How to change the way you look at things

The world can be a big scary place. There is so much happening out there that we know about and so much that we’ve no idea about, but much of what we hear is worrying. The news headlines are filled with hurt and pain, war, illness, corruption. It would be so easy to allow our view of the world to be dictated by those headlines. To only see the pain. But thinking in this way will consume us. If we only see the hurt, then that hurt begins to affect us. We can only give what we have within us, so in order to change the way you look at things, you need to change what you look at and how you look at it.

How do you look at things?

What’s your current view on things in general? Are you a positive sunny side up kinda person, or is it all doom and gloom? How we perceive the world around us is a huge deal and impacts our lives massively. This is because what we see in the world is not just an opinion, it’s a choice. When we choose to focus on the bad, the painful, and the corrupt we manifest it into our lives. What we focus on becomes our reality. So by always seeing the bad, we invite it into our lives and therefore infect our mood and our opinions and beliefs.

I realise this can be a difficult concept to understand or accept, but if you think about it you’ll see the truth in it. What we allow into our mind becomes a part of us, and as I said above, we can only give what we already have inside us. If we are filled with pessimism, hopelessness, and gloom then that is what we will not only project outwards but what we will focus on and therefore continue to attract into our lives.

What goes in, must come out

You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.

Wayne Dyer

Wayne Dyer has it down here. Most of us are not in control of what goes on in our world, not on a large global scale anyway. So often we are helpless to do anything about certain situations, but that doesn’t mean we have to allow those things to affect us in such a way as to drag us down and make us feel miserable. We can control how we digest the information we input from our environment, and how much of it we let in. That doesn’t mean we should become misinformed naive people, but it does mean we need to alter the lens through which we view the world.

Someone else put it this way:

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It may seem like a harsh statement to make, but there is truth in it also. What you believe the world to be – good, bad, full of promise, full of misery – is a direct reflection of what you hold inside of yourself and is therefore what you will see. We see the world according to the beliefs and opinions that we hold. They colour what we see and how we see it so what we experience of the world is a direct link to what we choose to believe and believe about it. We create what experience. So it’s important that we are able to view the world in such a way as to fill ourselves with hope rather than misery.

We manifest what we choose

Everything you see around you is a manifestation of your choices. Every single thing you own, do, think, and believe is down to a choice you have made. All of these things are a direct link to your beliefs; we attract to us what aligns with our beliefs. We create a world around us that is an external representation of our inner self. And we do this without really thinking about it. This creates the problem; we are not in control of what we create because we’re doing it on auto-pilot.

So the challenge is, therefore, to live on purpose. If we are the creators of our own worlds, we should do so on purpose, with thought, deliberation and create what we want to experience rather than letting our auto-pilot take over and let things fall as they may. So by being more deliberate in how we see the world, we can change the way we experience it and therefore how we think about it.

This can be very difficult if you’ve been dealt some bad hands in life. Seeing the good in things can be a real challenge, especially if we are dealing with an ongoing problem. But if you are truly serious about wanting to change how you look at things, to find a more positive outlook on life, and change your experiences then you need to begin to alter the deep-rooted beliefs and opinions that shape your current view.

This can be a daunting and difficult task. It takes time and living on purpose, but by making small changes daily, you can create the world that you want to see. It’s down to your choices. What will you choose to see each day? The good? Or the bad?

So how do we really change the way we look at things?

Here are some practical ways that you can begin to change how you see the world around you:

Mindfulness

The goal of mindfulness is to wake up to the inner workings of our mental, emotional, and physical processes.

www.mindful.org/meditation/mindfulness-getting-started/

Being mindful of your world helps you to live on purpose. When you live on purpose you are aware of what is going on around you, of what you are feeling, how you are reacting. You’re not functioning on auto-pilot. Being mindful awakens you to your higher self, the part of you that exists beyond your physical being and is independent of your thoughts. When you become more attuned to your higher self you are able to cope better with the chaos; your negative thoughts and judgements are passing, fleeting disturbances that are replaceable and changeable.

Mindfulness can be practiced at any time simply by evaluating what you feel in that moment, by observing what is around you and really noticing it in all its uniqueness, or by taking a moment for yourself to find peace and calm. By regularly bringing ourselves into one specific moment and being mindful of it we keep ourselves grounded, present, and on purpose.

Optimism

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Winston Churchill

Optimism isn’t about being foolish or naive to the realities that life can dish out to us. No. Optimism is a choice to look for the good, the positive, the opportunity in any given situation. Even when things are difficult an optimist will seek a solution with a favourable outcome rather than focusing on all that has gone wrong. Difficulties in life either make or break you and it’s our choice which direction we go on. Do you practice resiliency and fight the storms of life with all the gifts you have been blessed with? Or do you let the storm consume you, complain about how horrible it is and do nothing to better the situation?

If you are not naturally an optimist, you can change that around by small conscious decisions every day. If you notice yourself reacting to a situation in a negative way, stop yourself in your tracks, question why you feel that way, and look for the silver lining. There will always be something good that you can focus on instead and it redirects your negativity into positivity. The more you train your mind to follow a more positive line of thinking, the more you will surround yourself with good and positive things.

Gratitude

The benefits of practicing gratitude are nearly endless. People who regularly practice gratitude by taking time to notice and reflect upon the things they’re thankful for experience more positive emotions, feel more alive, sleep better, express more compassion and kindness, and even have stronger immune systems.

www.happify.com/hd/the-science-behind-gratitude/

It’s a no-brainer, right? If we appreciate all that we have, instead of what we don’t, we attract good things into our lives. If we are constantly griping about what we want and are in a state of lack all the time, we diminish ourselves. When we realise just how abundantly we have been blessed, how we are looked after, loved, provided for, then we encourage a mindset of plenty, positivity, and gratitude. This is possible regardless of our social, economic, or personal state. We always have something to be grateful for, and if we can find one thing we can find another. By focusing on what we do have, and being grateful for it, we realign our experience of the world.

Connection

If you seek to change your mindset and to change the way you look at things, make sure you surround yourself with like-minded people. There’s absolutely no point in being around negatively thinking people and expecting to leave their company feeling refreshed, energised, and positive. It won’t happen. Seek the company of people who embody the kind of person you want to be. The people we spend the most time with affect our personality, mood actions, and perspectives.

This is also true of what we allow into our minds via TV, movies, books, games, and social media. If you find yourself being drained, feeling horrible, or behaving in a negative way, look at what you allow into your head and question if it is having an impact on how you look at the world around you. You might be surprised.

Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others.

Harriet Goldhor Lerner

Giving

Giving is about more than giving money or things to others. It’s a far more intrinsic action that affects us on a deeper, more profound level. It all comes back to being what you want to see in the world. We need to give out what we want to see around us, be that love, generosity, kindness, creativity, discipline, conscientiousness, joy, compassion, strength. If we practice these things in our own lives, we can create what Wayne Dyer calls a surplus which we can then offer to those around us. If we don’t live what we want to see, we are unable to give generously to the world around us when it is needed.

Whenever you see deficiencies in joy, abundance, educational opportunities, perfect health, or sobriety, make your own surpluses available…look at what’s deficient and be an instrument of increasing, rather than a collector of more, which marginalizes and divides the oneness that is all of life.

Wayne Dyer

Change the way you look at things today

To really change the way you look at things, you must make a conscious decision to use these strategies to help you shift from living on auto-pilot to living on purpose. You can create the world you want to see. It’s your choice.