Day 132 - A Year to Clear - Perception

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Lesson 132: Perception

As we go onto our spiritual paths, there is a realisation of getting back to our “true” selves. As we go about life we tend to put filters on to ourselves – that we are unworthy, that we don’t deserve things, that we are unloved…. It really can go on and on. If we work together as a collective, we can raise our vibration to match those who are awakened, and that instigates a notion within ourselves that we are loved, we worthy, we can do a lot to help this world….

Today is about releasing a filter we have on ourselves. To break down those perceptions we have on our self and to complete this sentence:

• One way that I think that my clearing is changing the way I see myself and the world is______

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I can safely say I have put way too much pressure on myself. I think the filters I have created on myself, are definitely because I have compared myself to others, and that of the mental and verbal abuse I’ve copped along the way. I think we really can be our own worst enemies. If someone makes a comment towards us that makes us feel bad about ourselves, we can sometimes start to believe it. If someone can view you in a certain light and make a bad comment about you, it must be true right? And, that can snowball us into thinking “what do others think of me?”. It’s such a negative cycle!

I think the biggest thing I’ve done for myself is to stop caring about what others think of me. It took some time to actually look at myself in the mirror and say things like “you are beautiful” “you are amazing” “you look awesome”. If you keep saying it, one day it will stick. It’s all about language, I find. Instead of saying “I can’t do this” we can approach situations with “okay this may be challenging but I can get through it”. This takes so much practise and if you keep at it, you start to actually believe your own words. I’m not saying this happens overnight. We sometimes have to revisit the painful memories of why someone said something hurtful and tackle through it, in order to remove those filters on ourselves. I sometimes lapse though can be quick to think “why am I thinking like this?” and steer my thought process into a more positive outlook on myself.

To finish the sentence above:

• One way that I think that my clearing is changing the way I see myself and the world is through opening myself to self-compassion.

Day 131 - A Year to Clear - Polarizing Filters

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Lesson 131: Polarizing Filters

Today’s lesson uses photography as a metaphor for how we perceive ourselves. When a photographer captures an image, they might use different shutter speeds for an effect, choose a specific lense for a certain detail or even a polarising filter to get a more textured shot. Today ask yourself, what do your lenses and filters look like? How much have you altered, distorted, enhanced or polarised the reality of who you are? What about when you place rose coloured glasses on? What happens when you remove them all completely?   

I think my distortion of myself came from my past trauma. I didn’t see myself in a good light. I thought wasn’t good enough to be anything or be with anyone. Cycling thoughts of “I’m ugly” “why would anyone love me?” “I will never be successful” “what’s wrong with me?” etc etc is just a glimpse of what I used to be. I think we’ve all been there – where we’ve lost confidence or just don’t believe in ourselves. I know the root cause of this distorted perception of self came from the torment my father put me through. Then I had a boyfriend that didn’t do much to build my confidence and self-esteem either, which added to this blurred perception I had of self.

So for the majority of life, I never saw how truly good I was. I had so many good qualities, but if you spoke to me back then, I wouldn’t have believed it. I have sooooo much belief in myself now. I am 34 this year and I think I’m the best I’ve ever been. I believe I can do anything and the more I say it, the more I believe it. This came with some confronting experiences of going through my trauma and accepting it, but also growing from it. There is pain along the way, though I feel this is just a step that you need to go through to be able to open your heart. When you also have compassion for self, this allows you to accept that bad things happen and you make mistakes, and that’s okay! There is so much to learn about yourself when you’re more accepting of yourself.

So I’m to complete this sentence after that self-reflection:

• One thing I can see with greater clarity about myself since I began this course is______

***************

My answer:

• One thing I can see with greater clarity about myself since I began this course is the life I want to lead.

I think I bang on a lot about wanting to help people as my ultimate goal. I just know that I have to go through my own self-exploration before I get there and I have faith in myself that I will achieve what I need to.

What filters do you place on yourself? And have they changed over the years?

Day 120 - A Year to Clear - Filters

Photo by Fredrick Kearney Jr on Unsplash

Lesson 120: Filters

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

— Anaïs Nin

New week equals a new theme and we have “Shining Light On Invisible Clutter." Based on the quote, I feel like this may be the build-up of our thoughts based on our own perceptions. We usually are raised and conditioned on a certain way of thinking based on culture, where you live, religion, your teachers, your parents…  it goes on and on. You definitely do not think the same way as me but we might share similar views on certain topics. Usually the world we create is based on how we are as people. For example, I used to be very materialistic and need to have the latest dress or lipstick as soon as it got released because I had this view that it would make me happy. I had mountains of clothes, many of which I didn’t wear, shoes that filled up closets, make up spilling out of the dressing table. Now, I’m a spiritual being who believes in protecting the environment and thinking of ways I can reduce my environmental impact. I want the minimalist life and use out all my existing clothes until they can’t be worn any longer. I was awakened and there is so much we do on this Earth that does damage that we can probably avoid.

I’m interested to see what this week brings and if my fair assessment of the lesson and quote prove right.