Reality lies in the eye of the Beholder…

Your Perception of Me is a Reflection of You; My Reaction to You is an Awareness of Me

I was heading home after a long day at work. It had been a long week and all I was looking forward to was spending some quiet time with a special someone.

I wish I had communicated my needs and said “NO” to their plan of heading outside for a coffee and then doing groceries at a local market. But, me being me likes to take care of everyone else’s needs but my own. What ends up happening then, I get overtly tired, irritated and my inner child steps up and starts throwing tantrums (Yup! I’m grown up enough to know this)

What happened next was an exchange of words and tempers, and they said something to me that really stuck me so deeply, I had to write a blog about it.

“My Perception about you had dropped”

I was stunned. This person always spoke about how they hold me in such “High Regard”, and how they have always “revered” me and considered me to be a “strong” person. And now because of this “tantrum” that I threw, I am no longer who they perceived me to be? Then, who am I?

I’ll tell you.

I am a person who has a lot of storms within, but who does an (almost) amazing job keeping this away from the rest of the world.

I am someone who has gone through hell and barely managed to come out alive. I am scared and burnt to the core, but I do not let this influence MY perception about the world and the people in it.

I have been used, abused, cheated and fooled. Tricked and had my heart broken several times, but I have not let this taint my perception of love.

I am the same person who refuses to learn the lesson and agrees to be put through the same spinning wheel over and over again. And yesterday it was the same. If only I had communicated my needs at that time and momentarily put myself first and amicably explained to the other person that; hey, I’d love to help you with your chores, but I don’t feel like right now, their “perception” of me would not have broken.

But it did. And I am still trying to understand, why this bothered me so much!

When someone says that their “perception” of you has “broken”, what in actual sense they are saying is that they had built certain ideal about you and now, because you display behavior contrary to that ideal, you are no longer revered by them (no, I’m not going where you think I am with this).

Perception is not reality. It is merely the collection of stories we tell ourselves mingled with how we interpret our world, and this included our interactions with others and the associated meanings we attache to those interactions. Long story short, perception is not reality, but perception can become a person’s reality because it strongly influences how we look at reality.

Think of it this way. Perception acts as a lens through which we view reality. Our perceptions influence how we focus on, process, remember, interpret, understand, synthesize, decide about, and act on reality. In doing so, our tendency is to assume that how we perceive reality is an accurate representation of what reality truly is. But it’s not. The problem is that the lens through which we perceive is often warped in the first place by our genetic predispositions, past experiences, prior knowledge, emotions, preconceived notions, self-interest, and cognitive distortions

Jim Taylor Ph.D, The Power of Prime

To give a personal example, I have always been chubby. It was something I struggled with for years and it gave me very low self-esteem, or I had low self-esteem and it caused the emotional eating which led to be being of a varied size than what society deemed as idea. I don’t know which came first. I felt unwanted by others. As an adult I learned how to appreciate other aspects of myself, like my personality, my humor and my innate leadership skills and gifts. And hoped this would take the focus away from my “uniqueness” and allow myself to be more acceptable.

Every time someone expresses their disappointment in me, no matter how small, I feel the panic of “rejection” and “abandonment” coming up and locking my throat. I momentarily forget that I am not a super human but an ordinary person who also has needs, who gets physically, mentally and emotionally tired even if she does not show it.

Does expressing my discomfort and stating my emotions at that time make me less of a person in someone’s image? Let it.

In any previous relationship, this would have felt like the moment where my world turns upside down. Where I feel like I had to now try harder to push my authentic self further inwards and be the “ideal” of a person someone wants me to be.

But I have come to realize and understand that, even though relationships are a funny thing, the reason you come into a relationship with others is to become aware of yourself. It doesn’t matter what type of relationship it is either – romantic, platonic, business, parent, sibling, stranger. The people who trigger you the most are there for your personal evolution and healing.

Your only job in such situations is to learn how to become aware of the lesson you are meant to learn. If you chose to walk away, the universe will simply send another person into your life that will trigger the same reaction from you until you get it.

If I could leave you with one thing, it would be this – What we see on the outside is a reflection of what’s happening on the inside, always. Everyone’s personal experiences and level of awareness will be the determining factors in what they see and how they interpret things.

You have more power over your reality than you may believe to be possible. Someone’s perception of you is there reality. What matters is your perception of yourself.

Until you learn and accept this, (and I speak here to myself as well), the Universe will continue to bring you (me) into relationships where this is tested and triggered. You (I) have to let go and stop blaming the outside for how you (I) feel on the inside because how you (I) feel is your (my) responsibility and yours (mine) alone.

No one has the power to make you feel a certain way about yourself. Whatever is coming up was already there and with the help of these relationships is simply being drawn out of you to be released, integrated, and healed. In my case the overbearing need to be accepted. If you can see this as  reality, instead of the unconscious emotional filter, you can save yourself a lot of tauma.