How do you perceive reality?

Rock Abstract, Kalbarri National Park, Western Australia – What do you see?[/caption]

If we give this question our attention, it can help us all to understand ourselves better and to improve the way we see the world and respond. It is a question that fascinates me, because we know that reality is unique for each of us. As individuals, we record our perceptions, our internal representations, and our interpretation of reality, differently.

Let me explain. We know we integrate reality through our 5 senses: seeing; hearing; smelling; tasting; touching. These are our internal representations which create our personal, physical states, so we say things like “I feel happy / warm / hungry / sad / angry/ tired” etc.

These states create our behaviour, which in turn create our actions and thus our results. For example, “the sun is shining and it’s warm. I can feel the warmth and see the sun, which makes me happy. I am smiling and feeling open, generous and generally on top form. I feel as if I could cope with anything that comes my way, and so I respond positively to the world around me”.

Now to add this, the experts tell us that we are exposed to at least 2 million bites of unconscious information everyday and that we can only take in 134. So, what we do is to filter all these bites through 3 internal filters; delete, distract, or generalise.

We also have objective filters of time, space, matter and energy; and subjective filters which are our values, beliefs, attitudes and cultural backgrounds. These are sometimes known as our meta data and these create our preferences, such as: I like tall men; colourful flowers; people like me etc.

So to add all this up, a camera takes in facts and records them, while we in contrast, subjectively record our perceptions and internal representations, and we interrupt these into our personal reality. Which is why reality is not the same for all of us. And, if we raise our self-awareness and understand ourselves better, we will be clearer about our own reality and how we can create an improved reality.

So, if things in your life are not going the way you want them to,  you can change it. Your can alter your state, your behaviour, your actions and thus your results.

To reflect this concept I want to share with you this wonderfully profound quote from Dr Seuss who taught us so much.

“You have BRAINS in your HEAD

You have FEET in your SHOES.

You can STEER yourself any

DIRECTION you CHOOSE.”

If you would like some help to understand how to do this for yourself and to make improvements in your life, please call or email me and I can introduce you to the powerful and positive benefits of Personal Coaching.