Perception rules, until it doesn’t.
– Byron Katie
What she likely refers to is the perception that comes from our mental representations of the world, ourselves, and anything else.
If we hold these mental imaginations as true, they will rule our life. We perceive and live as if what our stories tell us is true. Our beliefs run our life. Contractions run our life.
If we examine them and find what’s more true for us, we can relate to these perceptions more intentionally, hold them more lightly, and use them in a more constructive way.
What’s more true for us than the initial stories our thoughts tell us?
It may be that our mental field overlay on the world is just that, an overlay. A way to make sense of the world. Our thoughts are, in a very real sense, questions about the world. They have only a practical value to help us orient. They don’t hold any final or absolute truth.
It may be that the reversals of our stories also have genuine validity for us. Not only one view has validity.
It may be that we are what our thoughts happen within and as. If mind holds a thought as true, it identifies with the viewpoint of the thought and perceives and lives as if it’s true. If we recognize a thought as a thought, we can see it as an object and relate to it more intentionally, including through investigating it.