Seeds of Identity

Pay Attention to Your Perceptions

Seeds of Identity. While we’re rarely consciously aware of them, our perceptions have a significant impact on our lives. Perceptions are based on our feelings and create our reality. Our emotions are an expression of an inward phenomenon known as feelings. Emotions are a third of our health therefore our perceptions impact our overall health. For example, when something happens in your life (such as a cancer diagnosis!), your emotions, reactions, attitudes and decisions regarding the thing that happened are all based on your perceptions of the situation. I encourage you to always take a deep breath when your perceptions are challenged and seek to see every challenge as an opportunity, an invitation to grow, change and live differently. In general perceptions about cancer are scary but once again what if this is a knock on your door to invite you to live differently? A knock to tell you’ve been doing things wrong and there’s a better way. I strongly encourage you to shift your perceptions with a positive outlook despite the challenge.

See Obstacles as Opportunities

If you’ve been seeing obstacles as “obstacles,” I’ve got good news for you: there are other, much more empowering ways to view the challenges that come up in life. In fact, I have come to realize that quite often the trick to overcoming obstacles is to first change our attitude and perceptions. Regardless of the facts of the situation, I know that how I let these facts impact my thought processes, moods, emotions and behavior is completely up to me. Obstacles? What obstacles? What others might call “obstacles,” I choose to perceive as lessons in creativity, and opportunities to thrive in new ways.

Think Differently

I challenge you today to think differently, because there’s no progress unless somebody tries something new. You can’t expect to be joyful if you don’t change your thinking to try to be joyful. You can’t expect to get out of hopelessness and anger if you don’t think differently. These things are not about your emotions, they’re about your mindset, your beliefs which trigger an emotion. You are not a victim of your past or circumstances, you are a victim of your beliefs. I challenge you to change your mindset, I challenge you to think differently.