Perception Shift

Day Shift: Reminders on the Road

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to
patient attention than to any other talent.
Isaac Newton

I have been travelling for a few weeks and as usual, I have been learning
many lessons on the road - some of them have been reminders of those
learnt but forgotten. We can't always see life's gifts, even if they're
hiding in plain sight. The patience, the trust, the spiritual relaxation
that make these gifts visible can elude us. We then end up focusing on
what is missing, not realizing or appreciating what we have.

Here's a conversation overheard late one night in my hotel lobby - a phone
call to the night manager from a couple who had just checked in.
Apparently the caller was very upset with the view from their condo. They
didn't have the ocean view they had requested.

The manager tried to calm him down, reassuring him that they had been
given the best ocean view possible and urging him to at least spend a
night in the suite. But the caller wanted to move to another unit right
away.

Sighing, the manager replied: Sir, I agree you can't see anything now. But
it is night and the ocean is very dark at night. In the morning you will
see that the ocean is right before your window!

We don't always have the full picture. And, we may be missing the patience
needed to let things unfold. We forget to remain curious. Sometimes a good
night's sleep is all we need to see things differently - to shift our
perception.

Filed under // patience perception trust

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Day Shift: The Positive Possibilities

A friend shared a touching story with me the other day. Her niece and nephew were supposed to have been picked up by their mother to spend the week-end. Instead she never showed up but called latter to say she'd pick them up the next day. The little girl cried as she missed her mom who had frequently cancelled visits. Family and friends were gathered that afternoon for an impromptu party but the seven year old girl couldn't seem to break out of the disappointment she was feeling.

Her twelve year old brother told my friend that he took his sister aside and told her he knew she was sad but that there were many fun things happening and he wanted her to think about them. He got her to tell him what the fun things were and made her promise to think about them.

And his sister stopped crying and was able to enjoy herself. I felt humbled hearing this story...such wisdom in the young children. Don't we all need reminders to appreciate what we have instead of dwelling on what is missing? The words of Ralph Marston are also reminders:

Frustration comes from focusing on what you cannot control. Achievement, on the other hand, comes from focusing on all the useful and valuable things you can do. Resentment comes from seeing yourself as a victim. Effectiveness comes from stepping up and taking responsibility. If you constantly complain that life is unfair, you'll blind yourself to the best opportunities. Yet by simply accepting that what's done is done, you'll find a way to make the most of it.

Don't waste your time fighting with life. Instead, invest your time and resources in inspiring and encouraging the best in yourself and in those around you. There is good, positive, fulfilling value to be lived every day, in any situation. Choose to be the person who shines a light on that potential value and who brings that value to life. Let go of the frustration, resentment and despair by letting the positive possibilities fill your awareness. Embrace and enjoy the immense power that comes from taking full, unconditional responsibility for all you are and all you experience.

Filed under // attitude gratitude loss perception

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Day Shift: Begin Now!

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.
Goethe

Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong.
Ella Fitzgerald

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
Albert Einstein

I'd like to close out this year and welcome in the new one with a list of a few of those who have impressed and inspired me for years - my list of notable failures!

I love collecting stories about people who have been dismissed and rejected as failures by those in the know. And these 'failures' went on to change the world as we know it. They remind us all to dream our dreams and follow through on those closest to our hearts:

Thomas Edison (inventor): My teachers say I'm addled...my father thought I was stupid, and I almost decided I must be a dunce.

Danny Glover (actor): Kids made fun of me because I was dark skinned, had a wide nose, and was dyslexic. Even as an actor, it took me a long time to realize why words and letters got jumbled in my mind and came out differently.

Albert Einstein (physicist): His son Hans Albert Einstein shared a conversation he had with his dad..."He told me that his teachers reported that...he was mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in his foolish dreams."

Harry Belafonte (entertainer): I grew up in a school system...where nobody understood the meaning of learning disorder. In the West Indies, I was constantly being physically abused because the whipping of students was permitted.

Agatha Christie (writer): I, myself, was always recognized...as the 'slow one' in the family. It was quite true, and I knew it and accepted it. Writing and spelling were always terribly difficult for me. My letters were without originality. I was...an extraordinarily bad speller and have remained so until this day.

Sir Winston Churchill (British politician): I was, on the whole, considerably discouraged by my school days. It was not pleasant to feel oneself so completely outclassed and left behind at the beginning of the race.

