My Story

A lens is a way of directing our attention and life-force in any moment. It is a way of relating to our experience. In every moment, we are relating to ourselves and our environment, whether consciously or unconsciously, through various lenses or ways of seeing. For example, we often relate to our experience through a continuous stream of inner storytelling, unconsciously narrating our life and habitually judging ourselves and others.

There are healthy and helpful ways of relating to our experience, ways that can free us and bring more clarity, ease and joy. There are also unhealthy and unhelpful ways of relating to our experience, ways that leave us feeling stuck in our lives and cause us to suffer. The seven lenses are ways of relating to our experience that can often lie dormant inside of us, waiting, until we learn how to reconnect to their hidden power.

Before we explore these lenses, it is very useful to examine how we are already relating to our experience. As a child, I remember trying on my father’s heavy prescription glasses and feeling shocked at how distorted my perception of the world became and how relieved I felt to take the glasses off and yet, for my father, these were the lenses he has become so used to seeing the world through. In a similar way, most of us are looking at reality through distorted ways of perceiving, ways that have been shaped and influenced by our familial conditioning and societal norms, (of course some of these ways are very functional and helpful while others can limit us). Before we can learn to relate to our experience and reality in more healthy ways, it is important that we first come to recognize the ways in which our attention has been hijacked by these distorted and often unconscious ways of seeing.

When we consider the many different psychological and spiritual systems and traditions from the perspective of these seven lenses, we can gain an understanding around the disagreements that can often occur around what true freedom is. For example, the sages often say that only the ground of being is most important (Lens 1: The Sage) and frequently dismiss everything else. There are also those who follow the path of self-love and self-care (Lens 2: The Nurturer), and believe that complete unconditional self-love is the most important way of experiencing reality. Meditators often believe that achieving a deep mastery of concentration of mind (Lens 3: The Warrior) is what matters most while psychotherapists tend to see the full unveiling of our unconscious mind (Lens 4: The Alchemist) to be where true freedom lies.

Underlying the “Lenses that Liberate” model is the understanding that reality is dynamic and therefore requires us to relate to our experience in many different ways using many different lenses. Indeed, if we only have access to one or two lenses, then our ways of relating can remain myopic. The model does not advocate for one specific perspective over another, but rather honors the truth and value of all seven lenses through which we can relate to our experience and helps us awaken these different capacities. By honoring the truth and value of all seven lenses through which we can relate to our experience, the “Lenses that Liberates” Model provides us with a way of deeply embodying our divinity and our humanity, allowing them to co-exist in harmony. Each lens invites us, from a different angle, into a deep enquiry of what it truly means to be both human and divine and as you enter each lens fully, our life itself becomes the answer. Over time, we arrive at a place inside, which I call the “Integrated Self”, where we can naturally draw on all seven lenses of relating to our experience while remaining unbound by all of them.