Seeing Through Their Eyes

The next several lessons will teach you a technique for working through harm you’ve caused. But the technique requires a specific capacity that most people haven’t developed. Before we get to the hard material, we need to build that capacity.

Here it is: you need to be able to experience an event from another person’s perspective. Not think about it from their perspective. Experience it. See what they saw. Hear what they heard. Feel what they felt.

This is called duplication. You’re duplicating their reality. Not imagining it abstractly, but stepping into it as fully as you can.

Why This Matters

Most people are locked inside their own viewpoint. When they recall an event, they recall it from behind their own eyes. Their feelings. Their thoughts. Their experience. Even when they try to consider someone else’s perspective, they’re usually just thinking about it. “I suppose they felt bad.” Rather than feeling into it.

This self-centered perception is normal. It’s also what makes harm so easy to commit and so hard to resolve. If you can’t really feel what the other person experienced, you can’t fully face what you did. You just have your own version. Your reasons, your justifications, your side of the story.

Working through harm requires more than your side. It requires stepping into theirs. Not to agree with their interpretation. Not to accept blame. To complete the circuit. When you can hold both viewpoints, what you did and what they experienced, the emotional weight resolves. One-sided viewing keeps it stuck.

Starting with Something Pleasant

We don’t start with the hard stuff. That would be like trying to lift heavy weight on your first day in a gym. You’d just hurt yourself and quit.

Instead, we start with a pleasant shared experience. Something good that happened between you and another person. A moment of genuine connection. A time when both of you were enjoying something together.

The reason we start here is that perspective-shifting is easier when the material is light. You’re building a skill, and skill-building works best when the difficulty ramps up gradually. By the time you need to see a harm from the other person’s viewpoint, you’ll already know how to make the shift.

How Duplication Works

Think of a specific moment that was pleasant for both you and another person. Could be anything. A shared laugh, a good conversation, a moment in nature together, a meal that was just right.

Now, here’s the shift: instead of remembering it from your viewpoint, step over to theirs.

If you were sitting across a table from them, see yourself from where they were sitting. See your face the way they would have seen it. Notice the room from their angle. Feel the chair they were in, not the one you were in.

Go further. What were they feeling? Not what you think they should have been feeling. What were they feeling? You might not know for certain. That’s fine. You’re building the capacity to feel into it, not demanding perfect accuracy.

What were they hearing? Your voice sounded different to them than it does inside your own head. What did you sound like from across the table? What other sounds were in the room from their position?

What were they thinking? What had they come from before this moment? What was their day like? What did this moment land as for them?

The Difference You’ll Notice

When you’re really doing this, not just thinking about it but shifting your perceptual position, something happens. The memory changes quality. It becomes fuller. Richer. You feel things you didn’t feel before because you were locked in your own experience.

You might also feel a strange tenderness. Seeing yourself through someone else’s eyes, even in a pleasant moment, can be unexpectedly moving. That tenderness is a sign you’re doing it right. You’re over there, not just analyzing from your own seat.

Today’s Practice

Find a quiet place. Take fifteen to twenty minutes for this.

Choose a specific memory that was pleasant for both you and another person. The more specific, the better. Not “we had a nice summer.” More like “that afternoon at the lake when we couldn’t stop laughing.”

Start with your own viewpoint. Recall the scene. Where were you? What were you seeing, hearing, feeling?

Now shift. Move to their position. See through their eyes. What were they looking at? What did you look like to them? What sounds were they hearing? What were they feeling in their body?

Stay in their perspective. Don’t bounce back to your own. Let yourself feel what they were feeling. The enjoyment, the connection, whatever was present for them.

When you’re done, take a moment to notice what the experience was like. Could you feel into their perspective? Was it easy or difficult? Did anything surprise you?

This is the foundation for everything that follows. Don’t rush it.