Oprah Winfrey (talk show host): When she first approached a producer with her dream of being a talk show host, he told her she didn't have the right looks... "Your eyes are too far apart, your nose is too wide, your chin is too long, and you need to do something about it."

These are just a few notable ones and there are many, many more. I would love to hear about your list.

Over the years ordinary people have shared their success stories with me. They have told me about insensitive teachers, parents, and others who had told them they would be failures in life - those critics were wrong!

Your 2012 invitation is to find a dream, big or small, that can move you to take action now!

Filed under // failure perception perseverance success

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Day Shift: The Alarm Clock Test

The secret of success in life, and subsequently of making money, is to enjoy your work. If you do, nothing is hard work - no matter how many hours you put in.
Billy Butlin

Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong.
Ella Fitzgerald

Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.
Hardy D. Jackson

I was the guest speaker at a conference for a group of Obstetrics &
Gynecology residents recently and sat beside the organizer for lunch. Not only was he their professor but he also had a thriving private practice. He spoke about his love for his private practice and added that his work definitely passed the alarm clock test.

We wanted to know more about this test and he explained that when he was in medical school, he didn't like any of the areas he studied. He became very discouraged and questioned the wisdom of devoting so much time and money getting ready for a career that didn't feel rewarding. No matter what time the alarm clock went off, he was miserable getting up.

And then he discovered Obstetrics. He remembered the alarm clock going off and he bounded out of bed, excited because he had to be at the hospital to deliver triplets. He was in love. Many years later, the love was still there. He added that a major part of enjoying life was doing work that could pass that test.

We've read books that encourage us to do what we love and the money will follow or that point out that if we love what we're doing, we'll never have to work. And our wealth is not all about money. I have a friend who retired many years ago and thanks to her passion for volunteer work and her writing, her life is rich with meaning.

I remember a friend telling me that she wished she had gone into a profession that paid more money. How much is enough? Thanks to research in fields like economics, psychology, and sociology, we know that our sense of having enough has more to do with what others have than what we actually have.

Life's meaning isn't measured by how much stuff we've managed to accumulate or how much better off we are than the Joneses. If we must measure, I like the simplicity of the alarm clock test.

Filed under // love money perception self-care wealth

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Day Shift: Self-care Begins with Us

Enjoy life - there are no reruns.
Shirl Lowery

There's no better way to energize your body, mind and spirit than by taking care of yourself.
Stephanie Tourles

The name of the game is taking care of yourself, because you're going to live long enough to wish you had.
Grace Mirabella

Recently I was the keynote speaker at a conference held at a popular resort and spa. Afterwards one of the employees asked if it was my first visit. I confessed that I had visited the spa many times to pick up gift certificates I had purchased for friends but I had never been a guest. He laughed, saying he understood as he also had given friends gift certificates before he started working there and still continued to do so. However, even though as an employee he could now take advantage of the self-care treatments for free, he just never had the time to do so. He added that he was too tired after work.

I remember giving talks on cruise ships and noting that the most stressed out people on them were those in charge of making sure the guests were having a fun and stress free vacation! Why is it that we are good at giving others what we so desperately need?

Self-care begins with us. We need to be our own friends. There's nothing wrong with giving gifts to those in our friendship circle but...let's include ourselves in that circle.

Filed under // attitude change perception self-care stress

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Day Shift: Beyond Dissatisfaction

Things will begin to get better when you define precisely what better means to you. The pains and frustrations will start to ease when you have something solid and positive with which to replace them. To successfully move away from an undesirable situation, decide exactly where you wish to go. Create a powerful intention for yourself, and feed that intention with the energy that’s in your desire for change. It is not enough to complain about how things are. That can get the ball rolling, and yet it won’t take you very far.

Move quickly to create a vision of how the world can be. Give yourself a compelling goal to move toward. Enthusiasm is a key ingredient of success. And you’ll always have a more productive kind of enthusiasm when you’re focused on a positive future. Go beyond your dissatisfaction with what is, and put your energy into imagining the best of what can be. Clearly know where you wish to go, and you’ll naturally make the effort that gets you there.
Ralph Marston

A friend recently sent me the quote above by Ralph Marston and it got me thinking. I remember years ago I wanted to change my job. I confided in a wise friend who listened to me intently and then told me I would never leave my job. I laughed and asked him if he had a crystal ball. Seriously, he replied that he didn't have one but I had talked only about what I didn't want and what I wanted to leave. He said that he never got a sense of where I wanted to go or what I wanted more of in my life.

