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5 Perspective shifts that Changed my Life

 

Perspective shift has worked like magic in my life. It’s one of the most useful tools to change our mindset and our lives I believe. I was a person who has been walking on eggshells my whole life. Starting from being a shy kid in school to the shy employee in the workplace in my adulthood. I was always scared of walking in my own skin, even in the world of dating! That little girl inside me was always scared of taking the wrong step or making the wrong decision and  upsetting people around her. 

I have been taking myself too seriously for the past 27 years of my life. But by zooming out, by taking myself lightly, and by seeing how small I am compared to the whole universe, the burden has been taken off my shoulders automatically. The most important things in our lives are being taken care off by the Universe, This realization has liberated me from being resentful and torched a light on the path of immense gratitude.

1. Triggers are inside me

Whenever somebody does something unpleasant to us and successfully triggers an outburst of emotions, we tend to blame that person for our anger or irritation. 

Yeah sometimes people do act like jerk I understand but this was eye-opening information for me when I first got to know the trigger was actually inside of me! Think about it for a second, what is a trigger? It’s like a switch that can burst a bomb upon clicking, right! So where is the bomb? The other person is only clicking the switch somehow, the container is you, and the bomb is inside of you only. 

 

Now let’s understand how you became the container of that bomb in the first place. In one sentence, ‘by suppressing your emotions for years’. So basically, when you are getting angry on a random person on the road because of bad driving and staying in that state of irritation the whole day, it’s not actually that person; you are generating that emotion inside of you from your deep-rooted wound of feeling unseen and unheard. Most often, these wounds are created in early childhood. A child can feel unseen simply when the parents are leaving them behind while going to work or in just one moment of ignorance. Not necessarily everyone has to experience abusive parents for causing childhood trauma. Definitely, abuse or abandonment would create a huge wound which will be much more difficult to heal later in life but little human actions can also create wounds in a child’s heart. 

So the perspective shift I adapted here is ‘when I am getting triggered, it’s actually showing me where I am still wounded and need healing’. As I am on a continuous healing journey, I have been working on healing my inner child for almost 2 years. There are layers and layers of dysfunctions I am peeling off in this journey. And I have started seeing people as a mirror of me and triggers as an indicator of my wounds, which are still to be healed.

 

2. My feelings are my own responsibility

We often tend to give the responsibility of our feelings to other people or situations. Like he did this or that; that’s why I am feeling low and worthless. Here the previous point comes in again, actions of someone else are triggering those feelings inside of us. Most of the time we don’t have control over our feelings, as feelings are not generated wholly based on the present moment. Sorry to break the news to you, no matter who triggered that, the responsibility of that feeling is solely ours to take. Why is that? Let’s dive deep and find out. 

Have you ever noticed that the same incident can make different people react in totally different ways or feel differently? I bet you did or you can recall something like that atleast. That’s because our feelings are generated from deep rooted beliefs about ourselves and life in general. It’s also connected with how we have been treated previously in life. Feelings can be generated from an old wound or just a belief that you are carrying your whole life without even knowing where it has been stemmed from. Once I was seeing a guy who was very gentle and kind, well behaved as well. One day I playfully teased him saying ‘you didn’t miss me’ and he was triggered like hell. His facial expression changed at all and he closed himself immediately. Then I got to know that he had been emotionally abused in his previous relationship with statements like this. His affection was questioned and he thought I was doing the same. Whereas I was just wanting to hear from him that he missed me. I was not that aware at that period of time as well; otherwise, I would have satisfied my need for affection in a healthier way, not by teasing or playfully blaming him. But I have done that repeatedly in my previous relationship, and it was welcomed with playfulness every time, so that was my reality back then. 

So basically, what we feel comes from the baggage we carry from our life experiences. It’s unfair to give that burden to people around us all the time, As mature adults it’s our job to take responsibility for our emotions and learn to regulate them in a healthy way.

3. Blame makes us powerless

We often tend to blame other people for our sufferings. I am miserable because I had a traumatic childhood, I have anger issues because I always felt unheard, I hate men because I was betrayed by them. I understand those were hurtful experiences, you experienced a tremendous amount of pain because of them. Whoever cheated, betrayed or did wrong to you, has undoubtedly done some evil job there. The pain is real but the question is, what are you doing with that pain? 

