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Personal Development and Self-Awareness is about elevating your consciousness to a level by which you see the best in yourself, the best in others, and the best in life.  Those dedicated to this field of study know that what we perceive ourselves to be, what we perceive life to be, and what we perceive others to be affects what we create in our own lives.

I remember watching the Cosby show as a kid.  I loved it. Each week, my family and I would sit down to watch the show and we would laugh to tears.  Later, when I went off the college, I remember just about everyone in Roslyn’s and my dormitory would watch the show.  You could hear laughter down the halls.

Around 1993, the Cosby Show aired its last taping and we all missed the show but tuned infor the reruns.  During that time, television started to show more gritty shows and movies with African Americans.  After this dramatic change, I read several interviews and found in interview after interview people said, “The Cosby Show was unrealistic.”  These interviews and articles consist of controversial questions which asked, “How many Black family households do you know with a lawyer and doctor as parents and none of the kids are on drugs or ever get into real trouble?”

I remember thinking, “Why is the idea of the Cosby Show unrealistic?”  Even then and to this day, I know several black families where the mother is a teacher and the father is a lawyer or the father is a doctor and the mother is a nurse.  Then, I understood something back then that I couldn’t quite articulate, but now I can.  I understood that this was all based on perception.  Because you can’t “believe” a thing, then you don’t see; therefore, if you don’t see it, then it can’t be real.

For this reason, it is often said, thoughts are things or thoughts become things.  We can only see what we believe and what we believe becomes our perception, as a result, our perception becomes our reality.

My mom divorced my first stepdad when I was thirteen and we moved to a small town called Tallulah, LA.  With little or no money and very little support from her estranged husband, we moved into low-income housing.  My mom always said, “This is temporary.”  We lived there for a few years while my mom worked two jobs to saved money.  Soon, we move.

Some of the people who lived in the housing complex had been there for years and years.  In fact, some had lived there for three generations.  I went off to college, but, just like she had promised, my mom moved us out and into a bigger home where we all had our own rooms.

Two things about our experience were different from a lot of folks in that housing complex:

1)       My mom always saw it as a temporary thing.

2)      I had always planned to go to college.

Unlike most people who left the housing complex, my mom went on to be a homeowner and I went to college and completed with a degree.  What was so special about us?  Everything, but then, there were a lot of special and talented and gifted people who lived in that housing development.  The real difference is most of them didn’t see themselves that way.  They didn’t believe they could get a degree or own a home; hence, all they could see was how hard it was and how lucky they were to live in a place where “the rent wasn’t so high (we heard this too often).” Their perception was different from our perception as a result, so was their reality.

We hear it all the time, “life is what you make it,” but little do we know that we make life into what we already perceive it to be.  If we want to see something different in our lives, we truly have to believe something different about ourselves, about others, and about life.  If we want to draw and attract the best life has to offer, then we need to believe the best about ourselves, the best about life, and the best about others and it will manifest as our reality.

However it takes work to change our perceptions.  Our perceptions are so deeply imbedded in our subconscious mind.  Because our perceptions are so deeply imbedded in our subconscious mind, we have to conscious say and practice what we want to believe until we believe it.  For example, if you want to believe the best about people, but right now you really don’t, then, personalize it until you believe it.  Say, “My warm and caring personality brings out the best in people.”  Start to look for it.  Begin to expect it.  Look for the times when people are being kind to others in your presence or saying something kind to someone else in your presence.  After some time, you will discover your subconscious mind will accept this as reality and you will begin to see the best in others.

In the manifestation and creation process, what we often don’t realize is, we can want something so badly, but if we have conflicting beliefs about it, then our perceptions act as resistance.  Remember, energy follows the path of least resistance.  If we believe we are broke and we can’t keep any money in our pockets, then this is our path of “least resistance” and accordingly, we stay broke and can’t keep any money in our pockets.  But
if we start to say to ourselves, “I am rich and abundant, I always have an overflow of money and resources,” then eventually, our subconscious mind will accept this and this will become our perception about money and resource.  Without resistance, energy will follow this path and money and resources will overflow into our reality.

Even, our actions or reactions, give credence to our belief, thus our perceptions. If you hoard things and are tightfisted about money–unwilling to give to others, then it is evident you believe there is a lack of money or things available to you so you have to hold on to what you have.  You may never say the words aloud, but your behavior communicates this belief without you saying a word.  Accordingly, your belief about lack will produce more lack in your life.

As we grow on the path of enlightenment, we realize that life is as we see it.  And what we see is what we believe.  If we want to see something different, then we have to believe something different.  Our own perceptions become our own reality.