‘Chapter 10: How to Change Your Perceptions’

While perception is normally an automatic process, it is ‘top down’, i.e. controlled by our minds. We can actually choose what we focus on in any situation and the meanings that we associate with different events in our lives.

To change your perceptions, you must realise that the only meaning in any situation is the one that you provide.

There is no such thing as a ‘true’ perception that needs to be discovered – all perceptions are equally subjective. Once you recognise that you actively create the meanings that you associate to situations, and hence your emotions, you can work towards the perceptions that will generate the most happiness in your life.

Seeking out alternative perceptions can be difficult because our filters are strong and resist change. If you are feeling unhappy about anything, it is a good idea to dispute your perceptions as frequently as you can. Make an effort to practise whenever you feel yourself slipping into a negative mood, because it is at these times that you will need the ability if you are to bounce back rather than let the negativity take over.

Once you are already in a negative situation or feeling bad, it is extremely difficult to change your perceptions. They become almost fixed in place, refusing to budge. Rather than using your time wisely to solve the problem, you may blame other people or get consumed with worry or anger. It isn’t possible to change an attitude simply by thinking differently once or twice. You may need to remind yourself to look at the positive angles to your situations many times, until eventually your habits begin to change. It is important to keep learning, practising and getting used to adopting different viewpoints if you want to be able to deal with difficult situations.

Here are some strategies to help you perceive situations in a more helpful way. Most of the techniques involve practising detachment, standing back from situations and looking at them objectively, or considering other points of view. Your beliefs are strong perceptual filters, so you may find it beneficial to keep in mind some of your empowering beliefs.

Avoid blaming situations or other people for your own negative feelings about life. While other people may make mistakes, nothing outside you can control your thinking or your actions. If you blame something outside of yourself for your current state, you strip yourself of your power and turn yourself into a victim.

Rather than blaming, you should aim to see situations holistically. Realise that there are many events that contribute to every situation. If you can find your own contribution to a problem, you can shift your thinking to how you can improve the situation next time. When you blame one person it can be easy to exaggerate that person’s involvement in the situation and perpetuate a feeling of unfairness, which causes discontent and ruins relationships.

In the same way, blaming yourself for problems in your life is not taking responsibility. You have done the best you could throughout your life based on the limited knowledge you had at any particular time. You didn’t intentionally set out to cause pain for yourself, so there is no point in beating yourself up over anything. Now that you are learning how to improve yourself, you can perceive and behave differently next time.

For around 15 months during my early twenties, I felt depressed every day. At the time I was blaming my partner for not managing his anger, I was blaming the franchisors of the business I ran because I couldn’t keep up with the changes that were happening in the company, and I was blaming myself because I couldn’t ‘fix’ the problems in my life. Once I saw myself as a victim, it was much harder to take responsibility. There were days when I lay on the couch all day, too miserable to move. Meanwhile I was telling everyone that I was ‘really busy’ working from home.

Because I was stuck on blaming people, I took away my own power to do something about my problems. Taking responsibility for the situation I was in, rather than blaming, was the first step towards beating the blues.

These days, I refuse to blame anyone, including myself, when things don’t work out. Not only has it completely changed the emotions I feel every day, but my communication and rapport skills have improved significantly as a result.

Here’s something to try:
Draw a line down the centre of a piece of paper. On the left side write the names of every person or event that still invokes feelings of irritation, anger or hurt. On the right side, complete a number of sentences that begin with ‘I am responsible for this because…’ Make sure you write out a full sentence for each name or event on your list. Think carefully about each sentence, and as you write them down, forgive the person involved for their contribution.

Do you have any music that you know will make you feel sad as soon as you play it? Imagine if you took that music and played it in such a way that it sounded different, maybe you played it at twice the speed, or you scratched it so that it repeated the same line over and over again. Would you still feel sad? Your habitual ways of playing mental tunes work in the same way as that music. Certain memories and thoughts always invoke negative feelings because you perceived the original event as being bad. If you can play the memories differently, your perception of them will be changed and you can save yourself all the misery.

How to use this technique:

1. First, practise with a memory that is only mildly unsettling so that you do not get swamped by the associated emotions. Play the memory through from beginning to end.
2. Next, play the memory through again, but with a difference. You might want to speed it up, view it through an external perspective (i.e. you are in the picture, rather than experiencing it), play it backwards, put a frame around it or turn it into still shots rather than a movie. You might want to make it smaller, darker, more like a cartoon, or change the sound effects. Try giving people silly voices or dressing them up in costumes. Apply the changes one at a time to your memory as you repeatedly play it.
3. If you play the memory over and over, adding to the changes with each replay, you will soon find your memory comical rather than upsetting. The more times you replay the new improved memory, the better your chance of remembering it and laughing every time it comes back. Every time your mind tries to show you a rerun about that situation in the past, you will immediately replay the new version.

You can use this technique for any thoughts or memories that you have perceived negatively. It does not matter how recently the event occurred or how strong the associated emotions are. Times when you feel hurt or rejected by others are great times to practise creating mental comedies. I have effectively used this strategy to bring myself back to emotions of amusement and happiness even after being harshly criticised. The hardest part is actually remembering to use the technique; once you start reframing the experience it is quite easy to laugh!

Successful people have learnt how to be both patient and tolerant of others. One way to grow your patience is to view bad experiences, such as conflict with others, as a learning curve. For example, if there is a person that you just cannot get along with, you can use encounters with that person as an opportunity to develop your own patience and tolerance.

Normally your friends, family and associates are careful to treat you well so that no conflict erupts. In fact, most people you interact with will be friendly and not cause any problems for you. When you do come across a person who treats you badly, it is a rare occurrence and can be used as an opportunity to practise patience, tolerance and a host of other conflict resolution skills.

While you do not have to ever like the person, you can actually be happy and grateful to have come across someone who has strengthened your skills in such important areas.
For two years I lived with a partner who frequently became angry, and often directed his anger at me. At first, I was so sensitive that I would burst into tears within minutes of his outburst, and it made us unable to communicate. These days if I am treated in the same way, I let it run off me like water on a duck’s back – I no longer take harsh comments personally. Those two years have greatly influenced the ways I listen, communicate and react to others and so I feel grateful.

To form a perception, you will probably compare your current situation with other experiences you or other people have had. Your mind will process whatever information you give it to determine if you are currently having a good experience or a bad one.

If you want to have a terrible experience, comparing your current situation with a much better one is guaranteed to do it! On the other hand, contrasting your situation against something that would be much worse is a good way to feel grateful and happy.

You can reduce the negativity of any situation by using contrast to your favour. Regardless of your situation, there are many other people who go through similar experiences and many of them are worse off than you. If your wallet gets stolen, for example, and you lose $100, it is better than losing $100,000! And even if you lose $100,000, you are still better off than someone who never had the ability to earn that in the first place. When you contrast your situation against worse ones you stop feeling sorry for yourself and feel grateful for how lucky you really are.

Another way that you can contrast your experience is in terms of magnitude. If you focus too intensely on a problem when it occurs, it seems very overwhelming. The more you focus, the bigger the problem seems to be. But if you take a step back and contrast your problem with something that is much bigger (the height of Mount Everest, the number of people on Earth, the generations of people who have lived before you, the size of the universe) your problem will seem insignificant.

I met a girl once who was constantly comparing herself with pictures of models in women’s magazines. While she already had a great figure and carefully maintained her appearance, she felt uncomfortable with her self image and frequently put herself down. At the same time, people who met her would comment on how good she looked. While it is good to focus on and work towards what we want in our lives, sometimes we need to take a ‘reality’ pill and see how good things actually are!