Episode 19: Change Your Perspective, Change Your World

Most of us walk around interpreting the world thinking that everyone sees it the same way we do. That way of thinking has led to a lot of harm and division. Think vaccines. Think colonization. In this episode, we pull that way of thinking apart and provide you with some questions that could transform how you view the world and open doors to endless possibilities.

What’s in this episode for you:

• A deeply personal story of a diagnosis and perspective shift that changed my life

• A bold way to approach situations where there are opposing views

• Powerful questions to create new possibilities for you, your relationships, and your world

Sign up for the Communications Masterclass here!

Poem: A Light in the Attic, by Shel Silverstein

There’s a light on in the attic.

Though the house is dark and shuttered, 

I can see a flickerin’ flutter, 

And I know what it’s about.

There’s a light on in the attic.

I can see it from the outside, 

And I know you’re on the inside...lookin’ out. 

Tools for change:

As you look at the situations in your life that are causing you grief, settle into the following questions and see what arises.  If you stay open to seeing things differently, transformation can happen in a blink of an eye. 

• How is this person/situation occurring to me?  

• How am I occurring to this person? How am I showing up when it occurs to me this way?

• How could this situation occur to me differently, in a way that feels better?

Pick up the talking piece: 

What came up for you as you listened to this episode? I'd love to hear your experiences with any of the reflections and exercises. Send me an email at podcast@humconsulting.ca or leave a voicemail (click the voicemail button on the right).

Transcript: (Some words may not be accurately recorded. Please let us know if something seems off.)

Ame-Lia Tamburrini (AT): Hello, friend. Thank you for joining me today. Before we dive into a really juicy topic that I think can be transformative, I want to let you know I have a special event that is coming up on December 2nd. I am hosting a communication masterclass. We created this class specifically to support you as you enter into the holidays. We know that communication is a challenge always and especially at that time of year. You might be hanging out with people that you generally don't hang out with for various reasons. You might be dreading having to “tolerate” their behavior. You might also be facing difficult conversations with people who have made different choices around vaccines for example. Whatever the case is, this masterclass is going to give you some skills to work with over the holidays and in your life. In the show notes, there is a link to sign up. It is happening December 2nd at 12 p.m. Pacific. It is going to be deep, supportive, and fun. That is what I do. Joyful expansion.

Today, I want to share with you a life changing realization I have been hearing over the past few months. It is a teaching that came from the Landmark Forum, an experience that I would recommend to anyone wanting to have more fun and freedom in their life and really go after what they're here for. I have done a lot of coaching, and spiritual training, and therapy and nothing has helped me release old patterns like Landmark did in just 3 days. I barely recognize myself from 3 months ago, so please check it out if that it all interests you.

I'm going to speak today about one of their distinctions and hope that we can get some movement in your life in a relationship or a situation where you are feeling stuck. We are going to use the example of the vaccine conversation to really bring this point home, so please stick around and take that in if that is something that is impacting your world right now.

As we begin, let's settle in with a poem. This poem is by a childhood favorite author, Shel Silverstein. And it is within his book of Light in the Attic. There's a light on in the attic. Though the house is dark and shuttered, I can see a flickerin' flutter and I know what it's about. There's a light on in the attic. I can see it from the outside. And I know you're on the inside... lookin' out. Thanks, Shel. I really do love his work. So simple yet so profound.

  Today, I’m sharing with you one of the distinctions that Landmark teaches because I think it is so powerful. The distinction is that how you show up in the world is correlated to how the world occurs to you. Let me repeat that. How you show up in the world is correlated to how the world occurs to you. If you look closer at that statement, it may already occur to you that if we can somehow alter the way the world occurs to us, that our behavior will also change. So, as we begin, think of a situation or a person in your life where you feel stuck. Maybe you want a promotion and you're not getting it. You are in a stalemate situation with your partner or a colleague at work. You are really unsure of how you're going to have a conversation with that person in your life who is or is not vaccinated. Think of something that is giving you a bit of angst right now and ask yourself how is that situation occurring to you.  

[0:05:00]

Hopeless, unending, not fixable, just part of the system, or maybe how is that person occurring to you. Stubborn, aggressive, a crappy listener, self-centered. Awesome. Now, keep that situation in mind. I am going to share with your personal story that indicates how this played out for me and then loop back around to work through whatever it is you are struggling with right now.

