One of many gifts from cultivating mindfulness is perspective, that is, asking ourselves when we are overwhelmed:
• Might I see this from a different view?
• Or thinking I am not seeing the whole/larger picture.
In one sense, it's like stepping back and using a wide angle lens. The ability to do this comes from mindfulness giving us some space between the stimulus and our response to that stimulus.
Examples of perspective and reframing
• One of my students came home from class to find that her roommate once again had made a mess in the kitchen and had not cleaned up. My student was furious and was going to ream her roommate out when she got home. However, she paused and breathed and suddenly thought: "How big will this be in 6 months?" She did talk to her roommate but without the rage.
• When my daughter is upset about a leaky faucet, running out of toilet paper, that she has to learn how to work from home during this period, she thinks "this is a First World problem" and her irritation shrinks. She realized she was 'making a mountain out of a molehill.'
• Our older cat developed an annoying habit when getting out of her bed and stretching of meowing at the top of her lungs. When we took her to the vet, he told us that that she was developing dementia. She had already gone blind and deaf. We realized that when she woke up, she didn't know where she was and she couldn't see or hear. Suddenly it was so easy to feel compassion and go over and stroke her gently, and she would calm down.
• I was at a meditation retreat several years ago, and the person sitting in front of me was clearing her throat every minute or so. I was annoyed for awhile until I realized that she had a cold. Suddenly annoyance was replaced with compassion.
Physical perspective
There are many stories about how seeing the situation from a different perspective or a larger perspective can change our attitude.
The Buddha used the metaphor of living in a city on the plains and climbing a hill at the edge of the city. Suddenly you can see the whole city. His advice was not to stay at the top of the hill, but to remember that your home is part of a larger reality.
Many astronauts spoke of the effect of seeing the Earth from space:
"To fly in space is to see the reality of Earth, alone. The experience changed my life and my attitude toward life itself. " Roberta Bondar
"And suddenly we look back at ourselves and it seems to imply a new kind of self-awareness." Ron Garan
45 years ago, I was single and lonely. The hiking trail in Tujunga Canyon was a frequent refuge. One day I got to the parking lot and looked up and saw the peak of the mountain looming above me. And I felt so small. In the next moment my mind took me to the top of the mountain. And I felt so big. Suddenly I had the feeling of being so small and yet also a part of something so huge, and I felt this wonderful peace wash over me. It was one of those transformative experiences in my life, one that I have recalled many times since then.
Etty Hillesum was a Dutch Jew who died in Auschwitz and whose letters have inspired so many people. "There were trees outside her window where the stars hung at night, 'like glitter and fruit in the heavy branches,' and the sight of them sustained her as she fell asleep. But one day the branches were cut off, and for just a moment she was all but undone. She caught herself, though, and immediately decided that by merely adjusting her metaphor, she could love the new landscape too. Now the shorn trees rose up outside her window 'like imposing, emaciated ascetics' and even in their new shape, they were beautiful beyond words."
The problem with seeing situations as problems
• A problem is only a problem when viewed as a problem. All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end. Robin Sharma
• We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. Albert Einstein
• Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. Soren Kierkegaard
• It isn’t that they cannot find the solution. It is that they cannot see the problem. G. K. Chesterton
• What's in the way is the way. Mary O'Malley and Neal Donald Walsch
From Ajahn Sucitto: "Life’s difficulties don’t become fewer, but they don’t have to be a problem. Problems are problems when we’re trying to find an answer to them or when we’re trying to get away from them. Problems are problems as long as we have the idea that there shouldn’t be any. But when problems, difficulties, obstacles and hindrances are taken as food – something that you learn to chew over, digest and take in – they become part of life, rather than something outside attacking you, something to be blamed."
The problem is actually the way we relate to these experiences. Rather than solving or fixing, we can pause and ask questions like:
• What can I learn here?
• What do I need to learn to listen to in order for this not to be a problem?
• What am I not seeing?
So next time you feel frustrated or overwhelmed you might pause and ask yourself one of these questions or remember one of these stories. And then you might break out in song:
"I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day"
May you notice moments of happiness today, moments of peace, moments of freedom.