Looking Through Your Own Lens

Years ago, my sister and I had a conversation about what life was like in our family when we were growing up. As we talked, it felt as if we had grown up in two completely different families. It was a weird realisation.

Most people assume they see reality as it is. Yet that is only partly true.

What we perceive is constantly filtered through our experiences, beliefs, and expectations. Without realizing it, we assign meaning to what happens. We fill in the gaps, draw conclusions, and respond based on what we have experienced before.

As a result, two people can live through the exact same situation and come away with completely different experiences of it. Just like my sister and me.

Not because one of us was right and the other was wrong. But because each of us was looking through our own lens.

According to American author Dave Gray, we all create our own picture of reality. That picture does not appear out of nowhere. It is shaped by our experiences, upbringing, culture, and everything we learn along the way about ourselves and the world.

Over time, those ideas become beliefs.

And beliefs have a remarkable quality.

We rarely see them as beliefs.
We experience them as truth.

If deep down you believe you are not good enough, you are more likely to notice criticism than appreciation.
If you believe people cannot be trusted, you will be quicker to see signs that confirm that belief.
A more practical example: if you want to fall pregnant, you run into pregnant women and if you decide to buy a certain car, you will it drive everywhere.

Our brains are constantly looking for evidence to support what we already think we know.

Not consciously.
But very effectively.

As a result, we often live in a reality that is partly made up of facts and partly of the meaning we give to those facts.

This becomes especially visible when you find yourself stuck, emotionally triggered, or facing the same patterns over and over again.

In those moments, the answer may not be to change the situation itself, but to explore the beliefs through which you are viewing that situation.

Dave Gray calls this Liminal Thinking.
The ability to pause in the space between what you have always believed and what else might also be true.

Just so you become curious enough to discover that there may be more truths than the one you have known until now.

Because sometimes nothing changes about reality. And yet everything changes.

Simply because you begin to see that reality through different eyes.