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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” ~ Charles Dick­ens,  A Tale of Two Cities

Going Round In Circles

Going round in cir­cles.  What’s your first thought when hear­ing these words?  For me, it’s of being stuck.  Or being unable to break an end­less loop.  How does your per­cep­tion of this state­ment change, though, after watch­ing the short video up above?  Going round in cir­cles is a very joy­ful moment!  A com­pletely oppo­site per­cep­tion based upon how we look at these same words in a dif­fer­ent context.

Per­cep­tion

By def­i­n­i­tion:  Per­cep­tion is a men­tal image, or to regard as being such.

We all make per­cep­tions.  And how we per­ceive an event can mean the dif­fer­ence between it being stress­ful, or not, for us.  Think­ing about the video again, if a child says:

“I’m going round and round in circles”

Our per­cep­tion might eas­ily be of some­thing happy and fun (like in the video above).

How­ever, if an adult says:

“I’m going round and round in circles”

Our per­cep­tion is much more likely to be that this is a stress­ful sit­u­a­tion that they are stuck in.

What Does All This Mean?

Our per­cep­tion becomes our real­ity.  As we per­ceive things is how we see them.  So, when we’re per­ceiv­ing some­thing to be “bad”, or “neg­a­tive”, or any­thing that might be cre­at­ing extra stress in our lives — this is a good time to stop and eval­u­ate what our per­cep­tions are.  Are there per­cep­tions we’re mak­ing that could be caus­ing extra stress?  And if so, are there ways we can change our per­cep­tions to also change our stress levels?

I’m reminded of a train­ing ses­sion I attended recently on lead­er­ship.  My per­cep­tion was that I would be tak­ing this train­ing ses­sion all day long, and that was way too long to be sit­ting in a class­room lis­ten­ing to some­one explain lead­er­ship.  My per­cep­tion of train­ing ses­sions was that of a lec­ture style of instruct­ing.  So, I went into the class in a defen­sive mood, think­ing six to seven hours would be way too long to be lec­tured at.  In fact, the train­ing ses­sion was very inter­ac­tive, and involved lots of group work.  And only lim­ited lec­ture style teach­ing.  I had cre­ated un-needed stress on myself because of how I thought, or per­ceived, all train­ing ses­sions are taught.   It took a while to change these per­cep­tions around.  And until I did adjust my per­cep­tions, this was still my real­ity — even thought that wasn’t the case at all.  My mind still believed we would be switch­ing to lec­tures.  I kept think­ing — that the lec­ture style teach­ing would be start­ing any minute.  And this kept the stress lev­els up.  Until I finally accepted that my per­cep­tion of this train­ing class was incor­rect — that the style being used was inter­ac­tive.  Once I changed my per­cep­tions, my stress lev­els dropped, and I felt more relaxed.

Per­cep­tion.  The next time you find your­self get­ting some extra stress com­ing on because of how you’re per­ceiv­ing at event, look for ways to change your per­cep­tion.  Look for ways to put a more pos­i­tive spin on it all.  And see if your stress lev­els don’t drop because of this.

Do you have cer­tain sit­u­a­tions in your life that seem to be more stress­ful?  Could chang­ing your per­cep­tion of these sit­u­a­tions or events reduce the stress?

Note: This video was gra­ciously pro­vided today by John, who writes Stress Tips — a blog all about find­ing ways to restore bal­ance and joy to our lives.  The lit­tle boy in the video is John’s grandson…going round and round in cir­cles.  Thanks John!

photo credit: Auto­ma­nia

“Love builds bridges where there are none.” ~ R. H. Delaney

A smile.

Brush­ing the snow off some­one else’s car.

Tak­ing the time to really listen.

Walk­ing the dog.

Small ges­tures of love…

In the most recent Sun­day Thought For The Day post, there was a com­ment by Natalia that really stuck with me.  In part, she said ~

“Except for the word con­se­quences this quote makes me think of the lit­tle things that we can do for peo­ple. Small kind ges­tures that when paid for­ward could pos­si­bly change someone’s life!”

It’s the lit­tle things we do, day in and day out, that can truly make a dif­fer­ence for some­one else.  It doesn’t have to take a lot of our time.  It doesn’t have to take any of our money.  Sim­ple.  Small.  Love in action.

You’ll get out of life what you put into it.  Sure, some days it may not seem like that.  Some days you may ques­tion why you even try to be nice.  Yet, in this jour­ney we’re on, on this path we’re tak­ing through life — what is it that really binds us together?  It’s love, in all it’s forms.  And that includes love for our neigh­bors,  our friends, a stranger pass­ing in the night…

What could our world be like?  What if there was more love?  Less indif­fer­ence?  More car­ing?  Less hatred?  More under­stand­ing?  Less malcontent?

Every­day we can make a dif­fer­ence.  Every­day we can be a light onto the world.  Every­day we can offer up small ges­tures of love.

Look­ing for some­place to get started?  Try out this idea!

We all have the same 24 hours in every day.  How we use them is up to us.  Today is your day!  Today is your moment to bring bright­ness to those in your com­mu­nity, to those in your world!  One small ges­ture at a time…