What Are You Zoomed in on?

Ever watch someone trying to take the perfect selfie? 

It’s amusing to watch.

You can see the person trying pose after pose, position after position, pouted lips after pouted lips. 

All trying to get that perfect snapshot of themselves in a particular space. 

But in a selfie moment, the interesting thing is that the focus is not on the setting you are trying to capture. 

And the focus is not typically really on you, either. 

Instead, the focus is on how you look in that particular space. Or perhaps on what someone else will think when they see that photo minutes or hours later. 

Imagine you are walking through life with a camera up to your face. Which direction does your lens typically point?

Are you constantly illuminating what others are doing?

Are you hypervigilant about others’ words, behaviors, or actions?

Or do you spend some significant time also looking in the mirror at yourself?

They say a photograph is a pause button on life.

With such a pause, we can invite reflection and wisdom in by periodically turning that camera toward ourselves—toward who we truly are—on the inside, not on the outside.

But phones and cameras do not default to self-view. 

We can sometimes have too much of our energy focused on everyone else—on how they are performing or not performing, what they are doing and not doing—and meantime, we have zero attention considering ourselves and our role in a situation. 

Ever notice how some people are always complaining about this colleague or that neighbor or that family member? 

Perhaps you can justify this focus because you are zoomed in on one particular person that you believe you need to monitor. Perhaps it’s one of your adult children. You’re worried about how they are doing that day: Are they okay? Does it look like they are feeling any less depressed or anxious? 

But imagine taking just 50 percent of that energy we have pointed toward others and instead directing it inside ourselves.

Touch that reverse arrow button and switch the view. 

What is going on inside of me? 

What in me needs to grow? 

How am I evolving and changing? 

Pointing our energy in that way can loosen some of the unhealthy cords that bind us—and it can free up others to turn their lens inside also. 

It’s worth noting that some people have the opposite problem: They are on self-view all the time. They can be so caught up with internal dialogue and angst about what’s happening in their own minds and hearts that they don't even see what’s happening around them. And that’s not healthy either.

The healthiest combination is probably some kind of mix of the two—a natural flow back and forth. 

There should be times in our day when we are zoomed into a particular moment, focusing on what is happening around us, or zeroed in on others. In those moments, we are totally out of view of the camera.

But then there are other times when we might consider ourselves and our role in things. We might ask:

·         What am I contributing to the world today? 

·         How might I do better? 

·         What am I learning from recent interactions with others? 

·         How might I show up as a more expansive human being tomorrow? 

This is what life is about: That beautiful flow between inner and outer and between me and you.

This is the flow that creates aliveness.

This is the flow that is most creative and powerful because of that intersection of us.

I’m able to see me; I’m able to see you; I’m able to see us.

Remember, the widest apertures illuminate the broadest picture of what is happening in the world.

And the widest apertures also let in more light.

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