Bat talisman - the importance of different perspectives
One of my special joys in summer is to stand by the pond at dusk and have the resident bats fly over my head. Their aerial agility never ceases to amaze me, sometimes they skim the top of my head so closely I can feel the whoosh as they fly by.
When I was making this piece I was thinking about how stepping back and taking a different perspective on situations can radically impact our perception of the world and our wellbeing. Not only do bats roost upside down, they perceive the world in terms of echo location. Flying at night and sensing this way their perspective on the world is completely different to ours.
Very often when faced with difficult or challenging situations we can react emotionally before properly thinking. I can say this because I am highly sensitive and empathic, I can feel my feelings, and in a lot of circumstances I can feel yours too. Before I was self aware I can think of many instances I reacted quickly and emotionally to situations, which made them seem much worse than they actually were.
By giving ourselves time to step back, to see things from another perspective, we can not only become more grounded and less reactive, we suffer less internal turmoil too. When I look back at difficult times in my life they were often profound learning experiences which I would have realised if I'd taken another perspective. That is a question I often ask myself now in difficult times - what lesson can I take from this?
Cognitive behavioural therapy takes situations and helps people to see them in different ways. It takes constant work to make this become a habit, which I think is why after a block of sessions some people feel it hasn't worked that well. As with everything you have to practice.
One of the hermetic axioms is "as within, so without", so as we are inside of ourselves so we influence the outside world. In times when we're reacting out of emotion that influence can be painful and often destructive if we aren't aware.
You have the power to influence your reality, so if, like me, you often react out of a place of emotion we can take a lesson from bat and learn to take a different perspective on things. We can step back, breathe, and ask ourselves how can we perceive this differently?
