Leadership Deja Vu vs. Vuja De

“Déjà vu is when you think you’re doing something you’ve done before; it happens because God thought it was so funny, He had to rewind it for his friends.”

                                                                                                         - Anonymous

Déjà vu, almost all of us has experienced it.  We are in the middle of doing something, and we get this overwhelming feeling that we have been at this same place doing this same thing before.  In French, this phrase is literally translated as “already seen”.  While some interpret this phenomenon as a paranormal premonition, mainstream science attributes déjà vu to a wide range of causes including simple fantasy and wish fulfillment, a mismatching in the brain that confuses the present for the past, or a medical condition known as temporal-lobe epilepsy.

While the cause of déjà vu is clearly up for debate, what is true is that most of us (up to 70% of the population, according to scientists) will undergo this experience at least once in our lives.

While the feeling of déjà vu can be a regular occurrence within our minds, many also experience it within our life situations.  Challenging personal relationships, career obstacles or health problems that bring pain, frustration and discomfort tend to reappear, time and again.   Despite us having a new romantic partner, a new job or a new location to live, the same patterns seem to resurface in our lives.  It is then we may look at ourselves in complete exasperation and say………………….

“Is this really happening to me again?”

The reality is, when we are honest with ourselves, we see that there is indeed one common denominator in all of these challenging and undesirable experiences – It’s US – We’re ALWAYS there. 

Accepting that we may be the cause of the upset or challenge in our lives is not always an easy truth to accept.  However, when we slow down enough to examine these situations and our role in them, we come to realize one constant.  We attract, create or allow any situation we experience in our lives.  With that as our new truth, we can realize that if our attitudes, actions and thoughts helped to create a less-than-positive situation, then we also have the power to dis-create them, or create something new that is more positive and empowering for us to experience.  The choice is always ours.

While déjà vu occurs when we encounter something new, but it feels as if we’ve seen it before, I was recently introduced to a related concept that is its opposite called vuja de.  

In vuja de, we face something familiar, but we see it with a fresh perspective that enables us to gain new insights into old problems.

While the ability to change our perspective is always at our disposal, many times we resist doing so until confronted with situations that bring us much pain; eventually requiring us let go as our final option, because everything else is falling apart.  However, what we learn as a result of these experiences is releasing our limiting beliefs and prejudices and seeing things with a new and fresh perspective is the answer to our problems, even when absolutely nothing else has changed in our outer worlds. 

My favorite movie of all time is the holiday classic, It’s a Wonderful Life.  In it, George Bailey (played by the legendary Jimmy Stewart), finds himself at his wits end.  After living a life for decades, not of his choosing, he finds himself distraught by the prospect of financial ruin.  The scandal he fears will ensue, leads him to believe he is better off dead than alive, and he decides (spoiler alert) to jump into a frozen river and end his life. 

As soon as he splashes into the freezing water, an angel named Clarence, who was sent to look after him, dives into the water to save him.  Soon afterwards, Clarence takes George on a tour of what the world is now like because he (George) had never been born.  George then gets to see firsthand the profound impact his absence has had on his family and friends.

While witnessing the negative impact the void of his presence has had on the lives of his loved ones is painful for George to see, it becomes the greatest gift of his life.  When he returns to reality, he now sees that the problems he encountered and his precious life from an entirely new and blessed perspective (vuja de).  Through this dramatic shift in perspective, he realizes how much he is loved, the incredible impact he has had on others and how he truly has had a wonderful life (sniff, sniff – that’s me tearing up again as I think about this movie 😊).

In accepting that we indeed have the power to transform our own lives through our shift in perception known as vuja de, here six practices we can all undertake as leaders to insure we are looking at life with a positive and expansive perspective.

• Ask ourselves “What is REALLY happening here?” – When dealing with challenge and adversity, it is easy to focus on what is wrong with the situation and the STORY of how bad things are, how we are being mistreated or our fear of what may take place in the future. What true leaders understand is that after the initial feelings of dismay, disappointment and fear present themselves (and it is healthy to feel these things), we need to remove ourselves from the story of what we see as “right” or “wrong” and focus on what is really happening in the situation – without our stories.  Through this personal vuja de, we can focus on the real challenge at hand and allow our minds, now free of negative emotions, to connect with our intuition, innovation and creativity to find the best solutions possible.
• Accept things as they are – Acceptance does not mean that we approve of a situation or placate an injustice. On the contrary, it just means that we release our internal resistance to what is so we can best deal with the challenge at hand.  As Byron Katie so eloquently states, “When I fight with reality, I always lose.  But only 100% of the time.”  Acceptance to “what is” becomes our first step in transformation and allows us to see things as they are (vuje de), apart from our cloud of resistance.  It is from here we can see things from a fresh perspective and best address the challenge before us.
• Can you see things from the other person’s perspective? – Think of the many times in your life you found yourself in conflict with someone based on what you thought the other person was thinking, saying or doing. Then, when you let the dust settle and had a direct conversation about the matter, you began to see the other person’s point of view and your perspective shifted (vuja de).  This may or may not have caused you to change your mind about the matter, but that is irrelevant.  What really matters is that you put yourself in the other person’s shoes and now had an expanded view of the situation so that you could best come to a common agreement that hopefully served both sides (again, vuja de).  When I find myself in conflict with another, I do my best to remember the wise words of one of my favorite authors, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer who asked, “Would you rather be right, or would you rather be kind?”
• What lessons can I learn from this? – One of my most profound learnings in this lifetime has been that regardless of how challenging or painful an experience may be, there is ALWAYS learning in it for my growth and expansion. Today, I can look back at the most difficult things I have encountered, can see the gifts that existed in it for me.  This may take a while to see, but sooner or later, if you allow it, your own personal vuja de will present itself.  For example, while going through divorce was probably the most painful experience of my life, I came out of it much more self-aware, self-sufficient and with a closer relationship to my sons and my Higher Power.  With this being the case, I can now see this experience through new eyes for what it really turned out to be – a gift.
• What can I do to make a positive change? – As mentioned previously, if we attract, create or allow every situation in our lives, then we also have the power to transcend them. Even when we may not be able to change what is physically taking place, we always have the choice and power for how we respond.  Our personal vuja de happens when we understand that in every situation in life, we always have the option to be either a victim of our circumstances or the creator of something new and expansive.  Once again, the choice is yours. 
• What is there to be grateful for? – Just as George Bailey discovered in It’s a Wonderful Life, a shift in perception can bring a sense of profound gratitude to a situation that maybe moments before was seen as a nuisance or massive problem. What I find interesting is that our vuja de can come through either first a shift in perception that leads to gratitude, or conversely just choosing to be grateful for a situation can lead to our shift in perspective.  Both can play a profound role in our healing and are, in essence, the yin and yang of our transformation, or two sides of the same coin.  Either way, gratitude is extremely powerful and can serve as a leading force in our personal vuja de. 

This week, I challenge all of us to take the time to look at a current situation of difficulty or challenge through fresh eyes.  Look for how this situation may actually be serving you, and maybe was all along.  Where do you have an opportunity to experience something in a new and expansive way?  What is at least one positive change you can bring to a challenge you are currently facing?  What positive impact would you experience through this shift? 

By experiencing your own personal vuje de, could you truly see that you indeed are living a wonderful life?

Chris Natzke

Black Belt Leadership Speaking & Coaching