Perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned in my personal growth journey (and my transformational business journey) is that perspective is everything.

There’s what happens to me, and there’s my perspective (my story) about what happens, and the two are not the same. I don’t always get to choose what happens, but I get to choose my perspective.

I’ve had to learn this profound lesson over and over. When I forget to check in about my perspective, I can get into some deep doo-doo. When I remember to ask, “Is this perspective useful to me or not,” I have the option to choose. If the perspective is not useful (would make things worse, keep things stuck, or make me or someone else miserable), I’ve learned to shift my story about what happened.

I want to be clear: I’m not saying you have to stay positive all the time. I don’t believe that we can never have a negative thought, or we blow the Law of Attraction. “Negative” is a label that doesn’t acknowledge the complexity of our thoughts and emotions. Anger is not always negative, for instance. Anger can move us to create change, to stand up for ourselves and others, to get moving.

Yes, thoughts have energy, and what we dwell on tends to come true. It’s important to “mind our minds” for our success and well being. AND we are human beings. We came in with our personalities, temperaments and all the emotions. Being our authentic selves means owning all of who we are, including the “negative” feelings and thoughts.

If we marinate ourselves in thoughts and patterns that keep us stuck and miserable, we are not going to get the lives we desire. However, if we ignore, push down, make wrong, and deny our “negative” thoughts and emotions (our shadow), we stop being whole human beings, and we set ourselves up for a real mess.

Have you ever tried to hold a beach ball under water? It’s REALLY hard, and it tends to squirm out and shoot off wildly, often right into your face.

When we push our shadow down, it’s exhausting. Not only that, it unconsciously runs our lives. Then it shoots up into our faces when we least expect it.

How many times have you had a devastating experience that felt awful and horrible at the time, but when you look back at it, you see it taught you some incredibly important things? I’ve had SO many. We don’t see the valuable positive lessons and effects the “negative” event had until years later.

We don’t usually know what the lessons or gifts are right away, but they always show up. What if we didn’t label the experience “negative” in the first place? What if we quickly choose a different perspective?

Here’s an example. I had a client I thought was ideal. She sent her first payment through PayPal, then I set up her recurring payments with another company. We had our first few sessions, which went beautifully. Then her second payment wouldn’t go through. When I contacted her to check her card number, she emailed me to say this was a “sign from the universe” that she had gotten all she needed from me, and she was done. She wouldn’t honor our contract, nor would she talk to me.

I felt angry, betrayed, used, and got into a story that her quitting meant my work wasn’t any good. It was especially horrible to have her use the “sign from the universe” thing that way. (Signs from the universe never take us OUT of integrity, by the way.) I took it personally.

This was a big hit, so it was a few days before I could shift and get a different perspective. First, I saw that her action had no bearing on my value or the value of my work. I also realized if she’d use “spirituality” to excuse her lack of integrity, she was not someone I wanted to work with. Finally, I realized I needed to tighten up my payment procedures and contract.

This woman taught the Law of Attraction, and was relentlessly positive. I bet she was holding the beach ball under water like crazy. My work is to bring out your authentic voice – all of it – and that would have let the beach ball up and out. When I made my perspective shift, I was able to imagine her in love and light, and let go of my anger.

If we push away our difficult emotions, we’re saying they’re wrong and bad, which means some parts of ourselves are wrong and bad. That is a recipe for coming to a screaming halt in our personal growth, and in our business growth, too.

Our difficult emotions (let’s not say negative) are often triggered by old emotional patterns. These patterns usually started from a desire to help or protect ourselves.

Steps for shifting perspective:

• Feel what wants and needs to be felt.
• Give yourself love and approval. Honor ALL of your emotions and the parts of you that were triggered. They are trying to take care of you.
• Ask yourself, is my current perspective serving me? Is it useful? What important message is part of me trying to give me? What do I need to let go of? Does this situation, person or event show me something wonderful about myself? Does it offer me a new way of doing things? What else is possible for me? What is the learning or the unexpected gift?

As we shift our perspective from “this is bad and awful” to “what are the possibilities here” we free ourselves to let go of what doesn’t serve us, make empowered decisions and move forward with grace.

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What are your thoughts on todays article? Did you have any a-ha moments? I’d love it if you’d share them with me in the comments section below.

Ways I can support your further:
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