Have you heard the phrase, “Can’t see the forest for the trees?” What this means is that when we focus exclusively on the pieces, we can’t see the whole. This can apply to situations, people, and even ourselves.
Almost every situation is going to have positive and negative aspects. If we only focus on the negative, we won’t see the positive aspects of the situation. On the other hand, if we only focus on the positive or only focus on what we want to see, we will miss the aspects that need further work or development. We can only learn everything possible from a situation if we can see the whole as well as the pieces. We can only improve or change a situation if we see everything.
The same applies to people. Everyone has good and not-so-good aspects. If we only focus on one, we won’t see the person in his or her entirety. Too often, we see what we want to see or what we expect to see, rather than everything that is there. It is important that we see all of the person.
We also do this with ourselves. We focus on certain aspects of ourselves and don’t pay enough attention to who we are as a total person. Believe it or not, we are more than what our body shape is. We are more than the mistake we made yesterday. We are also more than the roles and relationships that we have.
I encourage you to look at the forest that is every situation and every person (including you) and not just a few individual trees.
