I don’t think people realise when things don’t seem great in the exterior of their lives that it’s probably more than likely an inside job. The issue is not on the outside of their lives, the problem is on the inside – in the mind.

The mind can cause you to go insane. Yes physical happenings, life events and tragic circumstances can cause that too, but ultimately it is the mind that will tip you over the edge. Regardless of what happens in your physical life, the mind is the thing that determines how you deal with anything.

Someone can seemingly have a really wonderful life, and from the outside it looks like they’ve got no issues; they’ve got a wonderful family, a great job, good life experiences – everything seems pretty fine. But on the inside, in the mind, if the thoughts aren’t doing so well, they won’t be able to see everything good that they have in their life; they won’t be able to appreciate and enjoy it.

Thoughts can turn the most wonderful circumstances into something awful and the most awful circumstances into something wonderful. There’s only one thing that determines the state of your inner and outer well-being, and that is your perception.

You can change your perception, but in order to do so, you really must gain a deep sense of acceptance around what life is and how it works.

Perfect Isn’t Living

Bad things will happen, life will bring us the most unexpected, awful events; we go through some hard stuff – loss, relationship breakdowns, failure, but really all of these things, if we change our perception, can be very integral to our growth.

As spiritual beings, our lives here on earth are not to be perfect. Although we might think they are, we are not here to create that perfect life, with the perfect family and the perfect job, the perfect weight, the perfect look, the perfect personality. That thing that we are striving for and so desperately wanting, is not what we are here for.

The funny thing is, we torment ourselves wanting our lives to be like that when life is not for that.

We are here to experience love, laughter, excitement and everything good that life has to offer but we are not here to have it perfect all of the time.

I mean, what on earth would that teach us? If we were born into the perfect little family and had the perfect upbringing, and we go onto create the perfect family with our perfect spouse, and then our children grow up happy and create their perfect little family, and we live to a ripe old age and pass away having had it all… “perfect” What would a life like that have taught us?

Pain is a double-edged sword – on one side it’s very hard to experience but on the other, it creates a shock to the system, a shock that’s so awakening that it causes us to experience growth. That’s what life is – a series of happenings that help us to evolve – some good things help us to evolve but if we only had positive experiences, we wouldn’t be able to expand our potential as spiritual beings.

Once you understand that, and accept that that’s how life works – bad things happen, it’s not supposed to be perfect all of the time, once you accept that, then you’re able to change your perception.

Seeing Everything In a New Light

The way you perceive things – the way your mind interprets everything – determines your mood, your sense of happiness, your relationships, your health.

If your perception of your life is very negative and you tend to see the worst in things, your life is not going to feel so great. A mind filled with worry, stress and anxiety, a mind that only looks at things in the most negative light, a mind that ponders over things for a long time after they should have been dead and buried – is a mind that torments and causes non-stop pain and agony.

Whereas, if you have a very positive perspective on life, you’ll find that even during tragic happenings, you will find a way to see the best in it and to realise that every situation, no matter how bad, can do something positive for us. Whether it is teaching us something new, helping us to realise something significant, or whether it gives us the tools to do things differently in the future – a positive perspective will find the light in the darkness.

Dr. Wayne Dyer has been one of my greatest teachers – I believe he has a gentle but profound way of explaining things. One of the best things I’ve taken from his guidance, is this – “if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

That for me has been one of the most defining realisations. The realisation that the mind’s interpretation of any life happening, is what determines how we feel about said situation. If we choose to interpret things in an accepting and positive way, we can change our lives in an instant. And that’s what Dr. Wayne Dyer meant by that – if you change your perception of a situation, you change the situation.

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