Many people, understandably so, believe that our circumstances directly cause our moods. However, it is important to realize that it is only our #perceptions of events that cause our certain feeling and mood states. For example, what one individual may perceive to be a large problem, another person may perceive to be a large blessing, such as living alone “causing” loneliness. One person may be looking through one lens and be in a deep depression, while another person may love living alone and never want anything to change with this.
The common variable, living alone, does not cause a shift in anyone’s mood or mental state, their perception of it only does. Another example could be a belief that we are not aware of, such as perceiving the end of a relationship to mean something about ourselves that someone may take to heart, as opposed to perceiving the relationship as a teacher and thereby learning and growing from it. This is also a factor in contributing to #resilience, course, because we can change our perceptions of situations and therefore boost our resilience reserves.
The next time you notice yourself blaming someone in particular or a certain situation in your life for your unhappiness or anger, you can stop and ask yourself the following:
“What am I not seeing here?”
“Are they really the cause of my unhappiness, or am I causing myself to feel this way based on the spin I am putting on what happened?”
When we realize that we are choosing how we feel about a situation and how we choose to view it, we rise up into #empowerment, instead of feeling dismayed by life’s uncertain circumstances that can change on a whim. We are then always able to look at each situation from a larger frame of reference, and this can cause powerful shifts to take place in our #mentalhealth and #wellbeing.