Paradigm Shift – The Duck or The Rabbit

What do you see? The duck or the rabbit? Either one is correct and purpose of this picture is to demonstrate that there is always at least two ways of seeing something. There is always a different point of view to consider, a point of view that we may not agree with, but that doesn’t make it’s wrong.

As human beings living our life on this beautiful planet, we are designed to succeed. We’re designed by god, the universe or whatever faith you align with, to be happy and experience joy, but we’re programmed to fail. We’re programmed to doubt ourselves, to fear change in our lives and to struggle.

Many of us go through life, sometimes feeling like we have it all worked out, but when things change and life no longer delivers, we wonder what went wrong. We tell ourselves that we don’t need anyone or anything to lean on, but the truth is that every single person on the planet has a soul and the soul leans.

If we’re not pro active about what it leans on, making sure it’s something higher, like self awareness or spiritual realisation, it leans on other more destructive things like food, alcohol, sex, bad relationships and so on.

Our paradigm is our belief system, our window to the world and ironically, most of the time it’s not even ours. When we’re born, we inherit our parents beliefs, if they have fears, we usually inherit them too. Then our society and our environment plays it’s role, our school, our church, our friends and relatives all have a part to play in what we believe about ourselves.

People will give opinions and advice based on their own experiences and as a child, we depend on that advice to help us grow and learn. Advice that is often based on fear, which we collect in our subconscious mind, later to manifest as our own belief system. If someone tells you as a child that your useless, lazy or stupid, whether or not you care at the time, somewhere in your subconscious mind that information is stored.

By the time we reach adulthood, we have so many different beliefs about ourselves and about different subjects, beliefs are generally automatic, limiting, negative and not even our own.

An American Novelist in the early 20th century called Anais Nin famously quoted, ‘We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.’ She was bang on, our paradigm or our belief system, whether it’s positive or negative determines how our life works out.

I was raised in 1970s catholic Ireland and it was on a steady diet of fear and shame. The catholic nuns who educated us, also beat the crap out of us with bamboo canes and fear was a huge part of my life, so my paradigm was one based on fear.

I feared everything, I feared failure, being alone, never being good enough and was desperately ashamed of my hopes and dreams, my desires and ambitions. I felt like I had no right to anything, love, happiness, success because the program running in my head was unworthy, unworthy, unworthy.

This led to a lot of self loathing that took me years to overcome and change. Expanding my perception and shifting my paradigm enabled me to do it. When I learned what a  paradigm was, I was able to understanding that some of the beliefs I held about myself were inherited and embedded and not actually mine. This meant I could change them and figure out my own belief system to discover who I was.

What is your paradigm? What do you believe about yourself, about your life? What do you want? A better relationship, a better job, a new home, a nicer body? Whatever it is, your beliefs about yourself will determine whether you get it or not.

If you believe you’re unloveable, you will be. If you believe you’ll never make money, you won’t. If you believe you’re clumsy, you are. Sometimes we just need to shift our paradigm to shift our life.

Shifting your paradigm means you can consider another point of view, observe destructive thought patterns and see beyond the program to identify your true beliefs and ultimately change your life.

 

Namaste X