Finding A New Perspective
As a practicing shaman, I can tell you that the greatest gift I can be offered is a truly new perspective from which to see the world. It is through each new perspective that I gain greater understanding of the whole. It is not enough to be able to see the world through your own eyes. You must learn to see the world through the eyes of the others in your world as well. Through the eyes of the banker whose business and world view revolves around money, through the eyes of the therapist whose life revolves around fixing people who are broken, through the eyes of the homeless person who lives day-to-day on the kindness of strangers, through the eyes of the minister who tends to her flock – through these eyes and more must you see the world to understand what happens in it. For each has their own goals, thoughts, filters, and desires. Each one has something that drives them, that defines them, that gives them hope and brings them despair.
You Live In Your Own World
No one lives in the same world. We each inhabit a world of our own making which only marginally overlaps with those around us. We share events, but the experiences of those events are unique to each individual. If you doubt this, ask any police officer who has taken statements from eye witnesses to tell you how very different each person’s perspective is.
Changing Perspectives
And so, it is a valuable skill to be able to take on the perspective of another – to see the world through new eyes. Because with each perspective, your world opens. Each perspective changes and informs everything you already know. This is why I learn about science and art and metaphysics and occult and spirituality and mathematics and literature and astronomy and philosophy and more. The more you know, the more you can see the patterns that run across it all and the more you can relate those patterns to your own life.
The World Is Your Mirror
Because that is the ultimate perspective to understand. That which you see around you is also inside you, else you wouldn’t see it. We are all blind to so many things in our lives. There is too much to process to accept it all into ourselves. And so we filter. And those filters determine what we see. So what you see outside of you is a function of those internal filters you have set up. If you don’t like what you see, then look at your filters, change your story, deal with your issues and pick a new perspective.
As Above, So Below
Everything exists within and without. What we receive of it and how we react to it determines who we are. Who do you choose to be today? What perspective will you see the world from? And how can you expand your world beyond the tip of your own nose to see it completely differently today?
