Perspective

How many times have you looked at someone and said, " thank God I'm not like them." or "Wow! I Wanna be like them!"? 

That's how powerful our presence is. It might be the way people are looked at or perceived. 

The way people perceive us strongly depends on their core beliefs, on what they are deprived of, what they are unaware of and what they are aware of. 

A confident person may seem arrogant to some and assertive to some. It has very little to do with how we present ourselves because no matter what your projection is there will be a different image of you in different eyes and minds. 

But there are certain attributes to one's personality that make us think about our own self. Observing them causes us to introspect ourselves. How similar or different we are. We are not looking for changes or conclusions but mere checks on how we carry our self as compared to them, how do we dress as compared to them, how we talk and so on. Understanding that none of us are looking at each other as a competitor but the nature or one can say the curiosity of how one person can differ from another so strongly that we are forced to notice them and eventually ourself.

There are some who make us feel restless and then there are some whose presence gravitates everything down and gives a sense of peace. Do you think that this effect is caused by them or is it really coming from us?

Agreeing that at times it is the surrounding that causes us to feel in a certain way but have we ever asked ourself, 'why do I feel so and so around a so and so person or at a so and so place?'. What if it is us who is not in congruence with that person or there is a resistance in our thoughts when it comes to dealing with that person/ situation or effect of a past experience. How do we evaluate that?

May be we can start by noticing what thoughts start to surface in our mind.

Which thoughts stay for a longer time.

Are these thoughts because of something they directly did/said or because of how you perceived what they did/said?

How does your breath feel when this person is around or while you are in that situation?

How does the body feel? is it relaxed, is it tightly held, is the forehead tensed or is it relaxed?

How were you feeling before that situation?

Think of an "otherwise circumstance" of that situation and how would that make you feel?

How important is their presence/absence to you? 

Now, we must understand that there are multiple and extensive ways to go about this but this is something that can get us started and remember your answers can be completely emotional/mental or a result of a physical change.

The next question that arises is "How are some people affected by the surrounding and some not?" 

let me give you an example, a friend of mine was sharing that she feels claustrophobic every time she travels by the metro, she feels uncomfortable and anxious but this is not the case when she travels by car or a similar vehicle. We considered that car windows could be opened as opposed to the metro but as we moved further into the conversation, we realized that this wasn't claustrophobia but in fact an anxious state developed because of the crowd. People hustling, running to be on time, rushing for a seat or pushing in till the compartment is stuffed. The observation of the non-stop strong movements around her built a tension inside of her, a feeling of restlessness while reaching from point A to point B. But why didn't any of the fellow travelers feel this? Paying attention to this situation alone the person in affected state must be travelling with a different nature. One that is more subtle and sensitive, not in rush and simply wanting to reach the destination. But the mind wanting to cope with the surrounding energy leads to disturbances in what the person was actually feeling. This is our body or mind's habit of social imitation to be in congruence with those around or to feel accepted.

Now this anxious feeling was an effect of the surrounding but apart from the facts of the above situation most of the time we do blame our surroundings for our altered states of mind. Blaming the sun for heat, blaming the traffic for our delay, never having enough time, etc. But what if we try to reverse this effect and try to let go of the blame game not altogether but slowly and gradually. 

Every time you are stuck in a situation when you are about to blame someone or something other than yourself let's take few seconds and take a walk with our mind-body and soul by asking "Why am I in this situation in first place?", we are most likely to complain and a get a series of reasons but which statement does really fit here? Find a statement that involves an action rooted from you or your reaction to somebody else's action.

Would the situation have been different if you would have thought differently? or acted and responded differently? Even if we consider that it was in fact a causing of someone/ thing else it is never too late to PAUSE-BREATH-THINK until the answer becomes YOU, YOURSELF-RE START.

Now this doesn't encourage self-blaming but thinking of possibilities of how the only thing in our control is " Our own thoughts and actions" there is very little we can do about how others reflect in the situation you are in and failing to control things which by nature aren't a part of our plate causes us even more harm so just,

BREATH, REFLECT AND PROCEED.

Kyunki humara nazaria ek dariya hai, jiski ki geherayi hum naap nahi sakte par haa, use paar zaroor kar sakte hai chahe terke ya kashti se, akele ya kisi ko saath leke..