perspective

The other day I walked into our living room and saw my girls like this.

I quickly left to grab my camera so I could capture the moment. I was thrilled to see them doing something that didn’t involve a device, and better yet, something they were doing together without arguing.

As I got closer and changed my perspective this is what I saw.

After taking a moment to laugh, this is just so funny to me, it got me thinking. Perspective changes everything, doesn’t it? We feel/think one way and with just a little more information our perspective changes and we can feel/think something completely different.

Too often I feel like I’m coming at life from one perspective, sadly that perspective is usually negative. I’m a pessimist. I’ve never been ok with this facet of my personality. I’ve never liked how quick I am to see what’s wrong. I don’t enjoy coming at life half empty, but it’s what I’ve always done.

In years past I’ve tried to combat this with my gratitude journal, taking photos of things I love, prayer, reading my scriptures, intentionally seeing the good, and serving other. All of those things really help and make a huge difference to how I see the world, but without consistent attention, if I get lazy and stop doing, the negativity starts to creep in. I get frustrated at times, I just want to be done with it already instead of having a daily battle with myself, but I know it takes time and a lot of patience to change habits that have formed over a lifetime.

This year I’ve chosen to shift my paradigm and come at life from a different perspective. It’s what I need and it’s what I’m craving physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

To make this possible I am not only doing those things I mentioned earlier, but I’m making a conscious decision each day as to how I’m going to look at the world. If I put my attitude in check at the beginning of the day, right when I wake up, it’s much easier to keep the negative thoughts at bay. I also have a spiral notebook and pen that I go to when negative thoughts arise so I can quickly get them out of my head and not give them time to fester. I then rip the words from my notebook, crumble it up, and throw it away. It’s very cathartic really. It’s as if I’m literally purging those thoughts from my mind. If I had a fireplace right now I think I might burn them just to sent a deeper message to myself that these thoughts are not worth holding onto.

It’s helping. I feel light. I’m happier. No longer do I feel the darkness of depression and I have my spark again to be creative and to try new things — and all it took was a shift in my perspective, oh and a lot of deliberate thought and work.