Latest / Impact Ready / 194. Witnessed vs. Lived: The Layers of Perspective

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194. Witnessed vs. Lived: The Layers of Perspective · Impact Ready

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  Welcome to Impact Ready, a show dedicated to helping you elevate
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  your impact in the world. I'm Steph Safra, your host.
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  Let's explore the power of showing up with intention and
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  energy each day. This is for those who seek to
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  make life truly meaningful. Get ready for impact.
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  Hello team, hope you're having an awesome week.
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  In this episode today, we are going to talk about the fact
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  that so much of what we experience in life comes down to
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  perspective. And this is a common theme for
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  this podcast, but I want to touch on it again today and
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  specifically talk about the difference between witnessing
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  and living an experience and how that shapes perspectives for us.
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  There's this famous quote from Wayne Dyer.
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  You've likely heard of him. He's beloved, he's self help
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  guru who's written dozens of books.
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  He's an absolute favorite of mine.
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  But he said when you change the way you look at things, the
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  things you look at start to change.
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  And the meaning behind that is that it has less to do with what
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  happens to us in life and more to do with the way that we
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  respond to what happened to us. It's the vantage point from
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  which we view something that dictates what happens next.
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  And we've all experienced this before.
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  We've we can relate to the idea that our lens, our filter for
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  how we see the world, influences what experiences mean to us.
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  It shapes the way that we see our our circumstances and the
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  situations that are happening around us.
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  No two people have the exact same perspective.
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  It's unique to you and it's shaped by so many things, but
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  particularly the lived experiences that you've had in
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  your own life. But there's something that I
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  want to call out because we haven't talked about it in depth
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  quite yet. And it's this.
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  I can recognize that me saying all that doesn't actually make
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  the circumstance easier for you to get through.
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  I think there's something important about living the
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  experience to really give you a depth of perspective that you
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  need to be able to get through something.
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  Actually going through it and having the experience of
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  choosing your perspective in the face of pain or challenge.
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  It's making the decisions to show up every day even though
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  things feel hard or you're not feeling your physical or mental
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  best. There's something to be said
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  about living it, and until you go through an experience and
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  learn what it feels like to be in that gritty, challenging,
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  dark space and be making choices from that space, it's hard to
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  integrate a saying like what I just described.
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  When you change the way you look at things, the things you look
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  at start to change. Now, Wayne Dyer knew this, and I
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  think you know this intuitively, but let's talk about it.
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  There's layers to perspective, and what we'll talk about today
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  is two different layers. The first layer is the
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  witnessed, what you see in your life, what you've learned the
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  read about or heard about or seen in other people.
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  That's that first layer of perspective where you can
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  contextualize it. You've been a part of it and it
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  has shaped you, but it's not quite as deep as the second
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  layer, which is lived experience, the touched, the
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  felt, smelled, the kind that's in your bones, That kind of
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  perspective. Now, 1 isn't better than the
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  other. It's just like most everything,
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  there are layers of depth to this thing we call perspective,
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  layers of depth to our filters or lens through which we see the
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  world. The best example of this that I
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  can think of in my own personal life is going through breast
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  cancer treatment. My wife and I have the very
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  unique experience of having gone through it twice, once from a
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  caretaker perspective and once from a patient perspective.
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  She was going through treatment in 2018, and during that time I
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  had an understanding from my vantage point of what it was
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  like to go through breast cancer, of what it was like to
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  go through a breast cancer process.
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  Mind you, my vantage point was that of a caretaker.
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  So my experiences were different.
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  My sense of physicality was different.
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  My body wasn't going through it. My recovery was different.
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  Yes, I still felt stress and fatigue and worry and fear,
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  sometimes exhaustion, but it was different than that of a
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  patient. And it wasn't until I had the
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  experience of going through actual chemotherapy and double
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  mastectomy surgery that I had a true understanding of that
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  challenge or that pain or that level of fatigue.
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  It was understandably quite different than my prior
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  experience eight years ago as the caretaker.
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  And in the same way my wife experienced what it was like to
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  be a caretaker, she might have had an awareness of what it
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  would have been like for me. She was a witness to it, but she
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  didn't truly understand what it felt like to be in that
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  position. And again, I'm not assigning
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  weight or value to either one. I'm not saying 1 is better than
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  the other. That's not relevant.
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  I'm not even saying that one is harder than the other.
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  They're just different, different experiences.
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  And obviously we can't choose our experiences all the time.
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  We didn't choose that, but we had our individual types of
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  learning as a result of going through those things.
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  So that example really helps me understand how sometimes it's
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  challenging to feel a depth of understanding and perspective
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  and being in choice and taking radical ownership until you're
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  forced to, until you have to integrate fully and experience
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  and choose how you're going to navigate that stuff.
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  And you can think about this in a lot of different ways.
