Frame Your Reality

Oh man, I'm getting a late start to this weeks letter. I've been up for a while, but just haven't stopped to write you. So here we are. This week has brought back into view dualing realities. The nature of life where good things and not-so-good things co-exist at the same time in the same place. Both are true. Both are real. Both provoke emotions, thoughts and feelings.

In the upcoming months I have numerous virtual sessions I'll be leading, so I've been working on reconfiguring my office back more into a studio. It's invigorating and challenging. I have a small space but would like to create both a working office and functioning studio. Right now it seems one ore the other. I'm actually going over this later today to keep rearranging.

What I love about the picture of the camera viewfinder is that it shows what's in the Field of View (FOV). And though what's not seen, is still very much as real as what is seen, if you were watching me through the camera, the only reality would be the FOV. This idea feels like it could go either way. Like I'm hiding something from you just out of reach of the lens. I know people who do that.

Or more importantly, the idea that I can choose to give my attention to certain spaces of reality that are good for me to focus on. I still see everything outside the lens. I don't put blinders on. I simply choose to point the camera to an area I want magnified in my life. Even writing you now, I'm going to point the lens towards something positive, because I have that choice. You have that choice. We have that choice.

MAGNIFY

We are the magnifiers of our own reality. My friend & colleague Monica had the most unbelievably horrific flight experience for a speaking event. It's actually a year-long story. Last year going to this event she got snowed in at Chicago and couldn't get to it. So they said let's do it next year. This year she had 12 flight changes, three cancellations and four different hotels. See for yourself.

Her and I talked briefly throughout it and joked that her kids would be like "How lucky you got to stay in four different hotels!" Monica is well-versed in navigating challenges and remaining level-headed. Though this felt like some weird big cosmic prank, she maintained positivity. Sure it was wrapped in disbelief and incredulousness, but with a smile. So maybe it's not just magnifying the positive, but shrinking the negative.

MINDSHIFT

What would it look like for you to magnify the positive and shrink the negative this week?

AUTOFOCUS

Our difficulty is in the autofocus. When I point the camera in a direction it automatically tries to bring something into focus that it thinks I want to be the focal point. Our brains and emotions do that. That's why those people in your life you find to be consistently negative, are. That's why in the course of our day, we find reinforcing data to hone in on that focal point. That can be beneficial when we've trained our brain to focus on possibilities, but treachery when we haven't.

One of the most effective brain trainings I have done is not "positive affirmations" but reading from my identity document I created almost six years ago. We can't shift our mind into manual mode. It will ALWAYS auto-focus. So instead of fighting that, we've got to train our neuro-pathways algorithm to find the worthy center-point for it to lock onto.

MINDSHIFT

What if this week you identified three major areas your autofocus drew you to, that was not benefitting your life?

MATTER SCALE

What lives outside the frame is as equally real as what lives inside the frame. Ignoring, avoiding or dismissing is not productive. It's how we journey through the duality of reality. I love that about our minds. We can hold two opposing forces, both being true, both needing resolved, but also both magnified or shrunk by us. What's hard is that it feels like we don't have a say in what's really important.

We own the scale of matter and we assign the power rating.

To flip it for a moment. My office used to be a pit. So when I Zoomed with someone they only saw the well-defined area and background I wanted them to see. Your home office may be similar. In life, we do the same thing. Try to curate a presentation of ourselves that appears one way, but just out of view is a real mess. Don't let fear prevent you from inviting a few trusted folks into the whole picture. It might be scary for a moment, but I promise you, it turns beneficial for a lifetime.

SHIFTING

I hope this week you pay attention to where you autofocus, start retraining your brain and invite someone to come behind the scenes. It doesn't change reality, but it does change your experience within reality. #ShiftAway