If you look at a situation from only one perspective, your information is pretty limited. And yet, that is exactly what many of us do, most of the time. It may be that we are very good at seeing things through our own eyes and so judge others. It may be we are good at looking from the perspective of someone else, and so we judge ourselves. It may be that we are pretty much detached, and look dispassionately and don’t engage at all.
In NLP we say they who have the most flexibility have the most influence. One way of having this flexibility is to try on different perspectives. With one perspective you are stuck. Two offer you a dilemma. With 3 or more, you are beginning to have choice. What helps is having different possibilities, multiple ways of seeing things, from this you can then make a more informed choice about the undoubted complexity and nuance of any situation.
You can do that by considering the experience of different people in a situation. You can do it by thinking about things in the timeframe of now, and then from the distance of 6 months, or 2 years, or 10 years.
You can even do it by bringing in metaphors to help you see things with different eyes. For example - what would Eeyore think about this? And Tigger? What about Pooh bear? Or Dumbledore, Harry Potter and Professor Snape? Or the wind, the sun and a big, graceful tree? Use whatever metaphors bring in the most meaning for you, so long as they offer differing perspectives.
Whenever you feel stuck, more information is needed. What are you not noticing? What else is there, if you stand somewhere else? And what happens once you acknowledge and integrate that?
For support in broadening your perspective and building your flexibility through online psychotherapy, get in touch.
