Perceptions: Why You Must Constantly Challenge Them

I once heard a wonderful story on a tape by medical doctor and author of "Is It Worth Dying For?" Robert S. Eliot, M.D.

It goes like this.

Imagine you go into a restaurant to have a wonderful meal with your family.

Well, to your dismay, your waitress is not only snippy, short and aloof, she keeps messing up the order as well.

You're about ready to let her have it when you overhear another waitress speaking about her.

Turns out, she has a brain tumor growing inside of her and she's no longer in control of all her faculties. Her brains not functioning as well as it should and she can't stop working cause she's trying to make ends meet.

Did your perception of her change? Did you feel differently about the situation? Were you ready to chew her head off or did your understanding of the situation change the way you feel?

This is the power of perceptions.

Interestingly, when Dr. Eliot polls his audiences, he says that over 85% of people feel a deeper compassion for the waitress and that their perception of the situation absolutely changes for them. They experience a completely different inner awareness, a completely different perception of the situation.

As a result, they would respond very differently to the situation.

Ironically, 15% of people polled say they wish the tumor would grow faster. Ever heard of Type A personalities!

So now that you know that your perception of a situation can trigger your fight or flight response and completely change your body's response to a life event, you can be more selective about verifying whether your perceptions are accurate or not.

Are you taking things too personally? Are you overreacting? Are you underreacting?

There's no right or wrong to this. It's all a matter of awareness.

You need to be aware that, in most situations today, the inner state of stress in your body is not being triggered by an actual physical threat to your survival, as much as it is a perceptual distortion, a perceived threat that can be re-evaluated by your thinking brain, and downgraded if necessary, so that it does not trigger your fight or flight response unnecessarily.