Grey Area

Recently, I have been noticing how I have been viewing life in clear distinction of Black and White. What I mean by this is that when an experience happens, there is only 2 ways to see it, its good or bad. There cannot be a maybe .

Because of such a mindset, I will not be able to see a wider scope of a situation or experience because i have capped the experience. If I view an experience as "Bad", unpleasant feelings would be felt and mind would go into a spiral down thinking pattern fraught with worry and apprehension.Because of such exclusivity in the view, there is no way that I could see that MAYBE.... what is happening.... is for me to learn something from the reflections

I noticed because of "maybe", I get to see beyond the experience. For example, I have been chatting with a friend lately and he was sharing about his experiences with his bosses that were not pleasant. I notice, during the sharing, there was an immersion into the experience and perspective that they are "bad", "unkind" etc, there was no way that he could see beyond that. And even if he could see that there were some "good" , it was very quickly flooded over by the "bad" stuff. It was easy for him to see that his misery is all due to them.

It dawned to we that, if he went down this path, the logical thing to do was to leave the job. But after talking awhile, I slowly prompted him to see a little beyond the experience and look for the pattern in his experiences. He could see that it was repeated in almost all his employment where the bosses were perceived as prosecutors and him as victim. As we dive in deeper, it did seem that there was some other issue that were causing all his unpleasant experiences which was a view he had of himself.

So from this experience, I could see that if we learn to see something in the Grey Area or what I call the "Maybe" space, we could look deeper, inquire more and be curious as oppose to just seeing situation as BLACK and just react to it negatively.