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Jean A. Costa / Posts tagged "perception"
January 22, 2016 In Affirmations, Women

Claim Your Power, Choose Your Perceptions

Affirmation: I have the power to choose my perceptions of all the events of my life.

 

images-2We are presently into the third week of 2016. It’s the beginning of a whole new year. Many people have shared with me their goals or resolutions. One person when describing her expectation of the new year used the word “awesome!” Another told me she always gets excited at the beginning of a new year with all the possibilities that will be presented to her. Certainly we get to choose how we want to imagine our unknown future. I have one person in my life who says she doesn’t imagine the future at all. She simply allows it to unfold, there’s no expectation of any sort. Do you think that’s actually possible? She must be making plans for some things and she, I would imagine is planning for a good or at least a pleasant outcome. When we start out on an adventure, and yes a new year (even a new day) is the beginning of an adventure, we will normally carry in our minds and hearts some sense of anticipation. When the angels appeared to the shepherd to announce the beginning of Jesus’ life here on earth they heralded, “Be not afraid.” They were offering them a choice and guiding them to be at peace. Our response to what happens to us is in most respects what we get to choose. We may be anxious about the unknown but we can choose whether we want to be excited or filled with fear.

womens-retreat-1At this year’s Immaculate Conception women’s retreat I found myself pondering the question of how to hold the future events of my life in a positive, blessed light? I began by trying to believe that everything that will happen to me will be for my good and while that may be true, the real truth is there are some things that I would rather avoid, even if they are for my good. I guess it’s like not wanting to require medicine in order to get over some illness or even not having to eat Kale in order to stay healthy. When unpleasant things arise and someone shares with me that’s it’s probably for my benefit, I think of my husband Sandy’s expression when he says, “that’s like practicing bleeding.” It’s not anything with which anyone wants to deal. So, I began to go around asking people how they make peace with all the aspects of their lives, those we label “bad” or “disagreeable” or worst of all “disastrous.”

 

The Seekers, one of my study groups, usually does a year end review together and we present a few questions to help shape the vision of the future year. This year we have chosen several questions from Sarah Susanka, renown architect and author of The Not So Big House and The Not So Big Life. She actually sent out the questions to promote a workshop she was presenting in Chapel Hill. I share them here for your perusal:

 

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What has inspired you over the past year?

  • What were your sorrows and disappointments from the year, and how have you been changed by them?
  • What were your enthusiasms, accomplishments, creations and joys, and how have you been changed by them?
  • What new patterns of behavior have you adopted over the past year, and what effects have they had?
  • How are you different this year than you were last year at this time?
  • Are there any things you are being asked to do right now that you are rejecting?
  • What recent synchronicities do you recall?
  • To what part of yourself are you giving birth?
  • Specifically what is it that you wish to focus on or experience in the coming year?

Father Jude Siciliano was our retreat facilitator this year. He leads gently, not with commands but with a soft voice and reflective questions and readings. This year he opened the first session with Rumi’s The Guest House.

 

 

jude-1

images-3This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

What does it take to “welcome them all in?” Once I learn to do that will I have peace, will I no longer carry fear and anxiety with me into the unknown? If my faith is true and strong will I be protected and gently cared for and be spared the travails and disasters of life? If they do come is it because I wasn’t “good enough” or faithful enough? This was my question to all I met as I began this new year? I am pleased to share that I have found the answer or perhaps a better phrase would be that I have been blessed with an answer.

Unknown-1The answer, for me, is that life will happen no matter how strong or great my faith. Life will present challenges and disappointments no matter how many positive affirmations I create to try to avoid suffering. Pain is a part of our human existence and no one gets to go through life without it. Sometimes it’s in small things, like a festering splinter or a bad cold and sometimes it’s heart wrenching and debilitating. We all know what those events can look like. There’s a popular phrase used in the media right now, to paraphrase it it says, “stuff happens.” We may be able to welcome it all in, like Rumi suggests but it’s the challenge of a lifetime. What I have discovered is that after, yes after, not normally during, I will get to choose how I want to perceive the “stuff.” Will I see it for the blessing it can be, it may have brought, the lessons I may have received or will it remain nothing but continued pain and suffering? I began to make peace with who I am and how I have previously responded to the challenges of my life and I realized that with my faith, from all these years of practicing my faith, I have the free will to choose how I shape that experience, no matter how I labeled it at the moment of its conception. I am a strong, resourceful, loving person and I fully recognize that things will happen to me that will knock me down but I also believe that I have created the inner and outer resources to rise up again and to believe that I can,

“meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.”

