Irish Times
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Health Supplement July 4, 2006
COLOURING REALITY

Carmel Wynne

I have a personal view of the world.  I see things in a different way to you.  When I was twenty I learned that I had a colour defect in my vision that limited the range of blue and green colours I could see.

When I learned that my friends could see shades of colours that I couldn’t see, I understood why they said I wore colours that clashed.

The diagnosis of defective eyesight made me aware that I was literally blind to visual information that other people took for granted.  This had an enormous impact because it taught me that there was a world of difference between the assumptions made and the truth.

I wrongly believed that if people were looking at something everyone saw the identical image.  When I found that this was not true it begged the question what did my friends see when they looked at a painting or the sky?  Were they all seeing the same colours or was it possible that each had a personal view that was different from everyone else’s?

We had great fun trying to communicate about how we saw and related to colours and to how we heard and responded to each other’s comments.  It soon became obvious that to describe the colour of the sky as shades of turquoise or azure blue only had meaning for someone who already knew exactly what these colours looked like.

We simply didn’t have a language that could describe a colour or a personal experience.  We found that we were more likely to respond to what we believed others meant and when we checked things out with each other it was horrifying how often we were wrong.

That colour defect in my vision has had only a minimal impact on my sight but it has been a great gift in challenging me to become aware of the importance of understanding that I can never assume that other people see, hear and understand in the same way that I do.

Years before I ever heard of neuro linguistic programming I was already aware that you can’t take it for granted that if you and I speak the same language we will both attach the identical meaning to the words we use.

The reality is that your personal view of the world colours what you see and hear and how you feel and think and act.  When we interact with other people we make assumptions that colour how we listen and understand and respond emotionally.

Isn’t it true that if you are telling different people about something that happened to you the story you tell will change depending on who you’re talking to?  The young woman who returns from her holidays will give her parents a very different version of events to the one she gives her friends or her grandmother.

I’m not suggesting that she is not truthful.  I’m saying the details given depend on her perceptions of what is acceptable to the person she is telling.  Two friends may have very different views about the same subject.  They see things differently even though they have the same accurate information.

There’s a lovely story told about the world- renowned spiritual master Anthony de Mello.  On his first visit to Ireland in the 1970’s a very learned Jesuit theologian had issues with his radical teaching.  When questions were invited at the end of a conference he stood up and for about 10 minutes challenged De Mello who smiled pleasantly and replied, ‘Father you are right and I am right too’.

There is a crucial difference between thinking ‘this is true/not true’ and ‘this is true/not true for me’.  Nobody ever has the full truth.  No matter how much care and thought we put into how we communicate there is certain to be some degree of misinterpretation.

We can never eliminate misunderstandings – but we can minimise them when we accept that whatever we see or hear is coloured by what we assume.  For example when someone asks you ‘How are you’ do you answer truthfully?

I do and it never ceases to surprise me that so many people are taken aback that I’m so positive.  I have a very simple philosophy.  I don’t upset myself about things I can do nothing to change.

I refuse to entertain worry because it creates stress.  The simple truth is what’s crowding in a train is atmosphere in a nightclub.  I respond emotionally to my beliefs, not to reality.

My personal view is that when I drop the labels I let go of stress.  Life is neither good nor bad.  It is as it is.

THE END

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