How to Pick An Exalted Perspective

There have been times in my life when, comparing myself to someone else, I found myself lacking. To begin with, I was the youngest of three boys. My brothers were four and nine years older. As the "baby of the family," I had many opportunities to put myself down when comparing my abilities to those of my accomplished big brothers –– towering giants!

As I grew up, I excelled in school and at sports, but not so much with the girls. Watching my sixteen-year-old brother's suave boldness in action, I felt a neophyte's hopelessness. "I can't do that," I thought, dejected. "I'll never be able to do that."

But for heaven's sake! I was only 12. Of course, I couldn't compete with my brother, a sixteen-year-old! Yet without the wisdom to recognize that fact, I couldn't cut myself a break. I was stuck waiting and longing to become my sixteen-year-old self. But by the time I arrived at age sixteen, the accumulation of all those years of harsh self-judgment prevented me from enjoying the freedom of coming of age.

That's one foolish way our minds sometimes work. We apply a limiting judgment and then cling to it as if it's an unchanging, universal truth. That in turn causes us to disregard significant changes in ourselves and in the world around us: "Sure, I'm 16 now, and I may have reached puberty, but I'll never be able to talk to a girl the way my brother does." That's how a person in a sixteen-year-old body can continue to shrink from intimacy, controlled by the mind of a twelve-year-old.

By now you've guessed that I was a late bloomer. It took me a long time to understand and have conviction in a different perspective. First I adopted an encouraging perspective. And sometime later, I encountered what I call an exalted perspective.

Accepting an Encouraging Perspective

When you encourage yourself to do your best with respect and kindness, that is an encouraging perspective. We see someone doing something better than we can do it and we think, "They inspire me! Watching them excel makes me want to do my best at what I care about accomplishing."

This perspective is fairly easy to develop. I often practice taking an encouraging perspective when reading about people who overcome extraordinary hardship to fulfill their dreams. I frequently find such examples shared on Facebook. Reading and contemplating the stories of inspiring acts of courage and kindness makes me appreciate all the positive aspects of my own life. It shakes me out of dwelling on things that were not as I wanted them to be.

Growing up Christian, I learned that God and Christ were well beyond little me. So in the 70s, when I encountered Eastern spiritual teachers teaching in the West, I looked up to them, too, as being well beyond me.

I aspired to practice meditation to get enlightened. But I didn't realize that the harsh self-judgment I had acquired in childhood was still in full operation: "I will practice meditation to attain enlightenment, but I'll never be able to do enlightenment as well as they do."

Choosing an Exalted Perspective

During this time I learned about taking what I call an "exalted perspective" from a fellow spiritual student. We were just meeting an extraordinary teacher who emanated undeniable spiritual power and light. I wanted to study with this teacher! But I wasn't aware yet how my persistent "I'm less than" attitude was affecting my vision of how it was going to be to become a student of this teacher. That attitude, unbeknownst to me, was something like, "I'll struggle along as best I can in the presence of this extraordinary being." To me, he was a giant –– living in a godlike state that would always be out of my reach.

Then my friend shocked me out of this attitude. As we sat side by side, gazing at this teacher, my friend blurted out, "If he can do it, I can do it!"

He was expressing an exalted attitude! "I am completely human, just like this great being I admire. If he can become enlightened then so can I."

It took time to understand that this was not mere arrogance on my friend's part. With some contemplation, I saw that the beneficial power of our teacher's presence had awakened in my friend an awareness of our shared human greatness. A little while later, I woke up to that, too. I understood that the intention of a true teacher is not for their students to feel endlessly small and "less than" around them, but to help us realize that our true self is equally great –– that we in fact are the same greatness of Being.

So, how do you pick an exalted perspective? The first step is to stop being tricked by, and ruled by, outdated and often extremely subtle programming embedded in our memories – so subtle it is invisible to us even though it is controlling us.

If that sounds like something you'd like to explore, please join us for my webinar beginning October 27th: How To Deconstruct the Memory Palace of Your Unhappiness

We'll be learning how to systematically dismantle the beliefs and attitudes that weigh us down and keep us believing we are small and "less than" others. Through techniques I've taught to my clients since 1988, you can develop the confidence to honestly proclaim an exalted perspective about yourself and your life.

I hope to see you soon!