Expanding our World View

Blue sky with the sun peaking through some clouds

I have been reflecting on, and contemplating, “our narrow world view” - how this impacts our way of being, and how automatic and unconscious it is. How narrow our world view can be, how narrow the stories we tell ourselves, how narrow our thoughts and our feelings. Even how we see ourselves, do you notice how others see you differently to what you say about yourself?

This is all part of what it is to be human, and I know that expanding our world view is critical to where we find ourselves and for who we are.

Think for a moment, if you were born in a different country, your world would be different, your values, your culture, your heritage would be different. You would see the world differently and you would live different, this is what I mean by world view.

Different countries have different education systems, children start school at different ages, even the length of time that counties say a baby should grow in uterus is different in different counties. This speaks volumes for me, that perhaps there isn’t one way, one truth, one knowing.

We usually surround ourselves with the same, the same people, with the same background. It’s even acknowledged when hiring people we hire the people who are similar to us and that look like us. These things keep us narrow. It not only binds us, but those around us too.

So how do we expand that world view?

It starts with challenging our internal thinking and dialogue. The narrative which we’ve come to believe is true.

We live in a binary world of right, wrong, black, white, good, bad (I’ve used these words on purpose to demonstrate this way of thinking and the impact it has). We need to start seeing beyond the binary, opening ourselves up to different narratives and experiences.

It will feel uncomfortable, to expand beyond your current world view can take you to your edges, it may challenge what you’ve always believed in. It can bring up shame, we don’t need to avoid shame, we can see shame as something useful when tended to with care, and it does need care.

Then when we meet our edges, when we challenge our thinking, it can open up possibility, to see something in a different way and this is not only vital for you, but for all of us, for humanity,

I read a piece recently on Isreal and Gaza and I felt myself nodding along, then I read another piece that challenged this way of thinking and I realised I had been agreement because it had reinforced everything that I’ve grown up believing, the cultural narrative I live in. It’s useful to notice if you’re reading something and nodding along, to ask yourself why you’re in agreement. Could there be another way to see this? What might be here that I’m not seeing?

This can stretch in many, many ways, it might be your beliefs around your body, if for example you’re navigating peri-menopause, what do you believe about this without having even decided that you believe about it? I’ve had to catch myself, because I can hear the narrative of “this is going to be 10 years of my life, this is going to be hard.” And I don’t know either of these things, this narrative may well not be true. It may be that there are challenging moments, and it will ebb and flow. This is how I’m experiencing and I’m getting to know me and my body in a different way.

A final example to demonstrate how our world view can be shaped and how automatic it can be. I grew up hating tattoos, I didn’t like them. It was just engrained in me. When I had a piercing in my twenties and my Mum didn’t like it my retort was “at least it’s not a tattoo.” I didn’t decide my hate for tattoos, I didn’t formulate an opinion, it was simply something handed down and at that time, an unspoken agreement in the white middle-class society I lived and grew up in. After having met someone with a tattoo, and explored the art of tattooing, I no longer hate tattoos. I would say that I’m curious about tattoos, I wonder if may be I’ll have a tattoo, one day.

This demonstrates our inherent judgement, how engrained it is without even being conscious of it. It also shows that it can show up in every area of our life, and it can be something as insignificant as what we think about tattoos, to how we interact with everything that’s going on in the world right now, what we think about marriage, children, politics, money, to the judgements we make on how we feel, the list is inevitably endless.

Here are some recommendations on stretching your world view:

• Reading books by authors you wouldn’t usually read, and subjects that you may not naturally pick up.

• Watch films, series and listen to podcasts that give different perspectives.

• Follow people on social media that have a different view and different life experiences (I’d highly recommend following Misan Harriman as a start).

• See where your edges are, what challenges you? If you’re listening to something and you can feel that it’s challenging, what could be here for you?

• Explore different teachers, teachings, philosophies

• Explore what it means to be in the unknown, what if you didn’t know and you could stay in this place? In our society that heralds knowledge as power, this is always an interesting place to be.

• Exploring the judgements you make about yourself every moment of every day, your thoughts, your feelings, what if they may not be true?

I want to finish by saying that it’s OK to agree and disagree with others, we can formulate those opinions, it’s the coming into dialogue, the curiosity and having an open mind that’s important. To listen to other ways and then coming to your own thoughts, feelings and opinions. And it can change, and it can change again and again.

Francis Weller suggests it’s about being with complexity and ambiguity, meeting these things in your life rather than the binary. How can you be with complexity and ambiguity?

If you’d like to come and work with me, and explore your world views, you can book a call.

I sometimes lie on the grass and look up at the sky, beyond the clouds, to the sun, the stars and the moon. The universe is immense and we only touch a small, tiny spec.