Flip Your Perspective

“Why not touch the things we hate and turn them upside down and inside out. ” ~Alber Elbaz

Have you ever had the feeling you were stuck in a rut? Have you jumped to conclusions or defended opinions that you were not aware you even held? If you get stuck, confused or
trapped in life, try to flip your perspective to see options, and hidden potential for personal
growth. We grow through the process of making it through the stuck points and discovering
strength within ourselves to move forward.

Habitual patterns that can hold you back include procrastination, avoidance, escape, distraction, complaining, lashing out at others, ignoring problems and negative thoughts. We do these things to continue in our comfortable routine. But by flipping our perspective literally and figuratively we can begin to see things differently.

Personal freedom is just outside the box that we put ourselves in. Judgement and guilt limit our
life and its potential. If we learn to roll with what life gives us, we will go twice as far by
harnessing the constant energy of change around us. Life is always shifting, this is its way of
pushing us to explore new angles and possible potential.

To broaden your view and maybe understand others points of view, try these tips:

• Read the situation
• Live, breathe and be in the moment
• Go beyond the surface
• Take the perspective of others
• Validate your perceptions
• Pay attention to what you resist and what you assume
• Pause and expand your awareness
• Explore why you do what you do
• Ask for feedback

In yoga we practice flipping our perspective literally. By turning upside down, you can address
issues from a different viewpoint. Inversions in yoga encourage a playful, childlike attitude and
offer a chance to simply have fun. As humans, we take our selves and our opinions too
seriously. Our bodies are made up of energy and yoga helps us shift away and release the
negative energy that no longer serves us, replacing it with a more grounded, peaceful energy.

Yoga poses to try that can flip your perspective:

• Downward facing dog
• Legs up the wall
• Shoulder stand
• Headstand
• Rabbit pose
• Forward fold
• Any pose where the head is below the heart

Yoga can help flip your perspective by:

• Getting you out of a rut
• Elevating the mood
• Send the blood circulation through the entire body as it reverses the blood flow
• Increasing immunity
• Energizing the body
• Improving balance and strength
• Can be relaxing as well as invigorating
• Literally gives you a new perspective
• Bringing out the inner child

Next time you’re in a yoga inversion instead of closing your eyes, look around and be observant
while upside down. So many times we close our eyes in yoga, but if you open them and view
the world while upside down, it’s actually very profound. And it might even change the way you
think or feel.