Change Your Lens
"The lens through which your brain views the world shapes your reality." Change the lens and change your happiness. This is the message from a great TED talk http://tinyurl.com/772s6qw from Shawn Achor, CEO of Good Think Inc., where he researches and teaches about positive psychology. I've heard versions of this idea before, but never in such an easy to understand, humorous way. He is a great storyteller! As I was watching and listening to the video, I couldn't help but think about all the people I know who spend lots of time with the lens of their brain focused on the negative and horrible things in life, whether in their personal world or the world in general. This simple idea of changing their lens is foreign to many, but effective to all.
How to change your lens is a task that I'll leave to you and your friendly psychologist. But I'll take a stab at it, since it seems so simplistic to me. The question you should ask yourself is, "What lens am I looking through today?" I have found from interviewing many people who have gone through horrific experiences in life, the most control we have is how we view what is happening right now in our lives. I'm not saying we can change the facts of what's happening around us, I'm saying we can change how we view those facts.
As an example, just last week, my wife and I found out that two people very close to us have been diagnosed with cancer. While this news is very serious, we are choosing to view it through a lens of how we can show our love and support and how can we help them communicate their feelings wishes to their loved ones. One way I recommend is to utilize the service of a great website my friend, Jay Drayer, developed called CareFlash http://www.careflash.com/ . CareFlash is a safe and private online community you can set up to keep friends and loved ones up to date with what's happening with the medical challenge you're going through. It also helps the person going through the challenge focus the lens of their brain onto a loving, caring community of people who they are surrounded by.
Please view Shawn Achor's talk and see if it changes the lens of your brain and how the view of your reality moves toward happiness.