In February 2020, I was diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkin's lymphoma. You might know this already about me. However, you might not know how I was diagnosed. It was December 2019 and I was using up all of my healthcare benefits from the job that I was leaving. This was massage #1 out of #3 that I had planned for the next 2 weeks. Part way through, the therapist paused and said, “I think I'm gonna get this checked out if I were you.” She was referring to a lump on my neck that I had failed to notice up until that point. I didn’t have a doctor at that time, so I began this journey of walk-in clinic visits. Gratefully, I had a most wonderful doctor who listened and took my concerns seriously.

As much as I wanted to be positive, I did have a family history that told me I needed to be concerned. So, test after test was done and finally a biopsy was taken to figure out exactly what this lump was that showed up on all the scans and was getting bigger and bigger by the day. I got a call from the doctor's office and was told I could come pick up my results. This felt like the best news ever. Obviously, the results came back negative because it was occurring to me that no one would allow me to pick up my results if I had a serious diagnosis. I was happy going to pick them up, so much so that I went to my favorite cafe and I ordered my favorite rice pudding to celebrate. And I settled in and I opened up the envelope. Patient is suspected to have Hodgkin's lymphoma. What? How can this be?

Without a doctor around to explain these results to me, I spiraled down a dark path, otherwise known as going into shock. You see, only a few years earlier, my dad had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and he died within 2 months. That coupled with countless aunts, and uncles, and friends who had all died from cancer, the only future that occurred to me was death and soon. 2 weeks later, I was in the hospital waiting on a surgery that would tell me the staging of the cancer. I waited 5 days in a hospital bed not wanting to check myself out because I knew that surgery would happen sooner if I stayed put. And I felt like I was in a race against time. But day after day, my spirit dwindled and my anxiety grew. The only thing that I knew to be true was that every day I waited for the surgery was a day off the rest of my 2-month lifespan. I read data about the disease and the treatment options. And everything screamed death to me.

It all came to a head one day when the surgeon I was waiting for arrived. He looked at my neck and confidently stated that he could not do my surgery, that I would need an ENT specialist. Oh, well, my friend, that did not sit well with me. It seems to me that this surgeon had just secured my death sentence. The possibility that it was actually a good thing that he said no because he wasn't qualified to cut my neck open, that was not on the table. He was occurring to me as an arrogant prick who didn't give a crap about my life. Any negative stereotype that I had about surgeons at that time were being proven right before my eyes.

That afternoon, my general medicine doctor came by. And within a few words, I was a puddle of tears. I apologized profusely about my behavior with the surgeon and spilled my guts to him telling him about my dad, and my family, and how I knew I was dying. He listened and then he pulled up a chair and looked me in the eye. He said 2 things. The first was “No one expects you to be all together through this journey, Ame-Lia. It’s scary and you’re human.”

[0:10:07]

Secondly, he said, “Ame-Lia, your story is not your dad’s, is not your aunt’s, or your uncle’s, or your friend’s. Your cancer is incredibly treatable and it's gonna be one moment in your very long life journey.” I still remember this moment and it still brings up emotion because it was so powerful for me. Suddenly, the way my world was occurring to me changed. I could hear his words and it cleared away those ties that I had with the past. A past that was not even my own. And in that moment, I realized that I could write a whole new story. And although I wouldn't have used these words back then, I sat down and I wrote down how this whole situation was occurring to me now. In that moment, a 96% survival rate occurred to me as pretty damn amazing.

A moment earlier, I was fixated on the 4% and calling my lawyer to update my will. That surgeon occurred to me as skillful and wise. And I felt grateful that he was confident enough to know and state where his professional boundaries lied. I suddenly remembered that I had many friends and some family members who were actually cancer survivors. And that time that took by became time to contemplate, and focus, and get organized for the journey ahead. Suddenly, possibilities were opening up. And I can tell you that I showed up a whole lot differently. Now, that's a pretty big example of how things can change, how behavior can change when you can shift how things occur to you. It can also happen on a smaller scale.

Have you ever walked into a room, you've seen a person and just by the way they looked at you, or they're dressed, or they appear, you hear yourself concluding “mmm, they are gonna be difficult, I already know we are not gonna get along”? That person is occurring to you as perkily, or obtuse, or judgmental. Whatever it is. And then a few minutes later, you find yourself standing beside each other at the coffee stand and you both reach for the bran muffin. Mmm… Interesting. There's something opening up here because, of course, you love bran muffins and people who like bran muffins are cool. So, you throw out this awkward sentence. And an hour later, you're inseparable. You have this realization that they are open, and kind, and funny. It's the exact same person, but how they occurred to you has completely shifted.

