Your World is Big - Self Perception and Growth

I'm currently laying in a reclining camp chair being pelted by maple tree helicopters and watching the Toy Story-like clouds whoosh by.

Before you get too jealous, this beautiful view is from my driveway in Michigan. It is still coronavirus times and a tropical vacation is a long way off.

However, my spot on the driveway is an even better spot to underscore the exact message in this post: your world is big.

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If we close our eyes and use our imagination, we can zoom out from my camp chair island to the whole state of Michigan.

Zoom out even further, and we can see the entirety of the North American continent.

Now zoom out a whole lot further to get a really good look at all the continents and oceans that span our whole super-cool planet.

Finally, zoom out extra far to see our speck of a planet spinning in the Milky Way.

Our Earth is a speck, and I am a bazillionth of a speck.

Why am I telling you this?

Because zooming out helped me immeasurably in a time when I felt trapped in my own life. I could not even realistically imagine my life outside of my immediate experience.

Growing up in a tense household made me feel resigned to only experiencing hurt.

One thing that took awhile (and several therapists) to learn is that your world is so big. When I learned this and understood it as the freedom that it was, I ran with it.

Your world is not your house. Your world is not your circumstance. Your world is not the people who send you the message that you can't.

Your world is evergreens on a mountain in the Pacific Northwest.

Your world is earthworms on the sidewalk after a warm summer rain.

It is the first tulip to brave the springtime chill and show itself from underneath the dirt. It is nurturing your forgotten hobby.

Your world is the stillness of the universe. The hum of human connection. The butterflies in the air and in your chest.

Your world is big.

In times when we are zoomed in to our immediate experience, we need more than ever to seek out things that remind us of the true size of the opportunity around us.

How To Expand Your View of the World

So, how do you see the world as big when your immediate world feels small? Here are some ideas to try:

• Watch a Ted Talk about a topic you've never heard of before - or maybe one that you have heard of, but know little about.

• Read a book about space, human history, regenerative agriculture, the ins and outs of knitting, or a memoir (linked to my personal favorites).

• Find someone in your dream job role on LinkedIn, and send a message asking if you can interview them (I've done this, and it works!!).

• Listen to stories of others on podcasts . No one's story is as linear as you may think!

• Take a free online class through your local library (like Gale courses or Ed2Go), or a masterclass online.

When we collapse into ourselves in response to a limited worldview, we can no longer see the bigger picture.

You can find your world and create and engage in the whole of it.

Your world is so, so big, and your life is so big. So stretch your world and stretch yourself, there's so much room to grow.

Does anyone else feel preoccupied at times with what other people's daily lives look like?

Maybe it's just me, but sometimes I get sucked into comparing thoughts like, "does everyone else lay on the couch this long after work?" "Am I unproductive?" "I bet Shannon from my high school doesn't lay on the couch this long, she does crossfit."

This is some small thinking, my friends.

The truth is, your world is your world. Your routines are yours. Your habits are yours. It doesn't matter what Shannon from high school is doing - the point is to expand your ability to envision what you would like to do for yourself.

Even when I'm doing a mundane task like washing the dishes or picking up my dog's toys (although he follows directly behind me and takes his favorite right out of the basket), I often put on a podcast about the most random informative or inspiring topic I can find.

This small task helps remind me that there are things outside my dirty dishes, and take more gratitude in my time available to expand my thinking.

I feel much less stuck in small tasks when I remember the possibilities out in the big world.

When we can see outside of our circumstance, we can make great change in our lives.

So, what do you want to start doing to remind yourself that the world - and your life - is big?

Tell us in the comments!

Yours in dreaming,

Emily Rose // Miss Magnolia