A while back I was driving past a large-ish park in Seattle when I glimpsed a Washington State Ferry amid the trees at the entrance. I looked again, and the flash of green and orange, which I had taken for the characteristic stripes on many ferries, resolved into the characteristic stripes on Seattle Parks and Recreation Department signs.
Still, for a moment, goofy as it sounds, I saw a ferry. That was my reality.
Seeing that ferry bolstered my understanding of how perception creates the world. We see what we think we see, rather than seeing what is. Sometimes we see what we want to see. Sometimes we see what we are afraid to see.
And given the marvelous intricacies of the mind, sometimes what we want to see and are afraid to see are the same thing.
But I digress. The point is that we don’t experience the world. We experience what we perceive.
Insight into perception produces opportunities
When we realize that what we perceive and reality are different things, the world opens up quite a bit. Though it can be disconcerting to find one’s point of view is wobbly, it is also liberating. An obstacle that seems insurmountable from one perspective is merely a giant pain in the patootie from another perspective and, from another, the patootie pain is trivial.
Selling, for example, can look like manipulation from one perspective and service from another. Marketing can look like arrogant posturing or generous outreach. Creating wealth can look like pillage or art.
Obviously, what’s possible, not to mention acceptable, depends on one’s perspective.
Shake up a perspective, and you shake up a world
I’m talking about fundamental shifts here, not convenient reframings to redeem things that are venal. A fundamental understanding of wealth creation as art making produces a different world and a different array of choices.
Shaking, rattling, and rolling with The Three Principles
A year or so ago I became aware, through Michael Neill of supercoach.com, of an understanding called The Three Principles. The Principles emerged from the enlightenment experience of Sydney Banks, a welder from Salt Spring Island, BC, with a ninth grade education.
Shoot. What’s not to love about a resume like that?
Seriously, I was underwhelmed by my initial encounter with the Principles. According to Banks, Mind, Consciousness, and Thought explain the entire range of human behavior and feeling states. They are responsible for the creation of all human experience.
I didn’t have a problem with that. In fact, it seemed pretty obvious. And frankly, the whole thing seemed awfully fringe-y.
Except…
Except I noticed changes in Michael, and I liked what I saw. That got me wondering about the implications of the Principles. One implication that kept coming through is that nothing—zero, nada, zilch—outside of us has anything to do with our wellbeing. We live in the feeling of our thinking, not our circumstances, and wellbeing is our natural state.
What happens when we realize that wellbeing is our factory default?
Notice that I phrased that question in terms of realization rather than belief, because the Three Principles are not something to believe or not believe. They are something to experience directly. And as far as I can tell, that experience can expand and deepen infinitely.
But back to the question: What happens when we realize that wellbeing is our factory default?
That’s the question that is shaking up my world. It’s shaking up my work, and I’m fairly certain that it’s going to shake it up a whole lot more. And it’s a question I look forward to returning to with you in the weeks and months ahead.
For now I invite you to play with it yourself. Let it loll around in your mind and play jacks with your thoughts. And, of course, use the comments below this post to tell me what shows up.
The 3Ps shook up The Wealth Wisdom Series
A lot of shaking was going on from the moment of inception to when I finished creating The Wealth Wisdom Series. By the time I held the webinar on June 18, I was reinterpreting things on the fly and with glee.
I’ve removed the sign-up requirement from the series. Click here for direct access to all three parts through 5pm PDT on June 30th. mollygordon.com/wealth-wisdom-series/
I think the video (Part 2) and the webinar (Part 3) are especially fun and enlightening, if I do say so myself. If you prefer not to watch the video, you can download the (not verbatim) transcript and an mp3 of the soundtrack. As for the webinar, you can download the slides and an mp3 for that as well. Just be sure to do so before 5pm PDT on June 30.
I told folks during the webinar that the 3Ps are going to shake up The Authentic Wealth Virtual Retreat big time. In the spirit of shaking things up, during the webinar I gave out a link and a discount code that together add up to more than 50% savings on the retreat fee. No pressure. I’m just saying that if you’ve ever considered making the Virtual Retreat with me, now would be a wild, woolly, and economical time to do so.
Yes, you do have to watch or download the webinar to get the link and discount code for Authentic Wealth. Why not send you directly to a sales page where you can check out Authentic Wealth and possibly sign up? Simply because I want you to have the benefit of the webinar before you decide whether or not to sign up.
Click here for direct access to The Wealth Wisdom Series through 5pm PDT on June 30th. mollygordon.com/wealth-wisdom-series/
Photo courtesy of Washington State Department of Transportation via Flickr
