The 3 Ps: Perception, Perspective and Positivity
When Life
Gives You
Lemons -
Feng
Shui!
By Lia Menna Gross
Have you ever wanted to take a leap of faith?
That was me–two years ago to be exact.
Living life riddled with mom-guilt and anxiety was the norm. I felt the effects of my mismanaged self-care and suffering well-being.
Within a two week span, my world started crumbling around me…
Family members began passing on. The hardest one to bear being my grandmother - my best friend.
In the prior nine months, I had watched my grandmother ride the emotional rollercoaster of losing a child.
And having a son of my own, this shook me to the core.
I didn’t know it then, but I had been spiraling through the various stages of grief several times over.
It was during this grieving period that I discovered Feng Shui, and it couldn’t have come at a more perfect time.
Seeing your home through a fresh set of eyes.
Feng Shui views your home as a metaphor for you.
And all those things in it? A metaphor for you and your life.
What I didn’t realize at the time was how the very belongings I was surrounded by were keeping me stuck.
Stuck in a place of grief, past version of myself and living for future goals that just weren’t me anymore.
It was time for me to start making shifts to see my home through a fresh set of eyes.
What do I mean by a fresh set of eyes?
A new perspective and perception.
Is the glass half empty or half full?
Perception is how we take things in through the five senses with our past experiences mixed in.
It’s our interpretation of the world around us through sight, sound, touch, taste and smell in the present colored by past feelings and thoughts.
The lens through which we view our reality.
Perspective is a person’s point of view - the angle from which someone observes a situation.
It’s the attitude one has towards something.
Both are used to make sense of our ongoing reality.
Perspective and perception are what create, foster and link our inner and outer worlds. Together, they materialize as life as we each individually know it.
This is why traditional Chinese medicine considers Feng Shui as one of its healing branches of medicine.
Remember, from a Feng Shui perspective, everything is interconnected!
Finding myself again.
As you can imagine, finding myself again started with a small shift–cleanin’ out my closet.
While on the surface, cleaning out my closet may have been a necessary means of making space for a new (and improved!) wardrobe, the kind of clean out I’m talking about is more like the one Eminem references in his hit song by the same name.
With each silk dress and gravity defying heel, old stories of who I was and life as I knew it were shaken loose from the cobwebs of my memory - and ready for healing.
Cleaning out my closet morphed into implementing Feng Shui throughout my entire home, and with each small shift I made, more stories came up for healing! As I replayed the details of these stories, I began to see my home and the things within it in a new light (this is where that fresh set of eyes come in!). This new light brought about a shift in how I perceived myself and the ever-changing world around me - past, present and future.
When life gives you lemons…
The old stories that came up - some were happy and jovial (like taking a fun walk down memory lane), but others weren’t so fun.
These not-so-fun stories are the ones that I refer to as lemons.
Have you ever bit right into a lemon wedge?
At first it knocks you off your feet with its sassy, sour taste. But then, it turns kinda sweet on you.
What I realized was that the lemons of my life were pretty much the same way.
In the moment, when you’re “in the lemon”, life - and your perception and perspective of it - is sour. And frankly, it sucks.
But if you allow all the feelings to run through you and process what you’re going through, as opposed to resisting, there comes a point of acceptance.
It’s in that point of acceptance that the shift presents itself - the shift to see things as you always have or to shift your perspective on the situation and bring about a renewed perception. In that space of acceptance comes a sense of gratitude and positivity. Feng Shui brought me back to these attributes without suppressing the feelings that had to run their course.
I realized these so-called “lemons” of my life were like gems.
Gems leading me to my own, personal Emerald City. It was in recognizing how sour life could be at any given moment that I found the depth of sweetness that was (and is) present. The answers I needed - the “prescription” I was seeking - it was never out there. The inner peace I longed for could only come from within me. But first, I needed to clean house.
What does Dorothy discover in the end?
She’s had the ability to return home all along, but it took one simple shift to realize it.
Are you ready to make that shift?
Why not start with decluttering - the Feng Shui way!
It might be the catalyst for your own leap of faith.
And remember this:
When life gives you lemons, Feng Shui them!
