Mindful Hack #61

I find a lot of the work I do with my clients (and for myself, but perhaps not enough), is about perspective. We live in our own minds, experience the world through our senses and interpret what’s going on based on our past experiences and current mood. When you think about all the different variables that go into perception, the associated thought-processes and subsequent feelings we have about what’s going, it would be nearly impossible for two people to experience things in the same way.

So what does that mean? Well the implications of all that are huge, but what inspired this week’s hack is really about taking things personally. I think it’s safe to say that we very often take things far too personally. We interpret someone else’s differing opinion or behaviour as a direct (or maybe indirect) attack on us. Why? The way they see the world is about them and their experience of it – what has that got to do with us? And yet we will often take offense or believe there’s a fundamental disconnection if we’re not seeing eye to eye.

A couple of days ago I posted a quote by Anaïs Nin: We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are. She could have gone on to say that others aren’t seeing the world as it is, either, but as they are. I really believe that if we could remember this more often, we would be able to catch ourselves when we took quick (or even slow) offense to something. Because after all, taking something personally makes it about us. And very rarely is it about us. Perhaps if we could remember that, we could even take it one step further and get curious about the other’s point of view and how they might be experiencing the world. But one mindful hack at a time 😊