I love fall!
Autumn is in full bloom here in the Boston area with cool nights, dry and sunny days (well, not last weekend when we had a nor’easter spin through town) and the daylight hours waning. Due to our drought conditions this summer, the fall foliage colors are pretty subdued, but still lovely and fall-y. I had a friend from out-of-town spending a night with me on her New England travels Sunday night and, with a nod to the aforementioned nor’easter, we woke up on Columbus Day with no power. Opportunity!… I had my first fire of the season in the fireplace to provide us a warm place to connect and catch up. It was lovely.
Speaking of opportunities. I had a session with a coaching client last week who was just finishing Wild World, Joyful Heart’s chapter 7, “Tend Your Mind.” It was a rich chapter for her, and she wanted to spend some of her session with me discussing PERSPECTIVE. Our coaching journey together was uncovering that she struggles with perspective (“Welcome to being human!” Haha). She was seeing how that impacts some of her key relationships, most especially with her adult children.
(Note: Following italicized sections are straight out of WWJH)
What IS perspective, exactly?
Our perspective is how we see or interpret the world around us. Perspective is often instructed by our habitual assumptions—our ideas about How Things Are—which often keep us from seeing anything in a fresh, open way. The first step in turning perspective into a healing practice is to remember that our perspective is simply that—our perspective. Our thoughts, our opinions, our factual-feeling assertions, are only one tiny representation of what’s possible. We must remember that our take on something is only one take, and that there are 7.6 billion (2025 update: now 8.2 b!) people in this wild, beautiful world who each have a unique perspective—on everything.
WHY do we each have a unique perspective?
Many influences affect our perspective. Our personality, our intellectual intelligence, our emotional intelligence, our romantic relationships, our gender identity, our parents, our children, our religious and spiritual beliefs, our families, our friends, our age, our environment, our culture, our schoolteachers and coaches, our neighbors, our jobs, our bosses, our financial situation, our employees, our exposure to other cultures, our physical body, our talents, and our challenges…all affect our perspective, and that’s the short list. Suffice it to say that we each come to the table with a unique way of seeing things.
What’s meant by “Perspective as a healing practice?”
What did I mean earlier by “turning perspective into a healing practice?” The practice of bringing awareness to our perspective helps us remember that the very things we complain about and are resentful of have other sides to them, if we only choose to see them. For instance, I sometimes complain about having to drive my teenage sons all over creation. Another perspective is that the time we spend in the car often allows for precious connection and conversation, and I know I’ll miss it someday and then wonder what on earth I was complaining about. (YUP. 2025 update: I would drop most anything to spend time in the car with any one of my adult kids!!)
An easy way to shift a perspective that you have on your own life—to reframe a “chore” as a thing to feel grateful for—is to start the sentence with “I get to” instead of “I have to.” Instead of “I have to drive my kids around,” I think, “I get to drive my kids around and talk to them.”
Another fun perspective game—that can help with relational perspective—is to pretend you’re in a debate class. In a debate class, you’re given one side or the other of a heated topic to debate. This means that your task may be to defend something that you vehemently disagree with! So, next time you have an argument with someone—let’s call him Ralph—give yourself the homework of later, in your own neutrally-charged space, creating a well thought-out case for why Ralph’s viewpoint is sound.
Why on earth would you spend time doing that? Because our closely-held, unequivocally correct opinions about How Things Are can tear at the fabric of friendship, family, organizations and country. Questioning our own perspectives on a regular basis can open the door to understanding, meaningful connection, empathy, widening intelligence, and so much more.
The fact that we each have our perspective makes the world a vastly more intriguing place. A tangible example of this is visual artists like Van Gogh, Monet, and O’Keeffe, who saw the world with unique perspectives and were able to communicate through visual art. The flip side of our ability to have a unique take on the world is that it can be challenging for us to see things any way but our way. I can think of many times when I felt that I was misunderstood due to perspective. I can also think of many times when I was unable or unwilling to see something through another’s perspective.
Our perspective is typically habitual, and we have the power to make it a choice. Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl taught that our perspective toward life is our singular and most ultimate freedom. However, like most of these practices, the concept is simple, and the practice isn’t always easy. But the benefits are profound.
In my follow-up email with this client, I shared a video that I discovered recently that’s a great two-minute watch about perspective. (Note: The creator calls it a video about empathy, and one can take that from it as well.)
Cool vid. How about you? If you have thoughts to share on perspective, we’d love to hear them in the comments below!
To your empowered well-being,
Laurie
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