How emotions become lenses to our perception

We will never see the world as it really is, this is just something that we have to accept. The clearest that we can see the world if we are in a still state of neutrality.

I was depressed for a period of my life. I remember listening to upbeat music and finding it irritating, I was more attracted to minor chords. The aesthetic that I gravitated towards reflected my state of consciousness, what I saw beauty and truth in shifted. I became more grungey, I struggled to see good in the world and became pessimistic.

I now understand that it's not because there was no good in the world. My emotions shaped my beliefs and became echo - chambers to my experience.

I felt alone not because I was alone but because my state of consciousness made it impossible for me to connect to any good will that others had for me. I saw more suffering in the world around me, not because everyone was in a constant state of suffering but because how I felt meant that I had more of an eye for it, I could see it in people more than anything else. 

As I have found balance through meditation, my aesthetic changed. I listen to less arctic monkeys and even find myself enjoying cheesy 90s music from time to time.

I feel it's important for me to say before I am misinterpreted that there is validity in whatever it is you see beauty in, no matter how gothic or cheesy that might be. Light and dark are two polarities equally as valuable as eachother and you should dance between the two to get the most out of life.

What I am saying is that before you lean into one or the other, be aware that one way or another, you are also being blinded.

In the end It all comes down to what you really want, how you choose to feel, how you want to live.

How we feel can make some things more obvious to us, we notice more of what affirms how we are feeling and other things simply just become white noise. 

Our whole philosophy for life is built on a bias of how we feel. Whatever we connect to is reflective of how we feel. In my depression I reached truths that I would have never have reached if I had spent my whole life happy. The same way that someone who had spent their whole life happy will have connected to truths that I was blind to.

Philosophies like pessimism, nihilism, and Absurdism reveal truths of their own, but they tend to grow out of heavier emotional states.

Philosophies like Existential optimism, Daoism,Stoicism  are more likely to stem from and attract lighter emotional states and see through to different truths.

Any one person could spend their entire life dedicated to one philosophy, unaware that a simple shift in emotional state might have led them to another truth entirely.

When truth has so many faces, you learn to give yourself permission to let go of old understandings. Sometimes you must set aside reason to open to new ways of seeing.

I feel that we often forget about the fluidity of truth. How two things might contradict and be true at the same time. So no matter how seriously you take your truth, your entire philosophy can be shifted with a simple change in consciousness.

Imagine yourself living the same day twice. You walk down the same road, catch the same bus, meet the same friends, go to the same spot only despite the physical differences, your experience and takeaways are completely different.

One day you wake up feeling emotionally exhausted, you feel that the universe has been conspiring against your favour and that nothing is working out for you. You leave the house and the sky is a muggy grey. Someone has left a cigarette half put out just outside the entrance to your house. On your walk you see a single mother with a crying daughter and you think to yourself “what a struggle”. On the bus you make an effort to smile at the bus driver and he doesn't smile back “what a miserable town”. You meet your friends with a heavy heart, they are all smiling and having fun and yet you feel alone. You try to join in cheery conversation but it feels forced so you let yourself fade into the background. You end up feeling worse in the evening than you did in the morning, you were right, the universe has been conspiring against your favour. 

In a multiverse reality this same day you wake up feeling calm and elevated, everything has been going in your favour recently. You make your way out of the door and the sky is a soft grey, the air feels crisp and clean, fresh to breathe in. You see a mother comforting her child, how lovely. “Love is everywhere” you think to yourself. You get on the bus and you look out of the window at all the people passing by excited to see your friends. When you get there you don't speak much but you feel comforted by your friends' presence. You sit on the side in relaxation listening into the conversations getting the occasional warm reassuring smile.

Both stories have the exact same physical experience, are true in their own right and yet by the end, you would be believing completely different things. 

The first version you become more aware of the negatives and the positives become white noise, the second version vice versa.

As people, we are always ignorant in one way or another, without some form of ignorance we would not have identity, we wouldn't be able to even process the complex world around us. We are tunnel visioned and locked into the bias of our emotional state.

If you want clarity for one thing or another you must be still, to see past the illusion of your own pre-existing thoughts,  beliefs and emotions. To become the observer of your pre-existing thoughts, beliefs and emotions without attachment. 

Meditation as a practice does exactly that, people often report getting great downloads when they come into stillness. Suddenly they are able to see new perspectives in things and gain sudden insight. Meditation is a great way to come into clarity, to strengthen your inner compass and intuition and view the world from a more balanced lens. Again this is something that feeds into my ideas around how meditation helps you to develop a deeper understanding of the world around you through metaphysical thinking.

This is yet another reason that meditation is one of the most transformational practices that you could choose to invest your time into and why I am so dedicated to teaching about how this simple act can change your life.

By stepping into stillness, you might just discover a truth that sets you free.

1-1 personalised meditation session

Plan only

45min

Book Now