He was right. As long as my focus was on what wasn't working, I couldn't see what was moving along at full speed. As long as I devoted my energy to talking about what was draining me, I felt depleted of the passion, drive, and energy I needed to move forward. That realization was a turning point for me - one of many - that helped me to attract more joy in my life. Shifting my negative mindset was challenging; it didn't happen overnight and I continue to monitor my self-talk. Come to think of it, making the shift to work that I found more fulfilling was the easy part!

As I've journeyed through life, I've met folks who want to lose weight, change jobs, attract more love, more wealth, more of anything in their lives. The ones who have been successful at making changes have been unwilling to language doom and gloom. Instead of being content to talk about how bad things have been, they become fired up with seeking what works for them. They continue to be my teachers on this journey.

Filed under // attitude change focus intention negativity perception shift perception

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Day Shift: Timing is Everything!

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Desiderata

Life is all about timing...the unreachable becomes reachable, the unavailable becomes available, the unattainable becomes attainable. Have the patience, wait it out. It's all about timing.
Stacey Charter

We all know the old adage that timing is everything. The truth actually lies in learning to operate intuitively so we can hear when the "Universe opens to show us what is possible."
Chelle Thompson

Life was always about waiting for the right moment to act.
Paulo Coelho

There is a tree that grows on most islands in the West Indies and the folks on most of those islands won't touch the fruit of that tree. However on the island of Jamaica, that fruit is part of Jamaica's national dish. Have you ever heard of ackee and saltfish? Ackee can be poisonous and has killed many. If you pick the fruit before the pod opens and you eat it, you'll die. If you wait until the pod opens and then pick the fruit, you can make a wonderful, delicious dish with it.

You can understand why many islands choose to just stay away from that tree. Why take a chance? But once you realize that with time, the ackee is harmless...you give it time and then enjoy it.

And so it is with many things in life. We want to rush things, grow up quickly, we can't wait, fast food is in. Learning to relax and allow life to unfold is a skill learnt over time. I have leant that lesson over and over by stepping into situations, friendships, jobs, you name it - ignoring the little voice telling me to wait, that the time wasn't right. I'd like to think I've become wiser with age. However the universe always has a surprise quiz around the corner so I know there will be opportunities to review what I've learnt!

In the meantime, I won't make a big deal about the times I've stumbled. Instead I've turned up the volume so I can hear that inner guide whispering to me.

Filed under // patience perception time timing wait

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Day Shift: Letting Go of Scarcity

There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there is only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.
Wayne Dyer

People with a scarcity mentality tend to see everything in terms of win-lose. There is only so much; and if someone else has it, that means there will be less for me.
Stephen Covey

One is apt to overestimate beauty when it is rare.
Mark Twain

I recently walked away from an offer that didn't seem like a fit for me. What I noted was the sense of peace I felt in doing so. There had been many times when walking away filled me with a sense of anxiety and I'm not saying that won't happen again. However for now, I'm enjoying the feeling of knowing that clutching or hanging on to things and situations out of fear does not serve my best interests.

And I came across something I had written on the effects of scarcity a few years ago and would like to share it with you:

I was definitely in the 'get it while you can' space when I attended a 5 day conference in the States After I submitted my request for a roommate I heard nothing and all I could think of was what I would have to pay in US dollars (those were the days when the Canadian dollar was much lower) . Finally, when someone called me I quickly agreed even though she'd be at the conference for only two nights. Sharing two nights was better than nothing.

Days later when someone called me wanting to share 5 nights I could only offer her 3. She declined saying she'd wait to see if someone wanted to share 5 nights. I smiled, knowing she'd be back. Well she never called back but at least 4 more people called me wanting to share 5 nights and I was left to feel the effects of scarcity.

How did the others know they would find roommates? They didn't but they also weren't coming from that scary place where there wasn't enough to go around so they had to grab and hang on to the first offer they got. Therefore, they were willing to trust that something would work out .. and it did.

