Perception is the ability to see, hear or become aware of something through the senses. The process, act, or faculty of perceiving. Any insight, intuition, or knowledge gained by perceiving. So perception is the input that creates our experience of the world around us. How we see and hear (perceive) what is happening in our environment determines what we experience in our life. Our perception may be flawed by previous experiences or by other peoples experiences and perceptions. An example of this is how our parents belief system and prejudices may color or become our belief system, perception and our prejudice. We form our beliefs based on the evidence gathered from our five senses, family traditions, the authority figures in our life, the friends we choose, and what all of these reveal to us. A belief system consists of a set of mutually supportive beliefs, cultural systems, and worldviews that relate to religions, philosophies, ideologies, or a combination of these.
It is important to be objective when adopting old family traditions and beliefs to determine if they are still valid, or even if they represent how you think and feel about things. It is very easy to pass beliefs and programming from generation to generation and find that your great, grand child does not know why they think or do things as they do. Flawed thinking and behaviors are perpetuated this way. We as adults can observe our habits, behaviors and thinking to access the validity and to make any needed changes or corrections, but our children can not. They are little sponges absorbing everything they see, hear, and experience around them. Monitor what they are exposed to through vision, sound and experience. Set the example for what you want your children to grow into as adults.
There are many different ways to correct flawed thinking and how we perceive events and experiences. WE must become aware that our thinking is flawed before we can change or correct it. My experience has been that I am seldom, if ever, aware that my thinking is flawed. However, I am aware of the desire to be happy, or to be more prosperous, or to have a better quality of life and I can take action to improve these desires. One way to make changes is with the use of positive affirmations such as “I am happy”, “I am prosperous”, or “I enjoy the quality of my life.” I can make changes to these desires by repeating these affirmations daily, feeling the emotion attached to them and believing the truth of each statement as I say it. Another method to create change is to visualize the things that you want to change as though the change has already occurred. If you desire to be happy then close your eyes and visualize and imagine yourself as happy. See a picture of yourself as happy, see whatever represents happiness to you. By doing this repeatedly until you do feel happy, you will have changed your perception of being happy.
