The Art of Perception

*with 3 free worksheets!

Hi hello - tis me! I accidentally took three months off from writing - my Body asked me to tend to my inner world for Cancer season and then Virgo season, so I listened. Here we are in the middle of Libra season, the air of wholeness wrought from self Knowing and we’re kicking off again with a doozy: perception. 

We’ll start off with a story. 

I went shopping for the first time in many moons with a friend last week. Living on a farm without a vehicle makes retail therapy impossible so I’m circumstantially obligated to turn towards my feelings as they arise. Retail therapy is definitely easier than turning towards feelings (they’re so big!) but you can miss out on the juicy wisdom that comes from the familiarity of knowing thyself. Anyway. 

While shopping, we stood in front of a floor to ceiling mirror and talked to our reflections in a store that demanded perfection. Also circumstantially, this is the first time in nearly a year I have looked in a full length mirror. We do have one at the farm but it’s in a corner in our bedroom that I rarely look. Here, in the full fluorescent light of a very public place, I became aware of my perception.

That sounds weird - I know. It was like a bubble was burst where I became conscious of being perceived. I could feel my friend perceiving me in her own way through her own lens, I could feel the salespeople perceiving me in their own way through their own projections. None of this was bad or good - it just was. If I was ignorant of this phenomena before, I certainly wasn’t now. In this moment, an anxiety was created of not only being perceived but HOW I was being perceived.

The closest I can liken it to is Adam and Eve becoming aware of their nakedness and needing, suddenly, to clothe themselves. 

Isn’t it interesting that Adam and Eve’s response to their self-awareness (or self-consciousness one could say) was to do the same thing that myself and an entire generation of retail therapy consumerists have been socialized to do? To clothe our Selves. 

Clothing is a beautiful and important opportunity for our inner world to be expressed and externalized in the outer world. Our clothes are an invitation to take the reins regarding how we are perceived - we can express our sovereign free will in each & every decision, including with what we invite into our closet. The clothes we wear can also demonstrate the many facets of our Selves - we are far too expansive to be pigeon holed in one way. Our wardrobe can reflect our inner world.

As a metaphor, our clothes represent our persona. Unconscious persona is usually connected to self-abandonment & people-pleasing but persona isn’t all bad. The purpose persona serves is to protect our essence, our Core authentic Self and persona does that well. In protecting our authentic Selves from being seen (and therefore potentially rejected), we are also sheltered from being authentic. When we can consciously & consensually engage with persona, we can channel our chameleon nature in a way that is still connected to our authenticity.

You can learn more about how to bring authenticity into your closet with this free 10 page workbook

I always said I enjoyed expressing myself through fashion (though that feels like saying I enjoy travelling - don’t we all in our own way) but given the utility of farm life, I have enjoyed the freedom of non-perception. Clothes for me have always said what I wanted to say, been who I wanted to be - in many ways, I lived vicariously through my clothes because they were who I wanted to be but wasn’t. Ironically, the less I cared about fashion or even wearing coherent outfits, the more I was able to actually become Who I wanted to be.

When I let go of the fantasy of who I wanted to be in the outer world, I was able to become Her in my inner world. 

When I said no to the performance of my identity by upholding persona unconsciously, I could say yes to actually materializing my authenticity in the world. I can only see this now upon reflection that this meant many questions of who I was & who I was not, what I am responsible for & to. Clothes satiated my need for authenticity enough so I didn’t actually have to become Her so without the textile self-expression, authenticity was turned inward. 

The metaphor I use is healing is like getting a piercing - there is the pain of the piercing then the wound is held open until a ring can be held in its place. The awareness of perception was like getting the piercing - it was sharp, sudden and I was unprepared. The wound held open as I dislodged perception and projection from the walls of my Being - identifying how perception impacts me. 

• for this, I bring in quantum physics that states that all particles behave as a wave until they are observed or measured and in this instant, the wave becomes a particle. We too are expansive and as inviolable as a wave, until we are observed or measured. We are observed everyday by intangible Others through a screen - and we observe our Selves too. We are measured everyday (not only in a store with nonsensical sizes) by contrasting comparisons with each other - both in flesh and online. 

I realized that in the year I’ve lived on the farm, I’ve been largely free of both projections and perception. In this time, I forgot that I was being perceived by people beyond myself. It’s not lost on me that this awareness was returned (or became) in Leo season - my generation’s Chiron placement. 

Chiron in Leo is an important placement to dissect because it says a lot about us as a generation. My caveat is that I’m not an astrologer by trade & my favourite thing about astrology is that there’s always more to learn. But a Chiron in Leo is is a wounding in being seen - there is a desperate longing to be seen and a simultaneous fear of being exposed. You want to be known but constantly feeling misunderstood - like there are few places that can hold all of you. It may seem that no matter the group or people or collective, some part of you would not be welcome (some spiritual communities reject anger, some academic circles reject spirituality).

Self-consciousness is aptly named because that’s what it was. Becoming conscious of my Self. 

In all of this, integrity is the name of the game. It isn’t about not being perceived but about being perceived in a way that I could consent to. Persona and ego serve a purpose - to protect our essence. I realized in that floor to ceiling mirror that my essence was vulnerable and while that is safe and intimate in the context of trusting, sacred connections, here in the glaring fluorescent beams, it was exploited, devalued, judged, misunderstood. 

Remember it isn’t always safe to be vulnerable. Sometimes we hand over our heart and the hands receiving recoil from the slimy feel of our hearts and drop it in the gravelly ground. It’s important to have nuance that there are safe and trusting relationships, people who can hold our hearts. It’s important to be grounded in the reality that not every relationship can. There’s no judgement as to why, it just is. Your heart deserves to be protected, to be held and cherished by those who see you. 

So what about those who don’t see you? 

My pendulum had swung from being ONLY persona to being NO persona so that it could settle in the middle. I could utilize persona, I could relate to persona, I could channel persona. Persona isn’t bad in itself - it can suffocate our authenticity when it isn’t moderated in the garden, but it is useful as a tool. If you’re having a shit day but don’t want to feed the fodder with colleagues, persona can help get you through. If you are attending a family function and want the least drama possible, persona is there for you. 

Before, rather than allowing other people to perceive me through their own lens, I wanted more CONTROL. Now, I want people to perceive me the way I want to be perceived - I want congruency. I want my inner world to match my outer world expression. I want people to have an accurate perception of me. This is part not wanting to be misunderstood (a grave fate for a Chiron in Leo placement) and this is also part desiring ownership over my identity. That I am me, in full integrity.

To me, integrity is simply having my inner world match my outer world - an alignment between intention and action. 

You can discover what is integral for you with the same tools I used. Because you deserve to be your Self, whatever that means for you.