My mother had a poem in the kitchen that said – 

“God grant me the serenity 

To accept the things I cannot change, 

Courage to change the things I can and

Wisdom to know the difference”

With a tribe of kids to care for and a constant juggle for money, there was so much in her life she had no control over at all. Putting this poem where she’d see it every day was a way for her to try to step back from frustrations and reflect on what she could control in her life.

I’m not sure that serenity and acceptance are essential for us to create the life we’d love. We’ll all experience those feelings at times, but we can’t stay in that state and shouldn’t push ourselves to be calm all the time. 

And it can seem like it takes courage to pursue what’s meaningful for us, particularly if it goes against the usual order of things. But we can go for them anyway while still being terrified.

But what the poem speaks about is the wisdom of managing what we can control – and that starts with our mindset.

We can’t control the weather or the economy or what other people say or do,

We really only have control of three things – our perceptions,  our decisions and our actions.

Our perceptions are critical, because it is how we view the world and what we make that mean about us that shapes our responses.

If we think that we are powerless, we can decide there’s no point in going for what we want, because we believe we won’t be able to make it happen.

I think dogs can demonstrate the choice we have when it comes to assessing our power. When a bigger dog appears in the park and starts sniffing a smaller one, the smaller dog will often lie on its back and expose its belly to say “Look, I’m no threat to you, you’re the boss, you win. But the Jack Russell terrier will bark ferociously and seems to be saying “Just you try it buddy!” They are no doubt terrified, but they seem to have a sense of their power to take on much bigger dogs, or at least to frighten them off.

Neither response is good or bad, they’re both ultimately survival strategies. And that’s often where we humans are operating from as well – the animal part of our brains, the amygdala, telling us there’s a threat to our very survival in the way someone else is behaving, or what’s happening in the world.

That’s where we need to engage our prefrontal cortex, the executive centre of our brain, to question and shift our perceptions so that we can go towards what we’d love.

That is where we have the opportunity to question what that survival part of the brain is telling us.

“That shop assistant keeps ignoring me and obviously doesn’t think I’m important enough to serve”.

“My sister’s criticism of me proves that she doesn’t care about me”.

“Losing that client/job shows that I’m not appreciated/not good enough”.

“My husband ignoring me while watching football proves that he doesn’t care about me”……. okay, so that one’s true!

But only in the sense that he’s doing what’s really important to him, something high on his values, and he’s so focused that he doesn’t really care about what I want to discuss. In that moment.  I’m wise to choose another time to connect with him if I want to be heard.

I do a powerful process with clients which tracks back through their feelings and perceptions from events like these. Where they feel a partner doesn’t care, or perhaps they’re judging themselves harshly and not feeling capable of creating the career or relationship that would nourish and inspire them.

When we look at a specific moment of perception, through a series of questions we can shine a light on what they are bringing to the situation. They are so often astonished by the meaning they are attaching to other people’s behaviour, and feel lighter when they see how their perceptions have created their feelings.

The process of tracking back over an event from a distance reveals the truth of the situation they have distorted. They feel lighter, and freer and inspired to get on with what’s important to them.

Our perceptions are often lying to us. The real truth is that we can have what we would love for ourselves when we get clear about what that looks like and we take steps towards it.

If you think you’re at the mercy of other people’s behaviour, or you think you’re not strong enough or capable enough or clever enough to have the relationships, career, health, lifestyle or joy that you’d love…….

Think again. Begin by allowing for the possibility that what you’re telling yourself is likely wrong, not the full picture.

Shifting your perceptions shifts your feelings. And it is your feelings that drive your behaviour. So you want to disengage from the feelings that have you feeling powerless, resentful or ashamed.

Connecting in to feelings of joy, appreciation and inspiration are going to bring you what you really want in your life.