What goes down must come up. And so it is with me. I believe in literally willing myself to get well, because there’s so much to do, so much to see. I’ve also noticed, after a particular low, there’s always something to take me high. Don’t tell me about falling again, because this time it is a gentle float, light as a feather, that eases me into the normal routine.  The silver lining, you know. And always, the rose-colored glasses.

And today, I think I have a solid silver cloud here with me. I’ve got Elle Sommer of Reflecting a Life. Now, before I say “take it away, Elle” let me say a word or few about her.

Elle Sommer is a motivational blogger. To me, she is a soul-sister. When I visit her blog, I always think – oh, that sounds like me.  And love the feeling. Truth is, she says it better than I. Elle is gentle, kind, charming, positive and humorous. She literally spreads sweetness and light.  She’s a ray of sunshine.  She transforms lives.

What made me fall in love with Elle is her tag line “Encourage One Another” – what can be more beautiful than practicing that?  To quote Elle on her purpose,

To live consciously and generously, full of praise and encouragement.  To reflect back to everyone how strong and brilliant they really are, and to encourage dreams….

Wasn’t that lovely? It is only natural I would want to show her off here on The Red Carpet, so I invited her to guest post.  Stunned is how I felt when she sent it to me – because I have an unfinished draft of a post along these lines, as I am due for an eye-check-up!

Welcome, Elle!

Reflecting A Life

A Clearer View

My Darling One took me out to dinner.  Lovely you might say.  Well wait just a minute, there was something wrong with the menu…I couldn’t read it.  Why do they make things so darn difficult to read in restaurants.

What about trying to read the directions on the medication I was supposed to take…I had to get out a magnifying glass the print was so blooming small.  I should write a letter to the manufacturers.

And just to add insult to injury, I couldn’t make out the text on my phone – of course it was all to do with the poor lighting and the phone itself.  Absolutely nothing to do with me.

It could be worse I suppose, I could still tell a piece of fruit from a cupcake, and no, it wasn’t because I tasted them both thanks very much.

But there was something obviously and terribly wrong with the world.  Wouldn’t you agree?

What do you mean you wouldn’t…you mean to tell me it’s much more likely that the common denominator is me?  That it wasn’t anything on the outside that needed to be fixed but I probably needed to have a new lens through which I could see the world.  Hmmm.

You might be wondering what the heck this has to do with anything.  But it really has to do with everything, because clearly I needed to get my eyes tested.  Even though I have glasses for reading, I obviously needed some new lenses for greater clarity and a clearer view.

And just as what I see through my eyes has a root cause within me so the way I see my world has it’s causes within me too.

Naturally we think we see our world exactly as it is, and every event and condition we experience is caused by something happening…out there.  Not true…we are all seeing our world through our very own and very personal lens.

Our world, and everything in it is colored by our beliefs, our predominant thoughts and feelings, not to mention our previous experiences and when something really sucky shows up, how many of us are quick to say, oh heck it’s time to change my lens.  Not too many of us if I had to hazard a guess.

“Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.” ~ Betty Smith

Just being aware of this can open up a whole new world for us, if we’d apply the same principle to the lens through which we view the world, as we do to having eyesight that’s a little fuzzy around the edges.  It’s just time to change the lens…and we might try out two or three different ones, until the perspective works well for us.

Instead we look at the images we see, the events, the people who show up and we say, well it’s obvious that they’re the problem.  Nothing to do with me.  The economy’s awful, I always meet Mr or Mrs Wrong, that plane must have been filled with germs because now I’ve got a lousy cold.

I know, I know, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to do, to look at our view of life as being the problem, because we’re always looking at life through the lens we have and it seems so rational to say well of course the world is the way it is because that’s what I see, that’s what I experience.

But remember, everything gets filtered through our perspective.  Which of course is why we love those confirmation bias conversations.  Seeking, in which case we’ll always find, the information that confirms our biases, we  gravitate to those people who confirm all our worst fears.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we gravitated more towards the people who confirmed our best hopes?

Not that we don’t do that a little of course, just not all the time and certainly not enough.

It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. ~ W. Somerset Maugham.

We filter everything that shows up in our life and either accept or dismiss it without a second thought.  Our habits manage that for us and  it’s funny how we happen to be really quick to dismiss those things that don’t fit our preconceived ideas.

In fact we only get to see what’s in our consciousness.  So no wonder when we change the lens through which we look at life we can say…wow…I never saw that before.  Of course you didn’t, you couldn’t, it wasn’t part of you.  You had no thoughts or feelings that vibrated with that matching vibration of energy.

And have you noticed that we’re really, really good at ignoring anything that doesn’t fit our current picture of life.  Or worse, it gets distorted by our wonky lenses because they’re not only interpreting our reality, they’re creating it.  Let me repeat that.  Our lenses do more than interpret reality, they create it.

Imagine for a moment two people, one who believes in himself, who sees himself as successful, who believes in an abundant universe.  These beliefs become part of his internal reality, part of who he is and he acts from this vibration.  This is the lens through which he sees his world.  The other, sadly can only see lack and limitation, he believes everything is hard and good things don’t happen for him.  His world is like an obstacle course, and as he overcomes one challenge another one pops right up.  This is the lens through which he views the world.

Same world, just different perspectives, bringing a different reality.  I think I know which lens I’d be choosing…remembering that we reap what we sow.

So, I’m off to the opticians to have the lenses changed in my glasses…might as well do a little switching on the lens of life while I’m at it.   What say you?

Encourage one another.

Love, Elle
xoxo

Thank you, Elle. My heart is full!

Dear friends, please do visit Reflecting A Life and be enriched! Look for the beautiful “Prosperity video” waiting for you!