The Power of Perceptions

I was having a conversation lately with a friend of mine and I remembered my childhood. This chat made me acutely aware of the importance that our PERCEPTIONS of things play in our lives. Let me give you a little bit of context first.

I grew up in a small village where people walked everywhere. Everything was, and still is, in close proximity and we rarely got in the car to go places unless we had to go to the nearest town...
As the elder sibling, I remember being constantly sent around on errands, mainly shopping ones. We were lucky to have a couple of shops in the village, including our own bakery, a grocery store, a clothes shop and a hardware store. I'm not counting the hairdresser's salon or the pub because they had no concern for me as I was never involved with them: my mum used to cut my hair and I was never allowed in the pub...

To cut a long story short, I had this PERCEPTION in my mind that going to the village center to do some shopping for my mum or for our elderly neighbour (she struggled to walk) was a HUGE problem... It involved going up a HUGE hill while I was trying to remember what I was sent for, repeating in my head what I needed to buy and what I was going to say to the shop keeper, over and over again, so I won't forget or make a mistake,... I dreaded this experience. I hated that hill.

I thought that hill was really big and high. It was a great source of pleasure in the winter time when it snowed. Because it was such a big hill we had super great fun skiing and sledging down it. But when I had to go up it in order to go to school or to the shops, my perception of it was completely different - I associated it with hard work and I thought it was enormous.. It also made me create associations and beliefs in my mind that life is hard, that I must struggle to be loved, that as I grow older I wont be able to walk far etc... big impact that fortunately I am now able to address and heal.

Fast Forward 20 + years... I went home after a long absence during which my parents had moved house and did not need to climb the hill to go to the shops any more. I remembered the big hill and purposefully went to see it... The shock and the wonder! That hill that I had perceived as HUGE and enormous was in deed nothing more than a slight elevation of the road! Now my perception of it was entirely different. The size of the hill did not bother me in the least, it did not seem to be connected to hard work at all and it certainly seemed tiny compared to other hills I had climbed in my life. It was the same hill but my PERCEPTION of it was 100% different.

This might sound like a trivial story of a little girl growing up and finding her adult power but if you think about it from a more universal, metaphorical aspect, it is a lesson about perceptions shaping our reality. Most of the time children have a different perceptions of the world compared to adults. These perceptions (although different) are as much real and truthful to them as the perceptions we hold as adults. The perceptions we have (and it is the same with children) shape the reality and become our TRUTH. They even change our biology...

The big moral of the story comes to two things really.
1. Loving as my parents were (and still are), they had no clue that my perception of the hill was bothering me to such a great degree. Otherwise they would have done something about it.
2. You are now starting to understand this better and have a chance to do something about your child's perceptions of the world and improve it. For this, I offer my support and commitment to be of service.

I am looking forward to having a chat.