Mind Over Matter-Tapping Into Perception

It is no secret that your perceptions impact your mind and that your mind impacts your body and that your beliefs impact and create your surroundings. Study after study show that people with a positive mentality have healthier physical and mental health, healthier relationships and an overall more successful and happier life compared to those with a more negative mindset.

Perception is a very personal thing. Two people can view the same thing very differently. An optimist can find an unseen benefit or a silver lining even in the darkest of matters, while a pessimist can find a negative in the most positive situation.

What do you see, the silver lining or the dark matter? Do you see each during different life happenings? How do you become a positive or negative person to begin with? It has everything to do with how your thought process works and how you perceive your world and how you see the world around you.

Mind Over Matter

When significant or unexpected things happen in our lives, we typically have a gut reaction. This reaction is often full of emotion, whether it is joy or anger or sadness or disbelief. We often do not realize that our perceptions affect this emotional reaction because it is such a natural process.

Things that could happen include the break-up of a relationship, the loss of a job, getting married, getting divorced, receiving a job promotion, encountering financial difficulty, having a baby, your child/children moving away after college, The list goes on. Be mindful that both good and bad happenings create perception.

Lets look at job loss as an example. It is natural to feel sad if you lose your job, and there is nothing wrong with that, but if you let the sadness become intense, or linger for an extended period of time, then it negatively affects your health and your outlook on life. If this continues in other life happenings, gradually you will create a negative way of being as a normal way of being.

An optimist will see it as an opportunity for something better, and that everything happens for a reason and that this is an opening to find something wonderful, while the pessimist may think the complete opposite.

You must be able to overcome negative feelings by focusing on how you can improve your situation. By focusing on the positive, on what you can do for yourself (such as applying for new jobs, starting a new business), or how you can seek new opportunities, etc. By doing this and being mindful of your actions and your thoughts, you can prevent a prolonged period of negativity from entering your surroundings. You can replace negative with positive. Remember, what you think about, you bring about.

How To Change Your Perceptions

How you perceive situations in your life, as well as life as a whole, directly affects your emotions, your day-to-day mindset and your overall health and well-being. Thus, start on path towards a healthier lifestyle by changing the way you perceive things.

Seek balance in your life: Rid your life of any instabilities and stressful happenings. You need time to relax and have “me” time. You need to seek peace and balance by maintaining an appropriate work-life balance and taking time for yourself daily.
Intentionally say positive things when you have negative thoughts: As soon as something negative floods your mind, immediately say something positive. This both stops the negative thought in its tracks and helps focus your mind on the positive.
Develop a resilient mind: Adopt techniques that will help you better cope with unexpected situations and more importantly, overcome those unexpected situations. People with a “can-do” attitude are more resilient to trauma and have more positive perceptions of the world around them.
Practice relaxation: Relaxation helps you to obtain inward peace and balanced emotions, which in turn improves the way you perceive yourself and others.
Practice meditation: The meditative state induces peace, clam and clarity of mind. It lets you clear away all the outside noise and focus on your inner self. This practice results in less stress, a more positive outlook, and simply a calmer view of the world.
Always be kind and take nothing personal: If someone is rude, react with kindness. Remember you never know what is going on in someones life and often it is the person who is rude who needs the most love and care.
Practice Positive Visualization: This goes back to the well-known saying “Thoughts become things” See yourself achieving a goal, see yourself succeeding in a venture you wish to excel in, create a vision board, a journal and add everything you want to see for yourself in the near and not so near future. Create your life in your thoughts and take steps to achieve the overall picture.

Your perceptions affect your thoughts and feelings, which send signals throughout your body, affecting your health. Your mental, emotional, and physical states. Create the perception you want to see and achieve in your life. Believe in yourself!

Lori Snyder, CPC, ELI-MP