How can we read the energy behind our choices? How do we know whether we’re making choices out of fear or a sense of what feels right? When is it safe to let go of our fear of scarcity, trusting that abundance is also there? There are signposts along the way to guide and support us as we journey along. And they can be different for each individual and for each situation! Learning to recognize them so we can benefit from their gifts is a personal challenge for each of us. Life’s lessons are ongoing.

Filed under // abundance choices fear perception scarcity trust

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Day Shift: Fresh Eyes Needed!

Every closed eye is not sleeping, and every open eye is not seeing.
Bill Cosby

The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
Marcel Proust

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
Joni Mitchell

Recently some friends asked me to meet them at a restaurant. They named the restaurant which was part of a national chain and was in a mall in my area. I commented that I had been to that mall several times but had not been aware of the restaurant...perhaps they had the wrong location. They assured me that since they were sitting in the restaurant, they were sure!

When I got to the mall sure enough there was the restaurant. Why had I never noticed it before? Perhaps it was because it was part of a common chain with locations all over the country; perhaps I had been too focused and never noticed the restaurant, even as I had often parked right outside it. And perhaps it was because of the invisible gorilla in the room!

University of British Columbia psychology professor, Ron Rensink is an expert on "change blindness". To illustrate this effect, he gives examples of people - driving while sober - straight into trains. It's hard to see what is there unless you focus on what is there...pay attention to what is there. Have you ever experienced walking by someone you know or driving by places you were unable to describe later? Your mind was elsewhere. You saw them without really seeing them!

This is not surprising to Chris Chabris and Daniel Simmons who wrote a book called The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuition Deceives Us. The two cognitive psychologists showed a video of people playing basketball and asked viewers to count the times the basketball passed between the players. Viewers had no problems doing this but approximately half of them were so focused on counting the passes that they did not see a person in a gorilla suit walking among the players!

Not only is it wise to question our perceptions, but if our attention is focused elsewhere, we may not see what we're seeing. This shows up in our lives in crucial ways. Two ways that come to mind are being distracted while driving or doing something where our safety demands attention and being able to appreciate the present only when it becomes the past. I'm sure we've all experienced getting injured while doing two things at once and we've experienced appreciating someone after the relationship has ended or when that person is no longer around.

Our challenge is to shift our perception so we can live consciously in the present!

Filed under // change blindness conscious awareness focus invisible gorilla perception shift perception

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Day Shift: Special Occasions

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.
Dale Carnegie

Don’t put off living to next week, next month, next year or next decade. The only time you’re ever living is in this moment.
Author unknown

Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you.
Annie Dillard

I have a close family friend who has been a wonderful aunt to me. She had travelled all over the world and her home was a treasure store of beautiful ornaments, china, tablecloths, and other precious mementos. They weren't used often - once or twice a year she would throw a dinner party for someone visiting and then the treasures would be brought out.

And then one day she went into a diabetic coma. Since she didn't know she was diabetic, it was a shock to her and to us. When she came out of the hospital and was well enough, she prepared a wonderful celebration, just for family and close friends ...and we used the good dishes and silver cutlery. Shocked, I asked her why she was using them. She laughed and said they were now her everyday dishes. She added that she couldn't see why she was saving them to honour people she didn't know and might not see again. Instead she wanted to honour her family, friends...and herself. She told us that she now used these wonderful items that had been in storage for special occasions.

I was reminded of a time in my childhood when I lived with my aunt and grandmother while my parents were away at university. My mother often sent me packages containing toys and clothes. I wasn't allowed to play with the toys (in case I broke them) or wear the clothes because - well you never knew when you'd need something special to wear. Funny thing about that. I remember when these special occasions came up - and not very often - the trunk would be opened and these lovely dresses and shoes would be taken out for me to try on. The only problem - they could no longer fit me so I never got to wear them. This happened time and time again.

Is there something that you have been saving for a special occasion? You know, today might just be as good as it gets. You're worth it.

Filed under // living in the present perception self-care self-talk

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Perception Shift

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Day Shift: Reminders on the Road

Day Shift: The Positive Possibilities

Day Shift: Begin Now!

Day Shift: The Alarm Clock Test

Day Shift: Self-care Begins with Us

Day Shift: Beyond Dissatisfaction

Day Shift: Timing is Everything!

Day Shift: Letting Go of Scarcity

Day Shift: Fresh Eyes Needed!

Day Shift: Special Occasions