The general Oxford definition of perspective is simply a point of view, a particular attitude toward or a way of regarding something. Our perspective on situations, people, conversations, etc comes from our lived experience, our sub-conscious and conscious mind, our beliefs, our thoughts, and our go-to energetic frequency. Perspective helps us understand situations from other’s positions, to consider other viewpoints and beliefs. It gives us a better understanding and greater empathy.
I was reading a book recently and was impressed when one of the main characters who had separated from her husband realized her new found perspectives. It started with a yoga class and changing her perspective so she could easily balance Tree pose. That change in perspective helped her to see that perhaps her living from a place of fear caused her to push her husband away. Perhaps changing her focus from fear to love, she could find a new way to live, new beliefs and thoughts. She changed her perspective and changed her reality.
Gaining perspective means moving from where you are, which is usually sitting in low energy and seeing most things in the negative, to a new higher frequency where you can begin to understand, see things from a broader place, focus more on the positive. This isn’t the same as positivity bypass. Positivity bypass is saying “things are fine,” when they are not. Positivity bypass is ignoring the disempowering emotions that you feel and suppressing them. That never works in the long run because suppressed emotions, which now are imprinted in your body at a cellular level, will show up in various ways. It will cause you to actually lose perspective because you will be in self-protective mode all of the time.
I was one who used positivity bypass a lot. I had to be strong. I couldn’t show that I was upset, angry, sad, feeling rejected, insecure, lonely. Those negative or disempowering emotions are important for us to know what we want and don’t want, how we feel with some people, some situations, etc. Staying in them and allowing them to become the emotions we spend most of our time in is when they don’t help us. When we sit in them a lot, when they have become a piece of our belief system, they effect our perspective.
To change perspective, we need to view things from a different vantage point. It could be from someone else’s vantage point, it could be researching other things or it can be as simple as raising our energy and seeing things from an empowering state of being.
Whenever I feel I need a different perspective on how I am seeing something or feeling something (reacting to someone else), I immediately ask myself how I can approach this situation from a place of compassion. That is my go-to as it allows me to think about others and myself from a place of love. I also tend to ask “what is the win-win?” Sometimes the win is to let go of that relationship. Sometimes it is to say thank you for helping me see a new pattern of behavior that I want to change. Sometimes it is to help someone see something they missed. Sometimes the win-win is I trust myself and make the decision.
Gaining perspective helps us move out of ourselves, it helps us to move out of our own way. Many times, the perspective, especially when we are in a disempowering emotional state, keeps us the same, keeps us in the shit. Keeps us rehashing the same thing. I have a former friend (it is a relationship that I finally figured out was not healthy or good for me) who would rehash the same crap about work every time I spoke with that person. Always complaining that they do a great job and are told they help the company so much yet other people who they see as yes people and that nobody trusts seem to get promoted. I had heard this argument for 4 years. The perspective for this person is low level energy, disempowering emotional states such as frustration, disappointment, irritation. The fact that they stay there and not change their perspective will only continue to eat away at them, keep them where they are and keep them from really becoming the leader and person they want to become.
Perspective is something we all have and we all can change by looking at things differently. By being open to other points of view and seeing things from others vantage point. Perspective helps us to change patterns of behavior, change our actions, change our results.
Perspective. Go high. Go to your most empowering emotions and see things from there. Go to compassion, love, gratitude, joy, happiness, inspired, confident, freedom, passion and view your perceived problem or situation from there. Your perspective may change and you may find you are no longer a prisoner of your mind.