That’s where your power of choice lies. What narrative have you created in your head? Are you playing it again and again every day to reinforce that feeling? Are you using that pain to make yourself and other people’s lives miserable around you? Or are you supporting yourself through the pain while trying to heal yourself? Pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice. At this stage of our lives, we can’t even blame our parents for how we turned out to be.

 

The moment you stop blaming others for your suffering, you get the power back in your hands to change your life. You are now in the driver’s seat of your life. There will always be something or someone causing some trouble, but if you want your way out, you gotta get up and find that way. Now a days, there are a lot of help options available as well. You can try therapy, life coaches, or just consuming contents or reading books to educate yourself and find the path of your liberation. I have healed myself, and many more other people have done the same; you can do it too.

 

4. Feelings are not the best navigator of our life

I have been a feeling-driven person most of my life. Being an INFP (Myers-Brigg personality type), I have always prioritized my feelings big time. I have made major decisions in my life either based on those feelings or because I had no other choice left (that’s what I thought at that time). Little did I know where the roots of my feelings stemmed! 

Anyway, I have realized with evidence based data from my own life that feelings are not the best navigators of our lives. Quick reality check, in the hit of a moment, how many bad decisions have you taken in your life and regretted later? Is the answer making you cringe like me! Don’t worry, we are just flawed human beings trying to be better.

To be honest, feelings are pretty hard to ignore as well, right? They kind of shake our whole existence when they decide to come in a wave with that huge force. So what can we do in that moment? We can take a pause; pause from making any decision or taking any action right away. Let the wave of feelings pass through you, be there for yourself, observe yourself, take deep breaths. Let it out through journaling, moving your body, or soothing yourself with positive self-talk. 

Feelings are charged energies which only demand to be felt. If we ignore or divert our mind from it immediately with binge watching, endless scrolling, substance abuse, video games or any other kind of distraction, this energy will get trapped inside our body and may form a bomb, as we were talking about in the first point. So feelings are there to be felt, not to react or to make decisions based on them. Isn’t it liberating that you actually have to do nothing but be there with yourself in a highly emotionally charged moment!

5. I can't control others; I can only control myself

We have this immense urge of controlling our loved ones every now and then. We know them inside out, we see their flawed human version and we just feel we know just doing this one or two things or fixing one or two aspects will level up their lives instantly. With this intention on the surface of our minds, we jump into fixing their life which they never asked for. In the process we successfully frustrate them and ourselves.

Human beings are full of potential, but it can only be tapped into by themselves. The breaking news I’m going to give you here is that the urge to fix others basically comes from the need to fix ourselves. We project our own lack through our partners, kids or whoever comes in the way. We identify the exact issue in a person that we contain within ourselves but deny accepting it, or sometimes we are just unconscious about that pattern. 

So whenever I feel someone is ignoring me, I ask myself, which part of me am I not loving enough or ignoring? Where do I need to hear myself more? 

We can never control other people; that’s the truth of life. After being betrayed and abused by the person I considered as my soulmate, I asked that mighty question, ‘Why me?’ It was a question from my victimhood. 

It was not about me, what anyone else does is never my responsibility nor my fault to take. Yes I got hurt in the process but later the power was in my hand. Either I could have turned into a bitter person by carrying all those toxicity inside me or I could heal myself by releasing those heavy burdens, I chose the latter. It won’t say it was an easy journey, I didn’t even know it was possible in the first place, but when I got to know there is a way out, I invested in it wholeheartedly. I refused to be defined by a trauma and chose to find the light of love within myself. I recognized, trying to control other people around me was against the law of the universe. I only had control over my life and I embarked on the journey of making it better.

 

Perspective shifts have liberated me from my own cage of suffering big time. Only seeing the same thing differently can make a huge difference in anyone's quality of life, I believe. After all the control of your life is in your hands. If you take it like that, things has been thrown at you in this life randomly, you still have the choice what to do with them. Use it to spread love or toxicity within yourself and into the outer world.