Now, the question to ask here is how do you think you occurred to them? Is it possible that you seemed a bit rude, prickly, and entitled? And then at the end, when you were like best friends, you seemed funny, and kind, and warm, and giving? It's a powerful question to sink into because what it opens up is the fact that you are not the only one out there interpreting reality, and the trouble occurs when we walk around with the belief that the reality that we perceive is real, is the only truth. Think about those moments when you're with your partner or colleague and you observe a situation. And later, in the lunchroom, you are retelling the story to somebody else and you realize that you're telling two different stories. You look at each other incredulously. We were both in the same room. Did you not see what I saw? The answer is no. But it's impossible for our brains to understand this.

So, I wanna take this and apply it to a situation that is really impacting people's lives right now. The vaccine and people's decision to get vaccinated or not. Oh, yes, we are going here. To the people receiving the vaccine willingly, people who choose not to get the vaccine occur to them as ridiculous, uneducated, selfish, reckless. Maybe they even have a death wish. Now, to the people who did not get the vaccine, the people who received it seem ridiculous, uneducated, selfish, reckless, and maybe even having a death wish. Whose reality is right?

 [0:14:59]

Well, if we stay on that question, which seems to be the social norm, we are not going to get very far. To me, the more useful question is how do we show up when we believe that our reality is the truth. Just look at how you are when you are talking about those “people.” I imagine you show up as well-constructed and argumentative, defensive, judgmental, sad, hurt, or resigned. And what I have witnessed is showing up in those ways leads to certain impacts. And you can see it. It’s ripping families apart right now. It's causing fights. It's breaking up friendships and causing public unrest. And is it helping to solve the problem to bring well-being and safety to our communities? Is it helping to come up with innovative solutions? No. No solution can be found from that place. The only thing that will get created is more of the same thing.

So, what would be a more helpful way to show up? Well, one of the Cs of change that we implement in our programs is compassion. Compassion has the ability to transform our relationships. Why? Because with compassion, well, we love ourselves more. And in doing so, we love others more. How would others need to be occurring for you to tap into compassion in the example of the vaccines? Well, for me, when I think about it, well, maybe they’d have to appear as strong willed. More principled. People who are soaking up all the information that they can in making a decision on that, scared, worried about their families, worried about the health of their community. If people occurred to us as those things, how do we show up? Well, potentially more open, more curious, more connected. Why? Because in this reality, you share a common humanity.

When we can look at others through that lens, ugh, gosh, the possibilities are endless. We can hold different perspectives and still stay connected. We can come to the same table and work on solutions that address our shared needs. We can hold each other accountable, set our own boundaries and still love each other. We can sit in the conversation and provide safety. That is my vision. And I know it is possible because I see it all the time in the work that I do and in the stories that I read. So, as you go out into your world, as you face that situation you were thinking about as we began this conversation, ask yourself how is that person occurring to me or how is the situation occurring to me? How am I occurring to this person? What is another reality that is possible that would help me to connect to this person? How could they occur to me differently? This is a big work, but I know that you can do it. And I know that you want to do it because you are a changemaker.

And if you wanna dive deeper into some other ways to apply this thinking, please join me on December 2nd for the communication masterclass. We are gonna give you lots to chew on and take into your homes. As always, I am here if you want support. Email, text message me, or leave a voicemail. Thank you so much for being here. Much love to you. Ciao!

I'm now passing the talking piece to you. If you feel called to put your voice in the circle, please head to humconsulting.ca/podcast and share your story there. I cannot wait to hear what has come up for you as you have listened to what has been shared here today. I wish you love and joy beyond your wildest imagination. Thank you so much for being here in the Circle of Change.

I also wanna express my gratitude to the following peeps: Circle of Change is recorded on Lekwungen territories and I am so grateful to live on this land. Our opening and closing music was created by the talented E-Rol Beats.

[0:20:00]

You can find his creations at erolbeats.com. And special thanks to my coach, Mary Chan, of Organized Sound Productions for bringing this podcast to life. Until next time, Ciao!

Gratitude: 

Circle of Change is recorded on lək̓ʷəŋən territories.

Our opening and closing music was created by the talented E-Rol Beats. You can find his creations at www.erolbeats.com

My fabulous podcast coach, Mary Chan of Organized Sound Productions, brought this podcast to life www.organizedsound.ca