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  Maybe you had a friend go through a divorce years ago, but
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  it wasn't until you went through a divorce that you really
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  understood what it meant to choose your perspective or show
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  up in a certain way when things were really challenging and
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  you're experiencing that. Personally, I think we've all
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  had similar circumstances where we've witnessed a situation and
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  so we have a perspective on it. But again, it's different than
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  going through it in real time. Experiencing racism or
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  discrimination, for example. Experiencing privilege or lack
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  of privilege, The death of a loved one, the loss of a child,
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  financial turmoil, a really bad breakup, getting your heart
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  broken for the first time, getting laid off, having to be
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  the one to fire people in your company.
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  All of these things are just examples of what people go
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  through every day. It's the hard stuff, the
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  challenging experiences that shine a strong flashlight on
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  your perspective and what you do with it.
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  Now, why do we talk about this and what does it have to do with
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  impact? It matters because understanding
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  depths of perspective, the levels of understanding, the
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  difference between witnessing and experiencing.
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  It really highlights 2 things for me.
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  First, we have to walk through this life with an open mind.
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  People, when we have shut down our heart and our mind to
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  experiences or perspectives that we don't necessarily understand
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  we are losing in our life will be a reflection of that.
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  Curiosity and open mindedness are skills to practice and they
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  create a different experience for you.
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  If we don't keep ourselves open to new ideas or beliefs, we shut
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  off our own learning. And when we stop learning, we
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  stop growing. Lack of growth equals
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  stagnation, and stagnation over a period of time leads to a
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  process of dying. That's the cycle of biology, and
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  you can see it in our own humanity, the necessity for an
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  open mind. The second thing that I'm
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  reminded of is that every person on this earth has something to
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  teach us. Everybody, it doesn't matter how
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  old they are or what path they've walked, what their
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  socioeconomic statuses are, what their career or their job is or
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  their cultural background, everybody has something to teach
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  us. My God, some of my greatest
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  lessons have been for my kids when they were little.
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  Maybe 5 or 7 is when I became aware of the lessons that they
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  were teaching me. I have patience that I might
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  have treated 15 years ago, who I still remember for something
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  that they taught me. This might require that we set
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  our ego aside for a period of time or indefinitely when we are
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  learning from other people. And this is a huge issue today.
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  It's why I bring it up. We make decisions about who we
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  want to interact with or who we want to learn from based on
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  whether or not they believe the same things as us.
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  But by the definition of learning, it means introducing
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  new ideas, which is why we have to look around and see people as
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  having something to teach us, even if they might not look like
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  us, think like us, believe in the same things as us.
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  And again, when we shut this off, we create stagnation and
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  shut off our own growth. It's a powerful perspective to
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  think that way and to be open and curious to understand the
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  levels and layers of perspective that exist in the world.
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  It all allows us to be more influential, more impactful as a
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  person. We have a better ability to
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  learn and grow more quickly. We have a greater sense of
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  self-awareness and compassion and empathy for other people.
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  And when we do those things, we can tap into greater depths of
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  gratitude because when you really understand experiences
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  and perspective, you can't help but feel appreciation and
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  gratitude. All of this translates into you
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  being a brighter light for your family and your community.
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  And the ripple effects of you become bigger and more
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  exponential. So this week I invite you to
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  explore the idea of these levels and layers of perspective and
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  thinking about how can I stay open and curious to other
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  people? How can I see everyone as being
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  a person who has something to teach me?
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  I guarantee if you can choose this perspective for even just a
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  few days, your experience day-to-day is going to look
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  wildly different to just see people as having something to
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  teach you. It's life changing.
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  So that's all for today. Just a reminder, I'm starting a
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  new project. It's called Proof of Light, and
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  it's me collecting stories from people out in the world who've
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  had experiences that are light giving.
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  Someone who helped them in hard times, some random act of
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  kindness, something that was unexpected, somebody who showed
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  up for them. Any type of light giving story,
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  I want to hear about it. I'm going to be sharing it on
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  this podcast and all my social media channels so that we can
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  start to understand that there's actually a lot of light in the
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  world, even in dark times, and that small actions can actually
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  lead to huge exponential impact. I think it's really important to
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  remember that, especially now, you can send these stories
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  directly to me. You can go to my website and
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  send them through the contact form.
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  You can e-mail me directly at steph@stephsafford.com or find
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  the link in my bio on my Instagram.
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  I would love to hear what you have to say.
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  So have a great rest of your week.
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  Thank you for listening. And as always, team, thank you
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  for being ready to Impact. Thanks for listening to Impact
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  Ready. I hope today's episode inspired
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  you to own your impact and recognize that you are powerful.
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  By elevating our energy and awareness, we can create
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  exponential change in this life. If you enjoyed today's insights,
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  share them with a friend and subscribe to the show for more.
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  I truly appreciate you. Thanks again for being here.