Travelling up the East Coast mainline yesterday, I lost myself in the amazing views of the Northumberland coastline and countryside I was watching pass by the train window. The crisp Spring morning, clear blue sky, and frost lying on the fields and roof tops all intermingled to create vibrant and beautiful views.
Not far north of Berwick, I noticed rugged cliffs and distinctive rock formations, and I was suddenly transported in my mind to a time just over 9 months ago. I was fortunate then to be having the experience of flying up the Northumberland coastline and around the Scottish borders in a light aeroplane. It was another day of clear blue skies, and again, I had amazing views … that time though from above.
And it was lovely yesterday morning to revisit those views; but this time from a different perspective. Same countryside, same cliff tops, and yet very different views.
This linked in my mind to an experience I had a couple of evening ago when I made a discovery regarding a feeling I’ve been experiencing for a long time. Whilst meditating on the feeling, my perspective on it suddenly shifted, and I saw it in a completely different light … the same feeling, and yet now, I have a completely different understanding of it, and consequently, of myself.
A change of perspective, and everything changes…
And this is so often what happens to people in the counselling room. Together, we explore a situation, behaviour, feeling or emotion the client is experiencing. It might be something they’ve been experiencing for a long time, and somehow, their understanding of it has become stuck, rigid, or blinkered. Then, during our exploration of it, a shift in their perception of it occurs. It might only seem like a small shift, but often, that change of perspective, no matter how small, is enough to instigate huge and lasting changes in an individual’s life, experiencing, or understanding of themselves.
Our dis-comforts, dis-eases, and ‘problems’ are often not as intractable as they seem, or as we believe them to be. It’s the understanding and interpretations we attach to them which influences our experiencing of them. And often the thing itself doesn’t need to change … what needs to change is our perspective on it, our beliefs about it, or the interpretation we attach to it. Make a shift in one of those, and an individual’s life, or experiencing of themselves, can suddenly seem like it’s changed significantly …
Photos taken May 2010
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