Perception Paradigm

 We are all on this endless collision course between our mental reality and actual(?) reality. Our perception can best be defined as the convergence of these two disparate realities. In many ways, as a therapist, I have dedicated my life to investigating this convergence. I believe we all have, even if the focus is clawing through our own faulty self-perception.

Yet like an ant trying to comprehend a human being, we are all disabled in our quests for the truth. The hunt goes on, of course. That intrinsic stirring for what is true is too powerful to ignore. I just have to ask, are we doing enough to understand human's clouded lens of perception before inquiring into what lies beyond it?

Can we, should we, first create:

A theory of (perceiving) everything.

We know how and why a child's mind develops. We can make clear associations between each developmental stage, and how it serves survival based on that child's physical and mental limitations. We know what they perceive is not "real," but an array of beliefs that allow them to adapt to their caregivers and surroundings. 


Are we asking enough questions about what happens to that same child's mind when it suddenly has to hold the entire world within it? How does a brain, constructed to keep a child safe in very specific circumstances, continue to adapt to ever-evolving needs?

Unbeknownst to many, we are NOT adapting the child-mind into adulthood, as much as we are casting its net onto larger and larger oceans.   

We generally understand the influence of early life on our interpersonal experiences, but we have barely scratched the surface of how encumbered we truly are. How much of the psychological journey through life, to the truth, is this and only this. Living and breathing within the confines of the child-mind, and the grueling shedding of its layers.

We do expand with experience and knowledge but consider how often you still collapse into black and white thinking, catastrophizing, personalizing... all functions of the child-mind. Even the sadness we feel when hungry, tired, lonely and in pain is the same sadness that once made us cry in infancy to get those needs met.

The true practical application of all this being to finally debunk hate, sense of abandonment, so much of fear, loneliness, many mental illnesses, as sad remnants of the child-mind. So much of what makes the world a terrifying place to be, whether through experiencing these emotions or witnessing others be enslaved to these emotions.

Is it pure fantasy to wish for us to move beyond childhood fallacy masquerading as truth? To not stop the dialogue on development and perception once people reach a certain age? 

Can we do this and still honor identity, beliefs, knowledge, wisdom... everything that is beautiful about us? The irony is, I think we are already on this journey as individuals, we just don't label it as such. Our psychological journeying just feels so personal and shameful, we fail to realize we are actually on a unified mission towards mental freedom.  

“You have put so much energy into building a prison for yourself. Now spend as much on demolishing it. In fact, demolition is easy, for the false dissolves when it is discovered.”

― Nisargadatta Maharaj

Dissolved and Demolished,

Samsara