Non-Sensical Perceptions Through the Senses

Everything you experience physically is perceived through the 5 senses: in what you see, feel, taste, hear and smell. To some, this is their only reality. If it can’t be experienced through the 5 senses in some way, then it doesn’t exist.

But the true reality is that your perception is skewed. And so, even if your 5 senses give you a tangible experience, the reality you experience is different from another’s. For example, my husband and my own idea of cold/hot is clearly a few degrees different – it leads to many arguments of the number of blankets in winter, shower temperature and especially what degree we can set the hotel air-con on holidays.

This leads to the question – how real is your own reality?

We experience the senses through our nervous system – both the central and periphery nervous systems. Sensory neurons with receptors are located in the eyes, nose, tongue, ears and skin to response to stimuli, and connect back to your brain in your central nervous system – to give you a perception of a reality.

I don’t want to get too theoretical about this. So, let me start with some examples.

A great recent example regarding perception of our sight – is the white and gold (or blue and black) dress. This photo made it viral on social media for a few days, as thousands stated their perception of the dress. The irony for me, is that I didn’t see white and gold OR blue and black. I saw light blue and golden-brown. This perplexed me more, as it wasn’t even an option!

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The scientific, if you can call it that, explanation is that the photo posted was at a specific optical range that created this split of perception. Therefore, based on cultural, social and other reasons like your screen settings, your eyes and brain had a preference towards one way (white and gold) or the other (blue and black). Except me, it seems… Regardless, apparently your brain had an inclination to focus on different aspects of the photo, which led to skewing the whole colour scheme in the photo.

Another example – which way is this woman spinning? I can make her spin both ways, if I concentrate enough. Yet, I can’t control the exact moment I do this.

Last fun example – perceptions of your ears… How much does your sight skew the perception of the ears?

Not only can the perception of your senses be an inaccurate indicator of reality – so too are the perception of your memories. I had a recent experience of finding old report cards at my dad’s house. I was of great certainty that I got a C for comprehension in grade 5 and 6. That I was never good at it. Looking through, I was perplexed to find that I never got a C in 5 or 6 – for anything. I had to check several times, but this memory and grading, although inconsequential now to my life, was carried as a perception of myself for all my schooling years. It was very disorientating to realise that I had a skewed memory.

How many other memories have been skewed by inaccurate definitions of myself?

And even further than this, not only are your perceptions of your physical senses and past memories skewed – so too are your perceptions through your thoughts, feelings and energy. What you think or feel is not necessarily based on a reality as it is, but the reality as you perceive, filter and define it.

The problem is not that we have skewed perception, but that we habitually believe it is real. We get hurt, shamed or offended by someone – not necessarily because of what they said or did, but because it triggered a wound from the past. Here is a live example currently happening in my extended family: imagine... – someone shared a secret that shouldn’t have been shared, the other claims they never shared it, someone hung up on someone, no one claims to be in the wrong or who hung up on who, yet a family is torn taking sides on who is right or wrong, who is crazy or not.

On the surface it seems like an argument of morals. One that enrols other family members to take sides, defend and protect, the main parties feel victimised – and the worst of it, family members who love each other never connecting. Possibly to continue on until someone dies.

And as more and more people get involved, more blame and colluding occur. Somehow, this gets back to the affected party, continuing on reopening the wound that is raw and throbbing for over a couple of years.

The irony is that the reason the conflict remains and never resolves is based on wounds of the past. Wounds each person feels of being unworthy & unloveable from long, long ago - exhibited by a need to be the good and right, moral person. A secret that shouldn’t be kept from the family versus a secret shared that was sworn to secrecy.

A secret that is in no way important to know about anymore... The secret is over.

Yet, the inability to die to the wound – the inability to admit and allow its existence, (even if it really isn’t essentially true) – keeps us in ignorance. You can’t heal the wound without facing it.

I guess this latest drama gives my family something to talk about. But the pain is sad to watch. Because, deep down, there is love and a desire to reconnect. To have great-grandchildren connected with great-grandparents. But all that is experienced is a wounded self, and all efforts made to avoid the wound. In this case, the need to be the good person –or better put – the need to NOT be the bad one.

But it is more than that. If you have had a chance to listen to my recording on the ‘7 Progressive Approaches to Health’, you will notice that I talk a lot about Wholism. Most of you will understand that Wholism is an interconnected way of looking at things – however, I guarantee that most of you will still have a very limited view of what interconnectedness means.

It is a common misconception (or even perception!) that we need to fix what’s wrong in our ‘vehicle’ (i.e. your body) and our realities. However, this is still working within the same paradigm of those perceptions. The key is to drop our perceptions and expand to a more whole and truthful reality.

The only problem with this thought, is that our ‘vehicle’ wants to remain limited and orientated. Our vehicle being our physical body as well as our etheric, emotional and mental bodies. It also includes our memories (skewed in perception or not), because these are the fabric which holds our reality and vehicle in orientation. And extends out into our environment and reality with others. Everything wants to collude that you are limited.

In the orientation of our littleness and smallness, it all feels very concrete and real for our vehicle to be limited. To have our body out of harmony, our energy fields disrupted, our emotions and confidence array. To be stuck in confusion, feel neglected or under attack, smarting from the latest offence and feeling like we can’t cope. You might think that Wholism is to incorporate all those parts of ourselves and see with clarity those interactions.

But it extends even more beyond that.

Wholism is much more, because we are so much more than our limitations. Beyond our perceptions, we are so, so, so much more.

This is the same as intuition. Intuition is the faculty under which we are connected to all information and knowing through all time and space. There is no limit to our connection. However… our perceptions and stories about life and ourselves skew our true connection and this innate knowing.

What if the ‘you’ that you know now and believe about yourself to be true, is in fact an illusion. An illusion of the perceptions. While your perceptions are loudly waving their ‘magic fingers’ in your face, you are in the moment distracted from your innate knowing and intuition – always available for you to receive.

And what if you could see beyond the veil of your perceptions – allowing your perceptions to exist, but not deciding that that small slice of reality be the encompassment of the whole you?

What if you could tap into the real you – the whole you. When you figure out that the perception of your wound is an illusion and start to tap into the ‘you’ in wholeness, things change. Your vehicle (physical body, energy, emotions, thoughts, memories, experiences and behaviours) is only a vehicle. You are the driver of it.

And the magic is that the shift from limitation to wholeness can happen in an instant.