Are you seeing things the way they are? -or as you want them to be?

Am I seeing things through the lens of the past, or as they are?

As I walked into my workplace, almost 13 years ago, I remember a feeling of dread overcome me as I walked up the stairs.

With every step I climbed, my heart sank. A cloud of anxiety loomed over me.

It felt like walking into a hostile environment, every single day.

As I got started with the meetings and such, the first conversation I was supposed to have felt totally overwhelming. I fumbled my words, as my manager, Tim asked me to answer an important question someone was asking us.

I abandoned the sentence midway, and gestured to him to take over, which he reluctantly did.

I was afraid. I panicked, and this pattern continued for many months or perhaps a couple of years more.

As my inner work continued, and my self-confidence developed over the next few years, I remember walking into the same building one day with absolutely no shadow of fear.

I walked into Tim's office, had a small conversation with him, and realized that he was one of the nicest people I had ever worked with. He was kind, patient, generous and understanding.

Did he undergo a dramatic change over the past few years? Or was I imagining things?

He always had a reputation of being a kind, gentle and supportive person.

My workplace, also known as a relatively stress-free environment, had not undergone any change.

I realized that It was the same place, the same people, the exact same environment.

But, I was no longer the same.

The lens through which I saw the same reality had changed.

I could now see the reality for what it was, not what I feared it was.

The fear came from my previous job, which was indeed a toxic environment, from where I was eventually fired. The person who fired me then, was my boss.

Our desires and fears cast a shadow over our reality. They create an unconscious filter through which we experience our daily lives. They shift our experience in the direction of their choosing.

This shift in experience is nothing but a manipulation of reality to match our inward states, such that the inward status quo remains the same. Our mind prefers not to be perturbed by what it sees. It wants to perpetuate what it already knows, which is our past.

It prefers knowing over ignorance, even if that knowledge is wrong. So it judges an unknown situation, and believes its own judgment to be the truth.

Fear makes us hallucinate.

It convinces us that we are about to go through the same experience, the same way, as the old version of ourselves once did.

But that is impossible.

You cannot experience the same painful event again, in the same way, even if you were transported back in time and forced to relive it, for you are a different person today.

Even if you were to experience the same thing again, you couldn’t experience it the same way.

Your reaction would be different.

You cannot experience the same trauma twice.

To feel this in the bones, not just intellectually, is to transcend fear.

Present reality is always unknowable. It’s always new, no matter how familiar it seems, it is never the same.

It is vibrant, flowing and active like a mountain stream after a rainfall.

To be in this space where reality is not seen through a filter, but directly - as it changes every instant - is to be present.

This place is beyond words or thoughts. One can’t say, “I am present” , when one is, for one is part of that flow. The self is gone with that stream. One can describe the stream only when one is out of it.

Presence is the absence of me.  Presence is beyond acceptance, rejection or analysis.  It just is.

Unfolding and happening at its own pace, it carries a stillness. Changing and unpredictable, yet quiet and deep. In presence, everything is seen as new and fresh.

To find this state once in a while, is enough.

It takes intense focus and awareness to get there. It takes deep listening in conversations. It takes engaging all your senses such that your perception cannot perceive your own past, but only perceives the present.

That place alone, is reality.

For when we find it, a part of us always remains there. That is not a part of us which was lost, but a part of us, which was found **.

Are you seeing your life as it is, or through a lens of your past?

Let me know your thoughts.

**If you understood this statement, I want to know your interpretation.