Enabling your capacity to choose how you will perceive things rather than reacting from knee-jerk default perception is realized through insight as opposed to efforts to control or maintain vigilance over what you fear. As you insightfully become aware of your innate independence from all phenomena occurring around and through you, you cultivate the “witness” consciousness of your awareness. The term witness denotes one who is a “bystander” – independent of the occurrence detected. It is from the witness vantage point that you empower choice.

Speaking of perceptions, in my empowerment communications I always strive to strip fundamental realities of their maligning perceptual baggage and in this particular case you may be familiar with the “witness consciousness” reference from spiritual belief systems, text, or rhetoric. The witness consciousness of your nature is ever-present whether a resonating doctrine that indicates so is present or not. How do you know when you are not feeling well? It is that quiet reality of your nature “witnessing” the physical, mental or emotional discomfort and “reporting” it to your psyche. (This reporting happens in a nano of a nano-second causing you to erroneously assume that “I” – and the thing being witnessed – are one and the same.) This close-to immediate awareness of the phenomena being witnessed creates the almost unavoidable tendency to identify with what is being witnessed rather than the witnessing itself, this subjectification of what is witnessed causes you to exclaim, “My” backache, “my” financial problem, “my” relationship issue, etc. (I frequently remind clients when referring to a challenging situation to replace “my” [issue] with “the” [issue] as a means of impersonalizing an unsatisfying condition; you are NOT what is happening to you; you are experiencing what is happening to you – BIG difference!).

In reality, that independent capacity within you reporting its findings is actually the Real You sans all the experiential conditioning superimposed on the self of you. How else could you be “informed” that something is amiss unless there was an independent faculty within you doing the reporting? If you and the “thing” being witnessed (backache, cancer, financial stress, etc.) were actually one and the same you would not know that something is wrong! (Chew on that!)This is a fact. Call it spiritual, secular or by any other named “delivery system” that enlightens awareness; it’s still delivering the same essential reality – your independent awareness is informing the psyche that something is amiss.
As you become conscious of a thing (in this case, the witnessing consciousness of your nature) you then are able to use that something intentionally and beneficially. As you become conscious of the witness capacity of your nature you become empowered to successfully choose the perception about a matter that you will relate to rather than defaulting to the auto-perceptions that trigger stressful reactions, narratives and behaviors from what is witnessed. You are then able to shift your vantage point from identifying with what is being witnessed to the witnessing itself. That last sentence can have profound, life-changing ramifications in your life and affairs. (In my book, Confessions of a Therapist, p. 109, there is a quick reference guide of a list of issues re-framed to empower rather than constrict your capacity to resolve issues.)

As the “witness-er,” you can choose what perception about a matter you will relate to and from. In my last blog post, “Understanding Fight or Flight Transforms” – I used the example of a mortgage or rent increase in the context of that posting’s message. Using that same example, from the witness-er consciousness (point of reference) you are empowered to CHOOSE to view the increased cost of your abode neutrally or benignly (“from milk to rent, things increase – that’s the way of life”). You view the situation not as a passive victim of the ramifications of said increase, but benignly so that triggered reactions of fear, blame, anger and overwhelm do not block the CHOICES that enable sober, pragmatic solutions that permit the experience to be accommodated rather than toxically tolerated or sabotaging to your well-being (and in this case, the well-being of your finances!).
As you practice shifting from identifying with what is witnessed to what within you is doing the witnessing you begin to notice a subtle burgeoning awareness that there is always an element of your nature that, “ain’t in it” – that is not participating in the drama the default perception of a situation is conferring about you, your life or circumstances. Identifying with this neutral component of your nature is what empowers the capacity to choose a perception about a matter that confers confidence, possibility and dominion.
You are not what has happened to you; you are the means of transcending it!

Be well, be you.