The Power Of Perspective

The other day, when I was on my way home after having caught up with a friend, I decided to walk a different route home. This was a road that I hadn’t been down for years and I had only been along the road whilst in a car.

As I hadn’t been along this road for so long, I wasn’t completely sure that it would take me where I wanted to go but I kept going. Soon enough, the hedges to my left started to disappear and I was able to look out towards the town and the sea below me.

An Excellent Position

From my vantage point, I was able to just about see the whole town and it was a wonderful view. Just like being on a plane, from where I was, everything below me looked so small.

A number of the houses I was walking past were also very modern and looked incredible. My assumption was that some if not all of the owners of these houses designed these places themselves.

A Surprise

As I started to walk down a hill, I heard a dog bark and when I looked over; it was medium-sized and cream in colour and looked like a labradoodle. Before long, another one started barking; so they were both doing their job as guard dogs.

It was around this moment that I looked down and saw a road and I ended up wondering where I was. The road looked so small and I was sure that I hadn’t seen this road before.

A Big Difference

It then occurred to me that this was a road that I had both waked and run up and down on numerous occasions. But, when I’m on the road it is usually busy, and, especially when I’m going up it, it is tiring, and with a hill on one side and trees on the other, it is an all-encompassing experience.

So, being on the hill above the road provided me with a very different view of the road.  In a way, it was as though I had been a small human being at one point and now I was a giant.

A Shift

After a while, I started to think about how this experience had a big impact on me but I wasn’t fully aware of why this was. What entered my mind was that this is very similar to what it can be like when someone has a challenge and there seems to be no way to move beyond it.

Yet, once their perspective has changed and they are able to see what is going on differently, their mental and emotional state won’t be the same and they can feel liberated. They will then no longer feel weighed down and it will no longer be something that is consuming them – they will be out of the invisible prison they were in.

Two Reasons

When it comes to someone going from one view to another, it can be something that is the result of a change in their thinking. Or it could show that they have been working through emotional pain and this has led to a shift in their thinking.

Either way, what consumed their life at one point in time will now be something that they are on the outside of and above, which is why it is no longer perceived as something that is greater than they are. They will know that they are far more than the challenge that has appeared to be far more than they are for however long.

Final Thoughts

What this illustrates is that while a challenge can be seen as being insurmountable based on a perspective that someone has, it doesn’t mean that this is the absolute truth. It is simply seen as being that way by a mind or level of consciousness that is fixed and unable to see another possibility.

With this in mind, even if someone can’t see a way forward or out, they can, at the very least, contemplate that there is a way forward or out. And, sometimes, this can require them to surrender and trust in their own journey.  

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk