Tag Archives: Senses

Perception

Our perception of situations will dictate all of our actions and the emotions we feel in any case. We don’t often pay attention to that any situation provides perceptions in any number of different ways.  Each viewpoint brings other emotions, a different thought process, and a different reality to the perceiver.  So how you perceive things in your mind will directly affect the fact that you experience.  So it is essential to understand your perception is one of the keys to consciousness and creation.  Look at your thoughts, words, and actions in any situation and see if you perceive it negatively or positively. You do have a choice because perception is an ongoing process of cause and effect.

Negative Perception

Our perception is a direct result of our thought process. When a situation occurs, we immediately provide a thought to it, leading to emotion. That emotion leads to chemicals released into the brain and neural pathways created.  If your view is directly about fear, lack, anger, judgment, or any other negative emotion, your brain is hardwiring to build a negative perception of this experience.  Usually, it seems there is a fear of being hurt at some level and that self-preservation drives our natural comprehension. But only if you don’t take control.

Turning around negative perceptions is as simple as changing your mind.  Easy to say, challenging to do, but anyone can accomplish this if they try.  The key is to be in touch with your emotions. People don’t feel angry, threatened, sad, happy, joyous, or anything else for no reason. There is always a catalyst event that causes emotion.  Look at the reason you are feeling the way you are. It is still the thought you attach to in any situation. Changing your thoughts is a conscious process.

Feel a negative emotion welling up. Stop! Just for a second and recognize the catalyst for negative perception. It is a replay of some experience. Can you let it go? Situations contain the charge of negativity or positivity based on our understanding alone.  Can you look at the circumstances and release the negative and relax into a more positive emotion.  Peace, love, kindness, gratitude, excitement, or hope are good examples of positive emotions.

Positive Perceptions

Once you recognize the negative and replace it with positive alternatives, your neural pathways will be built, which reflect this.  Many people seem to spend much of their lives focused on the negative of everything they see. Fighting with people for no other reason than to prove they are right.  Right and wrong is only one’s perception and letting go of the emotions around what other people think differently from you is healthy and necessary to build your consciousness.

No matter how intelligent you feel you are or how much you think you understand the world, you have little control over the perceptions of others. We are all playing the same game, but we most likely are at different locations on the board.  Perceive others with kindness and understanding rather than judgment. If you let someone else dictate your emotions, you lose your power. Keep your potential by controlling how you perceive the experiences in your life — kindness, hope, caring, understanding, acceptance, gratitude, and love.

You do You

People seem to invest a lot of time to attempt to control the perception that others have of them. This view creates through social media; people show the best sides and create an image they want you to perceive. It seems like we would do a lot better in the world by just being ourselves and letting everyone else be who they are.  Social media is addictive because it allows you to both be a voyeur into the lives of others and to create snap judgments about others.

Worry about yourself because that is the only person you can control. Your experiences and your thoughts about them are a single perception that matters.  Spending time in judgment is negative and limits your ability to create positively. Make choices that honor you, that you are proud of and can stand behind.  There is no need to force your beliefs on another because it doesn’t matter what they think. That is their perception. Let them grow in their way.  Focus on your perception, and it starts with your thoughts, words, and actions. 

“It is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception and compassion and hope.” Ursula K. Le Guin

“The difference between ordinary people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.”   John C. Maxwell

Perception-the ability to see, hear or become aware of something through the senses.

 

Seeking Yourself

It’s Tough To Find Quiet Today

Seek Moments of Solitude
No Man is an Island

by Jonathan Hilton Day 65

As our society has evolved to produce more and more entertainment for people to enjoy, the moments available for actual individual, creative thought have become few and far between.

I know that personally, there were times where I was entertained during every moment of my free time.  It was common to turn the television on  immediately when I got home to add noise to a quiet house, to having music playing all night long to, “help me sleep”, it was a non-stop bombardment of my senses that was actually distracting me from engaging in any original thought at all.

When you look at how our young people choose to live life, it is even worse, between Ipods, computers, video games and television, there is very little left for the imagination to do for them.  They are living an amusement park ride of the senses, allowing for outside influences to supply the entertainment, not developing their individual thoughts or imagination.  This is not everybody, but a large portion of the youth today.

 

Finding Your Thoughts In The Quiet

time for solitude
Solitude

Solitude is not a dirty word.  As we are developing as people, it seems like you are constantly judged by how many friends you have and that if you are ever by yourself then you must have a problem.

That is not true, what you need to develop is an ability to be by yourself and to use that time not as a sign of social dissatisfaction, but to use it as a time to develop your individual creativity and thoughts.

It is in this time alone that you will be able to find your original thoughts and understand the many experiences that you have.  If you find a quiet time without any distraction and allow your mind to work unfettered by any outside influence, you will experience original thoughts, no matter how intelligent you feel you are.

You will find your own thoughts in the quiet times.  You will be surprised what you will be able to create and understand in that time all by yourself.  You will find many of the things that you are passionate about as well as being able to glean wisdom and understanding from the experiences you have had throughout your life.  You will also start to really notice all of the rich details in the things around you that previously you were oblivious to.

Knowing Yourself is The Ultimate Reward For Solitude

Probably the best thing that finding a little solitude will give you is a much deeper understanding of yourself.  What makes you happy?  What makes you sad? You will find the things that make you smile, and the things that break your heart.

There are many things that people like to do with others and you need to have contact with many people to be a well rounded individual.  But I also think that it is important to find moments of pure solitude so that you understand what parts of yourself you have to offer to others.

So challenge yourself to find some moments of solitude, and to think original thoughts that are yours and yours alone.  All of those in your life will appreciate you and your unique thoughts more than you can imagine.  Give it a try.

Quotes on Solitude:

“Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.” ~James Russell Lowell

” Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a quiet in a crowded day—-like writing a poem or saying a prayer.  What matters is that one be for a time inwardly attentive.” ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.” ~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

“In solitude we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories, to the details around us.” ~ Virginia Woolf

‘In meditation it is possible to dive deeper into the mind to a place where there is no disturbance and there is absolute solitude.  It is at this point in the profound stillness that the sound of the mind can be heard.” ~A.E.I. Falconar

“O Solitude, the soul’s best friend, That man acquainted with himself dost make.” ~Charles Cotton

“Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is the true parent of genius.” ~ Isaac D’Israeli

“One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey; but I like to go by myself.” ~William Hazlitt

“I am sure of this, that by going much alone a man will get more of a noble courage in thought and word than from all the wisdom that is in books.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Price of Love

If you could experience true love for only a week of your life would it be worth it?

by Jonathan Hilton Day 36

love worth livingSometimes life seems to be full of things that are dichotomous to experience. Both bitter and sweet to the senses and often times we have to make a decision if they are worth it or not.

 Love is one of these experience in life. There are so many positive things to it but in the end you have to wonder is it really worth it?  Wouldn’t the time be better spent developing a talent or learning to fly a kite or something?

 The answer I give in the final analysis is based on the weight of the measure of the positive power of love against the angst and pain that remain when for whatever reason love ends. That is the dilemma this question asks you to solve.

The Power of Love

There is nothing that can make you feel as good as being in love. The connection that you have with one other person which allows you to know that there is something unique and special inside of you that someone else appreciates.

love All of you flaws are overlooked for a moment and the positive ingredients that make you who you are,  seem to be enough, like shining jewels in you soul that are invisible to everyone else.

There is nothing more important than spending time with that person you love.  Hours are condensed to moments and moments are non-stop fun, interest and your heart actually hurts when you are apart.  There is a counting of the moments until you are together again.

 Someone’s love for you is very powerful and can allow you to grow and accomplish things together that apart would be impossible.  Love has the power to make you unbelievably happy and when you appreciate that you live in the moment like at no other time in your life.

The Price you Pay

There is a significant cost that you sometimes pay for love however, for no good thing comes for free or without risk.  Love is so precious that many times we start to let fear of losing your love creep in and start to destroy the positives you feel.  Jealousy is one of the major culprits.

When you are afraid of losing your love then jealousy arises. It can be based on absolutely love we deservenothing, or on something from your past or any irrational fear, but once jealousy starts to creep in, love seems to be much harder to maintain.  Envy, anger, doubt, inferiority and ego also come with this package, but the culprit is fear. I don’t think you fall out of love as much as you fall into fear.

These negative emotions cause you to lose your empathy for that person you loved and once that is gone, there is no longer any love.

Once love is lost, there is no cure for the pain that you feel other than the calming salve of time. That does not do you any good when you are alone, can’t sleep and you miss the thing that made you so happy.

There is a hole in your soul that may in time be closed or perhaps it will just sit there, neither healing or being fatal to your existence. Just bearing a constant reminder of what once was and now is gone.  Is that pain really worth it when it comes to love?  When you just want to find a way to be normal, to find your worth again. To feel that special again.

Totally Worth It

True-love-is-always-worth-love-quotesI admit freely that in my past, I had totally given up on love and the fact that it could ever provide anything but pain and anguish in the end. Yet I know that there is a hope that love will rise and those feelings will come with it.

The idea that no better way to spend a day than talking about whatever it is that the one your love is interested in.   Life is a game that was designed to be played by pairs of people to be most effective.

Love makes this possible. With the power, the craziness, the mess, the loss, the happiness, the sadness, the fear, the jealousy, the joy, the anguish, the euphoria, the pain is all worth it. I would do it for a week, if that is all I was allowed to have.

I know I am a better person for those I loved truly and carry those victories and defeats happily in my heart!  If I was only allowed that kind of love for one day it would definitely be worth it. Life would be much less if I had never had her head on my shoulder or held her hand just to feel her near me.

 The memory of the power of that relationship gives a hope to the heart that tomorrow, a love may rise again. If it doesn’t come then you will at least have the memory of the power and purity and know that the most beautiful things in life are in fact possible.

If you could experience true love for only a week of your life would it be worth it?

It would be so good to see your face at my door!