Perspective
This past week, Angela and I climbed to the top of Heublein Tower as we continue to walk in preparation for our journey down the Camino de Santiago in September. When I looked down off the north side of the tower, I saw the following magnificent site -
My mind always thinking about how I might expand, I immediately thought of how perfect that space would be for a few yoga stretches, a writing workshop, chanting, pranayama, reiki ... We could hike up and then do some practice out there on the magnificent lawn! So, we ran down and went to see the space, and this, believe it or not, was what we saw!
It might be hard for you to tell from the photo, but the patch of grass is on a very steep slope. It looks much smaller from the ground than it looked from the air, and there was not even a small flat patch.
This visual perspective lesson connected right to what we had been talking about as we walked. We each had particular stories about how someone else had made assumptions about us and what we were saying when we conveyed a message that week. One of those people was even someone very very close to one of us.
All of this made us wake up and remember that every single person is living with their own set of life experiences and information. No two people have had exposure to the same events, books, texts, conversation as any one else. Because of this and our culture's current desire to categorize things and move on, it is very easy to see something only from your own perspective, make a quick judgement about a person based on one fact you see about them, and even classify that person or their message as "bad" or "other."
In this current political and social crisis, it is more important than ever to try to see things from another person's perspective, remembering their own basic goodness. What you first see or hear from a person might be more about yourself and may not be the truth of that person at all. Remember, we are all light.
Copyright 2018 Nancy C Murray
Nancy C Murray is a yoga teacher, yoga therapist, Reiki master and spiritual leader. She leads public and private yoga classes and healing sessions and also retreats and transformational journeys.