identified, categorized, put in a box.

Try getting curious.  Let yourself be surprised. Notice, what’s different about this robin.

In relationship you experience life!

Filed Under: Life, Love, Perception, We are creators Tagged With: , , ,

What does he see?

February 25, 2016 by

I’m waiting to leave for cataract surgery, left eye, scheduled for 11:40 am. The eyes are sensitive. Those of us who have not had to adapt to blindness, rely on our visual cues to assess what is going on around us. We look at faces to discern what is being communicated, for movement for signs of danger, at sunsets for just shear beauty. pic-eye-anatomy
So I sit waiting, and remember what I wrote when I first found out about the cataract last October.  Post eye drops, I was sitting in the chair waiting for the ophthalmologist:

The Eye Doctor

Waiting, dilating, I wonder,
“What does he see?”

Is the the eye a window
to the soul?
Is mine covered
by a gossamer curtain?

Deceived by magic and illusion
Blinded by hopes and fears

We can be so sure, but
not necessarily so right.
We don’t see the same colors, yet
argue as if we see the same world.

The soul’s eyes do they
bypass the curtains of deception?

Still dilating,wise_owl_with_big_eyes I sit waiting—
wanting some great insight,
at least some better eye sight—

and I wonder,
“What does he see?”

2015
besliter

Filed Under: Life, Perception

Luck or ?

March 17, 2014 by

Saturday afternoon I was driving with my husband, just knocking around, seeing what we could see. We decided to take back roads and drive north as much as possible. A GPS is a great tool for this sort of meandering road trip. We Lucky Dicewere enjoying the 60 degree day and the sun which had been absent far too many days this winter. So we drove, feeling the sun’s warmth, looking at houses, trees, small towns. I was happy and thought to myself, “How lucky I am!”

As soon as the thought registered I noticed a certain unease. “I’m lucky now but this could go away. Lucky could become unlucky.” It was subtle but luck suggested that what I do doesn’t matter. That a roll of the dice determines outcomes. It was “just luck.” Really?

I decided to shift to “I’m grateful: grateful for my husband, the warm sun, the car with a sun roof, the ability to take off and drive for the sheer fun of it.”  This felt totally different. Appreciating what I had in the moment made it richer. I felt richer. I was richer.

How we think matters. To think of ourselves as “just lucky,” is to discount the power Soaring-Eagle-1-300x182of our own imaginings, our thoughts, intellect and choices. These are the tools we’re born with to co-create our lives on earth. How we think about something actually changes our experience of it. Words matter. Would you rather be lucky or grateful?

We are co-creators, learning to live more skillfully.

Filed Under: Choice, Perception, We are creators Tagged With: ,

If you are the environment you live in…

February 15, 2013 by

I like Peter Diamandis’s comment “you are the environment in which you live. ”  Creating works best when we focus on what we want. Negative programing shifts our focus to what we don’t want, fostering fear, worry, and negative thinking. I thought Peter’s study of Times Magazine covers was telling as well.

Filed Under: Heart's wisdom, Perception Tagged With: , , ,

Changing one word…

October 15, 2012 by

What if you could change one word and shift what happens next?  One word that creates new possibilities as you expand vs. contract your thinking?

Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, had been a professional stand up comedian who did improvisation. Improvisation requires you find ways to use whatever the audience throws at you. You need to be able build on what has been introduced.

Mr. Costolo carried what he learned doing improvisation into his job at Twitter, “running a company of 1,300 employees.” He uses a basic improv principle, one essential for keeping the improv going.

While seemingly simple, it is actually quite profound.

“He rarely uses the word ‘but.’ Instead, he says ‘Yes and…’ –an improv principle that allows people to discuss something without disagreeing.”

It allows the actors to think about and use what was just said; building on it or not, but not discarding it.

In improv, this can lead to some pretty funny scenarios. In life it just might get us to expand our thinking instead of contracting around our point of view.

Yes and…?

Filed Under: Creating with others, Perception Tagged With: , , , ,

In the shelter of a tree…

September 3, 2012 by

We take for granted the benefit nature bestows on us. Six months after a tornado hit Moscow, Ohio, one woman remembers:

She “used to be able to walk from her home for five blocks down toward the river and be under trees nearly the whole time. Not anymore… now she knows why she has always loved Moscow’s trees … There is the shade, of course. But now she says the wind feels different. It is harder when it sweeps up from the river. And she can hear the barges that carry coal to the William H. Zimmer Power Station on the north edge of town.”*

So here’s to greater appreciation of those everyday things, like the trees we take for granted or get annoyed at when they shed leaves or nuts: the “things” we will truly miss when they are gone.

*The Enquirer, Sunday, Sept. 2, 2012 p. B6.

Filed Under: Perception, We are creators Tagged With: , , ,

Lessons of a Creator: #4

August 22, 2012 by

Our thinking minds are heavily influenced by what we’ve been taught, our beliefs about how things work, and our assumptions about people. These, too often, lead to worry, judgment, and fears that distort what we think is happening, and limit what we think is possible.

As a creator, I learned I had to go beyond what my “head” can do for me. That led me to lesson #5…

Filed Under: Fear or Courage, Perception, We are creators Tagged With: , , ,