A Change In Perspective Can Make All The Difference

by Gini Grey

Ever wonder what your life looks like from someone else's point of view? Something you think is going wrong could look like a great opportunity to someone else, or some wonderful adventure you are experiencing could raise red flags in someone else's eyes. In the end, your experience of your life is what really matters, but during those challenging, stagnant or painful times, it can help to look at things through other perspectives.

When uncomfortable situations come our way it's easy to get bogged down in 'what's wrong', 'poor me', or 'those bleeping bleepers'. When we go down that spiral of victim hood or resistance things only feel worse. Months down the road when we look back and can see a bigger picture of what was happening then, and what opportunities emerged that may not have otherwise, we realize we have been on the right path all along - phew what a relief!

So how can we stay connected to the bigger picture when life gets difficult or even just stale? Shifting our perspective a few degrees can show us that more is going on here. Perhaps we need to expand our view and look beyond the current situation to see what other possibilities are opening up to us that we may not have looked for otherwise. Or maybe it's time to focus on the details and see what lessons and skills we are developing as a result of this situation.

Rather than judging a situation as good or bad, or right or wrong, we can broaden our perspective and see that everything has a purpose - if we want it to.

Explore these questions to gain insights into your life perspectives:

* Reflect over the past few years of your life and notice the times you felt things were going really well. What was it about those times and situations that felt good or right? What was happening for you personally and internally during those times (i.e. what was your state or mood, how were you treating yourself etc.)?

* What about the times when things were not going well for you - when you were struggling, stuck or in pain - what was happening for you personally and internally? Can you see the areas you were growing and learning, or see opportunities that arose as a result?

* When you look over the various aspects of your life today (career, relationships, money, health, fun, personal growth, etc.), become aware of how satisfied you are in each area. Notice over the next few days if your viewpoint changes.

Try these inspiring ideas to shift your perspectives:

* Choose an area of your life that you are not currently satisfied in and experiment with looking at it from different perspectives. You might pretend you are someone else viewing this part of your life. Try brainstorming a list of benefits that may be occurring at the same time or as a result of this situation (have fun with this - write down any zany ideas that come up to get the ideas flowing).

* Try looking at your life or an aspect of your life from the bigger picture viewpoint and from the finer detailed perspective. So for example, if you are bored with your work you could look at the small details of what you do in a given day and look for the value in them, or you could look at the bigger picture and imagine how and where the skills you are practicing today could lead you in the future.

* To get a bigger picture of your overall life look at your patterns. One way to do this is to draw them as if on a chart - noting the ups and downs. Write down the details of each (how you were feeling, thinking, behaving etc) and notice what situations led to what - you might be amazed to see all the positive things that arose from the down times. You might also see how you keep yourself stuck or how you create movement for yourself.

About Gini Grey
Gini Grey, founder of Celebrate YourSelf, is a Transformational Coach utlizing a powerful blend of coaching, counseling and spiritual energy awareness tools to guide people to live from their center and create the life they want. Gini is the author of the book "From Chaos to Calm: How to Shift Unhealthy Stress Patterns and Create Your Ideal Balance in Life" and the audo CD "Create What You Want in Your Life". For more information or articles, visit www.ginigrey.com.
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