Perception is key to a successful life.
How do you perceive the world around you?
What are you taking in from your environment and what's the story that you're telling yourself about it?
This determines your reality.
It's true that your external reality is a reflection of your internal reality.
The way that you look at the world is the way that you will believe your life is going to turn out.
If all you see around you is pain,
Misery and suffering,
Then that's what you will experience.
You'll naturally put up walls to defend yourself and you won't be open to the goodness in life.
I'm not saying life can't be a nasty place.
It can be.
But what I'm saying is,
It's not always a nasty place.
In fact,
I see a lot more love than hate.
That's what I want to focus on today.
The good in the world.
At a time where stress levels are high because of the pandemic.
At times where stress levels are high because of potential war and lots of other reasons to be stressed.
It's important we take our time to unwind,
Be with ourselves and ground ourselves so we can see the good.
Then once you start to feel that good energy,
You'll start to see the good.
So firstly,
I just want you to close your eyes and I want you to just be grateful for everything you have in your life in this moment.
From the air you breathe,
To the clothes on your body,
To the food on your table,
Every little thing.
I'll give you some time to think about all the things that you can be grateful for.
I am thankful for this life.
Okay,
Great.
Do you feel slightly better in yourself already?
I bet you do.
See,
Often we get caught up in a narrative that's unhealthy for us and I don't blame you.
The world can be a very fast-paced,
Stressful place and often people can impose feelings upon you.
But here's the deal,
You can't always control your external reality but what you do always have control over is your internal reality.
How you respond to situations that arise,
That's the key word.
Response.
Are you responsive or reactive?
Because if you're reactive all the time to all the things that are going wrong in your environment,
Then trust me,
That's going to affect your internal reality negatively.
But if you can respond in a way where you look at the situation from a bird's eye view,
Figure out what's the best way for you to respond to that situation,
Then the way that that experience turns out will be entirely different for you.
So with that in mind,
I want you again to close your eyes and focus on a situation that's happened to you recently.
I'll give you some time to think about this situation and think about its negative effects on you.
Okay,
So hopefully you have something in mind.
Now I want you to imagine yourself interacting with that situation differently.
Perhaps you were reactive at the time,
Maybe there was a different way of responding to that situation.
In hindsight,
What do you think the best way of responding would have been for your own emotional health?
Think about that right now.
So maybe you found another way of approaching that situation.
If you have,
Great.
And if you haven't,
That's fine as well.
In which case,
Now I want you to think about the benefits that you've received from that situation.
I know sometimes it's hard to see a benefit that may have came from a situation that was quite negative,
But I'm a true believer that there's lessons to be learned in every situation.
It's just sometimes we don't always see them.
What did you learn?
What will you do differently next time?
Think about that for a moment.
Focusing on these things,
Positive outcomes,
New healthy approaches,
Different perceptions of the reality that you are perceiving,
Really helps you to overcome the emotions that you're holding on to from those situations that have really impacted you.
I'm definitely someone that's guilty in the past of holding on to a lot of emotion.
Just because I was mad or angry or frustrated inside,
I realized that holding on to those emotions for too long really wasn't healthy for me.
And as soon as I started changing the way I looked at the situation and realizing that actually I have more control of this situation than I realize,
Then it completely changed the way I interacted with the world.
I realized that my inner reality is directly in control of my external reality.
It's just very subtle so I don't realize it.
By learning these lessons,
By choosing to perceive the good,
Next time I can interact with the world in a more healthy way.
And no,
It doesn't protect me altogether from the stresses of life at all,
But it certainly means that I can control how I feel about it.
And that's the most important aspect.
So be grateful.
Choose to look for the good in every situation.
And I know that can be hard,
But if you can do that,
Then you will change your life for the better.
I'm grateful for you listening all the way through this meditation.
I'm grateful for the fact that I'm able to help people in this way.
I'm grateful that you are able to take these lessons forward with you.
I'm grateful for you and I'm grateful for this experience.
Thank you for being here today.
Look for the good in every situation.
