The wise,
realizing through meditation the timeless Self,
beyond all perception,
hidden in the cave of the heart,
leave pain and pleasure far behind.
—Katha Upanishad - Part 2, Verse 12
Thunderstorms are frequent and ferocious where I live, with rain whipping through the screened-in patio on which I sit. My first instinct is usually to duck inside to stay dry, but last time I remembered a story I once heard on a podcast. A father said that whenever there was a rainstorm, he would always take his son outside to experience the elements. He did this because he didn’t want to ingrain the perception that rainy days were “bad.” Now, that’s a self-aware parent who realizes the influence they have in shaping a young child’s mind.
It felt good to check in with the simpler pleasures of life—like the sound of water trickling down a gutter or streaks of lightning flashing through the sky. While feeling the spatter of raindrops as they filled the screen holes, I wondered what perceptions might have been blurred by my own early influences, kind of like the rain was blurring my view of the outside world now.
Certain people shape our worldview before we ever have a chance, and we form patterns of how we live out our lives. I’ve been on a mission to dig through every one of them I can recognize, questioning all of my self-limiting beliefs, ego-driven protective mechanisms, and inner dialogues that may be attracting negative things into my life.
Meditation helps dissect the root of any trigger of negative emotions so you can examine it with a magnifying glass. This process helps to clean the lens through which you see the world, mitigating some of the pain in your mind.
I witnessed another example of perceptions when I was sitting with someone on the beach recently. Out of nowhere, seagull poop plopped down from the sky onto her shoulder.
As I said, “What are the chances?” she said, “This always happens to me!”
As I said, “This always happens to you?” she said, “But my mother told me it’s good luck.”
I wanted to say, “Baby, I think your momma lied to you about having a target on your back because that’s just shit luck,” but I didn’t, because perhaps there are some perceptions we might want to hold onto.