Perspective

I use the app Headspace for my daily meditations. Todays meditation was all about perspective. Some days we may experience a situation one way. On another day, we may experience the same situation completely differently.

This proves the mind has a lot of control over how we experience the world. Meditation gives us the awareness of our current perspective which is important because it’s difficult to have the best perspective in each situation.

After years of training our brain, through our beliefs and upbringing, to act a certain way, we won’t always respond in the most desirable way the first time. However, practicing meditation makes it easier to recognize what we’re experiencing in the moment and how we’re using that stimulus to respond externally in the world.

Dr. Viktor Frankl, Austrian Psychologist and holocaust survivor, wrote in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Meditation allows us to see the stimulus and thus gives us the space. I believe that the more we meditate the wider that space becomes.

With the recognition of this space, we then gain the power of control over ourselves to choose a response that will lead to our growth and freedom.

I have struggled a lot with perspective in my life. My environment and upbringing was shaped by fear, insecurity, and low self-esteem. It took me years to figure out that I wasn’t captive to this environment. College was the first time I was in a new enough environment to truly explore what was possible and develop a new perspective. This is also when I discovered meditation.

Meditation helped me slow down and realize what thoughts were going through my head. After a few years of doing this, I began to recognize there was a space. With this space, I realized my thoughts didn’t define who I was and that I can change them. Only now, 8 years later, do I believe I have done enough work where my thoughts are beginning to be more positive from the outset.

I’m not perfect. I find myself slipping back into my old ways quite often, but I am a believer in Viktor Frankls quote and of meditation because of how drastically it has shifted my own life.

Perspective is a beautiful thing if we realize its power. It’s sad to see others, especially those I love, waste their days choosing a victim mentality and a poor perspective on life. There are so many things we can’t change in life, but as the stoics say, our minds are the only thing that are truly ours. They are the only thing that other people can’t access, unless we let them. We’re not stuck with any mindset. It is something we can change.

I’ll admit, this is not easy, and it’s not quick, but if you are inspired to live a better life and grow, it’s at least simple and it requires no money and no special equipment. I feel that the older I get and the more I learn, the more I realize that the best things in life are things just like these. They’re free, but they challenge us in different ways, and if we are patient and devote the time, they will have the largest impact on our lives over the long run.