Tag: Perception

What Do You See?

Even though we are all human beings, we see things differently. Each of us has a very different perspective. Our minds have been shaped differently due to genetics and life experiences. Even someone’s personality can play a role in what they take in from their surroundings.

You could put several people in a room and have them examine a picture or video and you would get many different views on what the image or video was about. We all come from many different walks of life and when presented with something we will tend to see it based on our past experiences.

Examine This Picture

Picture #1. What is your first reaction when seeing this photo? There may be a few ways that you are perceiving this image:

  • A man who has just gotten some terrible news
  • Someone who is hearing the most beautiful voice sing his favorite song
  • A gentleman who is watching a movie in awe
  • A person who has just told a secret that he was not supposed to tell
  • Someone who is grieving the loss of a loved one

As you can see there is a mix of both positive and negative perceptions. Several people can look at the picture above and give you a completely different answer.

Picture #2. Now, let’s examine this image. Instantly a few perceptions may come to mind:

  • A woman who is upset, but is trying to hide it
  • A lady who is enjoying the sights of nature
  • Someone who is waiting impatiently outside for her loved one
  • A lady who is lost in deep thinking
  • Someone who is content and has found a moment to relax

Isn’t It Interesting?

There are many ways to interpret what we see in this world and depending on who you ask, you will most likely get a wide variety of answers.

Another interesting thing worth noting is that sometimes our mood can affect what we see. If we are feeling down or pessimistic, we might be drawn to more negative realizations. When we are feeling happy, our conclusions may be more from a positive standpoint.

Communication

Everyone having different viewpoints is another reason why communication is so very important. We can all go through an event in life, and we will describe it differently. We have all had unique experiences that have shaped the way that we see the world.

Without proper communication, we may start to assume that we know about someone or something when in actuality it is far from what we perceive it to be. Looks are very deceiving and therefore we need to rely on communicating so that we can understand what the other is experiencing.

Mini Experiment

Just for fun, examine Picture #1 and Picture #2. What conclusions can you draw from each? Maybe some of you have thought of the perceptions that I mentioned and perhaps you have a very different approach to the meaning behind these pictures!

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Truly Love Yourself

I’ve always heard that you have to love yourself before you can truly love someone else. To be honest, I never really believed that until recently. I always thought that I have plenty of love to give, why couldn’t I possibly love someone completely without 100% loving myself first? I have started to realize why.

We are our own worst critics, possibly because we know ourselves as no one else does, also we know all of our faults and our past. I’m sure that many of you have been given a compliment from someone and you appreciated it so much, yet you didn’t believe it to be true. Maybe you were told that you are a good communicator, that you are attractive, smart, and funny. It was great to hear a sincere compliment from someone, but you didn’t feel it inside and that took some of the joy away from those wonderful words. We are putting distance between ourselves and those that we love when we don’t truly love and have confidence in ourselves.

The act of loving oneself is not saying that you love yourself and your qualities 100% of the time. We all have things that we do not like about ourselves, however, the art of loving yourself comes down to forgiving yourself, being at peace with your past, having confidence in who you are and what you stand for, and truly being able to look in the mirror and tell yourself that you are proud and happy of who you have become.

When we love ourselves wholly, it opens up a brand new world for us to find, we are then able to sincerely love someone else as we can finally share pieces of ourselves that we may have hidden before accepting ourselves.
For those of you that love yourself unconditionally, I am very proud of you for reaching this level of confidence and peace. For those of you that have yet to reach this, I have faith that you will get there and I understand because I have been in your place, sometimes I still find myself there, but I can bring myself back.

The biggest step that I feel has been the most helpful in my life is negating every destructive thought with something positive, or at the very least, neutral. For example, if you are working on a challenging project at work and you are ready to give up, instead of telling yourself “I can’t do this, I am always a failure,” negate that thought to tell yourself that you acknowledge that the project is difficult, but you are trying your best and giving it your all. If you feel that you are not good at relationships you might feel that it’s all your fault and that no one loves you. Instead of this approach, negate that thought to tell yourself that you will work hard on communicating your feelings and that sometimes people are not always compatible.

Start working on all aspects of yourself until you are happy and can confidently say that you love yourself. Once you have mastered loving yourself, the whole world opens up to you and it is then that you will truly be ready to love someone else with your entire heart and soul. Get out a journal, or a piece of paper and write down all of the things that you love about yourself and the things that you are grateful for, you will find out what a mood booster this is!

A Thing Called Life

Life…a little word with such big meaning and importance. We are all human and on a journey very different, yet in many ways similar to each other. We wake up every day with a goal, responsibilities, working on personal growth, and we all walk this earth with challenges.

There are different walks of life everywhere you turn. There are people who have struggled a lot in life and those that have not known what it’s like, there are those that look at the glass half-full, while others see it half-empty, there are people who will continue to go down the same path and those who work hard every single day to strive to reach their goals.

For me, I have known many challenges in life, but I also am extremely fortunate and blessed. I try to look at my challenges and struggles as ways that are making me stronger and making me a better person. Struggles give you a goal to work towards, they give you motivation to do your best and to want to change. Personally, I see life as a big lesson, something that will help our soul grow, life is the biggest test with an ultimate reward.

No one’s life is truly easy, we all deal with many struggles, it’s a part of being human. We learn every day and we try our best. Although we cannot change our circumstances, mentally we can change so much. We can choose to look at our roadblocks as motivation instead of failure, we can choose to look at our struggles as defining our strengths instead of showcasing our weaknesses, we can choose to see life as the beautiful and precious gift that it is. You are on this earth for a reason, keep shining!

Center Stage

Do you ever feel like the whole world has its eyes on you, watching your every move, decisions, and mistakes?  Well, to put it simply, most of the time they don’t.  We are the center of our lives and we are so in tune with ourselves and what is happening to us that we feel like the whole world is just as in tuned to us as we are.  The truth is, everyone is involved in their own lives and is not focusing, or watching us as closely as we perceive them to be.

There is no one that knows us better than ourselves, we know ourselves very deeply.  We know all of our needs, fears, desires, we have lived through all of our past experiences and that has molded us to create beliefs about ourselves, beliefs that we feel other people have about us also. In reality, other people do not see us how we see ourselves, they do not know us on the same deep level.

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How many times were you surprised by the response of others, where you thought they were thinking one way, but it turns out that it was the opposite?  For example, you have just finished giving a presentation at work, you feel like you blew it, like it was a failure, you think of all of the things that you forgot to say, yet when it’s over, you get amazing feedback from your coworkers.  Think of when you got a haircut that you didn’t like, or a minor imperfection that you have that you feel like the whole world notices, think of how many times you have brought those minor imperfections up to people and they respond by saying “Oh, I didn’t even notice until you said something!”  All of these examples show that we are entirely more focused on ourselves than other people are.  

In the world of psychology, there is a concept known as The Spotlight Effect, it basically states that we feel like we are being watched and observed far more than is actually happening.  I know that as a teenager I felt like I was always in the spotlight, always being observed and judged, but so did others of my age.  I still feel this way sometimes now as an adult, but I am so much more relaxed and I try to live life for me and not worry what others are thinking or saying about me.

I hope that this post has helped you in some way and that it reminds you to live your own life freely, be 100% you, and do what you love.  You are at the center stage of your own life and your audience couldn’t see you in a more brighter light!

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