So in answer to Sarah Susanka’s last question, for the following year I want to focus on the fact that I can choose to believe 2016 will be exciting because I know I get to choose my response to whatever happens to me and I choose “Awesome.” In fact, I’ve decided to choose “Awesome” for the rest of my life.

December 17, 2011 In Uncategorized

Perception

Affirmation:  I am the product of my genes and my thoughts and my thoughts influence my cellular structure.
Stephen Covey the author of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People tells a story about a man on a subway train with his children.  The children are out of control and most of the people on the train are looking very annoyed.  Have you ever ridden the subway?  Usually the only noise one hears is the train itself.  It can be a very meditative space.  Finally the man looks up and explains to the people in his immediate area that his wife has just died and he’s not sure what to do next.  No one was annoyed any longer. They shifted their perception.  But, couldn’t they have held a more compassionate response to the family without that information?  If they were going to judge couldn’t they have given him, the father, the benefit of the doubt in the beginning?

I play the fiddle.  I seldom claim to be a fiddler.  It’s the same with golf.  I usually say “I play golf.”  I have never said “I am a golfer.”  Can you hear the difference?  There are titles I claim for myself but fiddler and golfer are neither of them. 
This last week the message that has appeared has been about perception.  It’s appeared in many conversations and in several of my readings.  It’s been about how we perceive (judge) what others “do” or “don’t do” and how we relate their behavior to ourselves;  how we perceive ourselves through their behavior. 
I like people to be happy.  I like them to feel good.  I can sometimes try to orchestrate another’s feel good mood even if I don’t really know them very well.  And, I will normally remove myself from someone who is grouchy and complaining.  That’s not to say I am not compassionate and I have learned not to always comfort those in pain but to simply sit with them and allow them to experience their feelings.  But, on a daily basis I encourage smiles and warm hearts.  I find it quite easy to raise people’s spirits, a smile, a hug, a genuine warm welcome and usually people respond in a very positive manner.
But, what about those who do not respond?  Am I the reason?  Did I “do” or “not do” something?  Is everyone’s happiness my responsibility?  Sister Mary Margaret from a Place for Women to Gather in Raleigh, NC says “Happiness is an inside job.”  There is only one person’s happiness and sense of well being I am responsible for, me.  Sure, I’d like to believe I am all powerful and can influence the emotional state of all those in my life but I can’t and truth to tell whether they are happy or unhappy usually has very little, if anything to do with me.  It’s all about them.  And, then there’s all that stuff we make up in our minds about what people are thinking and there’s the rub.

My plan for playing my fiddle at my group’s very first performance was to occasionally fake fiddle.  I mean there were twelve of us.  Who other than my teacher could possibly tell if I missed a few notes or dropped out if I were totally lost?  Well, the two people who sat down only four feet from me were concert musicians.  I had recently been introduced to them and I was told the gentleman was a concert violinist and composer.  And, there they were directly in front of me!  I knew without a doubt that they could hear every wrong note I hit and I hit many many wrong notes. I knew what they were thinking.  I made up a whole store in my head and it wasn’t very affirming.  In fact, it was quite demoralizing.

No, I couldn’t stop and turn my thinking around.  There was just too much going on for me to calm myself.  But the day after the recital, I realized what I had done.  I had robbed myself of the joy of the moment by imagining the thoughts of two people I didn’t even know and even if they thought my fiddling to be substandard, why should I care?  I was with my friends, making music and playing for free for the benefit of others.  Oh, it’s not the first time I’ve compared my inside with someone else’s outside and every time it’s a devaluing experience.  But, each time I do it, I become more aware of the exercise and hopefully, recognize my behavior and let go of what I think they’re thinking and I let go of caring what the other person or persons are thinking.  “Happiness is an inside job” and I can choose for myself not to be reactive to my imagination.  Or, I can choose to imagine with compassion and kindness whether I’m imagining for myself or about others. 
Our life is our perception.  Choose carefully.  Be kind to yourself and to those around you.