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Perception is personal. We all perceive our situations and experiences differently. Two people can walk through similar situations, like grief or similar experiences, and end up with two completely different viewpoints. What you perceive is what you get, which begs the question: If you know that you can perceive things differently, what options does that open up for you?

When I was nineteen years old, I had the chance to go on a vacation to the Atlantis resort in The Bahamas. It’s a place that I had always wanted to visit, and I got the opportunity when my cousin’s family invited me to go with them.

My cousin and I decided to wander the property late one night during our trip. So, it was somewhat dark, and not many people were out. The resort has glass tunnels through shark tanks and other cool places to explore. On this particular night, everything was eerie and creepy (or at least that’s how I perceived it.) We didn’t see another person the entire time, and we kept ending up in dark places that generally have lights. It seemed like they were all broken.

Finally, we end up in the shark tunnel, a glass tunnel through the shark tanks. But again, the lights weren’t working, and the only light was coming from the moon shining through the shark-infested waters down into the tunnel. All we could make out were dark, shadowy figures swimming all around us. By this point, we’re done. It’s been too much creepiness for one walk, and we hightail it back inside one of the resort buildings, which ironically, is full of people!

I think we were both emotionally exhausted and wondering what kind of twilight zone experience did we have. From the way we perceived it, our walk was life or death, and now we’re back inside, and so many happy people are walking around as though nothing happened.

About a decade later, I had the chance to go back and decided to repeat this nighttime stroll. And you know what? It was a wonderful walk. The lights were on everywhere. There was nothing creepy. Other people were walking around. The shark tunnel had working lights, and other people were strolling through.

It was the same walk ten years later, but completely different. Same experience. Different result. It’s how perception works as well.

If you hear from two people who went through the same experience and ask them to explain what it was like, you will rarely get a similar description. This is because how we perceive things is personal to us.

Perception comes from within.

Your perception of your life, situations, obstacles, struggles, success, friends, family comes from within. Perception is created and formed inside of you. It’s not something that comes from outside-in. It’s something that goes from inside out.

If we all had the same perception, we would all interpret life the same way, but we don’t. If perception is personal and comes from inside you, then you choose how you perceive things. You can recognize whether your perception of a situation is helping you move forward and grow or keeping you stuck.

But your perception comes from within, and you have a choice in that perception. If the way you perceive something is hurting you, or you don’t like it, you get to change it. You can change your perception. Nobody is controlling your perception.

Perception isn’t reality in and of itself.

Perception is simply a map of your reality, not reality itself. It’s a map that you create, and in that way, it becomes coded to you. You create this map by the way you perceive your experiences, feelings, identity, self-concept, and more. The map you create is real for you but not reality itself.

And so, if it’s your map, it’s coded to your identity. So you are the one creating this map of your reality through how you perceive things. And you perceive things based on your experiences, based on your feelings, based on your core identity, based on your self-concept, you are perceiving. And through that, you’re creating a map of what you think is real. But what you think is real is real for you and not reality itself.

We don’t base our choices, decisions, and behaviors on reality but rather on our perception of reality. If you believe your perception is reality, asking you to change would feel impossible. (How do you change facts?)

But when you understand that your perception is personal and not reality itself, making changes isn’t as daunting. You don’t have to change what is fundamentally real. You only have to change your view of it.

Is your perception working for you?

What results is your perception creating in your life, and do you like them? Are you satisfied with the outcomes that you get? Do you enjoy what’s happening around you?

Your perception is creating a map, but you may not like the map. But because the map isn’t reality itself, but inside of you, you can change it quickly and easier than trying to change things outside of your control.

Let’s say you perceive your current relationship is going nowhere, but you feel stuck. Your perception is that “it just is the way it is.” That perception will keep you from making the changes you need to make. But you could also recognize that perception and make changes because of it. You could look at the relationship and determine how you can make it better, or you might need to move on.

What you perceive is what you get. Your perception is personal, and you have the power to change it. It is your map of reality, not reality itself, which means all you have to change is what’s inside of you and not everything around you.

When you change your perception, you open yourself up to new abilities, capabilities, ideas, ways to love and accept others, and new ways to love and accept yourself.

You give yourself permission to see something different than what you’ve always been seeing, and when you see something different, you can start to get something different.