Expanding Your Vantage Point

Yesterday you identified stuck viewpoints — the locked-in convictions that hold your walls in place. Today you practice something that directly undermines them: seeing from more than one position.

This is not about being fair. Not about “seeing both sides.” It’s a practical skill that breaks the grip of a fixed viewpoint by demonstrating — through your own experience, not someone else’s argument — that your position is not the only valid one.

Why Your Viewpoint Feels Like Truth

When you’re locked into a position, it doesn’t feel like a position. It feels like how things are. The person who hurt you IS selfish. Your boss IS manipulative. People in general ARE unreliable. These aren’t opinions you’re holding. They’re reality you’re observing.

Except they’re not. They’re reality filtered through your vantage point — one vantage point, locked into place, running a filter that confirms itself.

From a different vantage point, the same situation looks completely different. Not necessarily opposite. Just different.

The Three-Position Exercise

This is a specific skill. You’re going to practice it today and you’ll use it repeatedly throughout the rest of this course.

Position 1: Your viewpoint. Write the situation as you see it. Your experience, your interpretation, your feelings. Don’t censor yourself. Be as biased as you are. This is how things look from where you stand.

Position 2: Their viewpoint. Step into the other person’s position. Not to excuse them. Not to be generous. To see what the situation looks like from where they stand. What do they see? What are they reacting to? What’s their experience of this same event?

This requires imagination and honesty. You won’t know their actual experience. But you can make a genuine attempt to see from their vantage point. What pressures are they under? What history are they bringing? What might they be afraid of or protecting?

Position 3: The observer. Step back from both positions. You’re now watching the situation from outside — like watching two characters in a film. You can see both people, both their viewpoints, both their blind spots. From here, what do you notice? What’s happening between these two people that neither one can see from their position?

What Happens When You Do This

If you do it honestly, something shifts. Not always dramatically — sometimes it’s subtle. The certainty loosens. Not to zero — just enough that you can feel the difference between “this is the only way to see it” and “this is how I see it.”

That gap is everything. It’s the difference between a locked viewpoint and a held viewpoint. A locked viewpoint has no room. A held viewpoint allows for the possibility that other views exist, even if you still prefer your own.

From the observer position, you often see something neither person involved can see. You see how they’re both reacting to different things. How they’re both partially right. How the conflict is being generated by the collision of two viewpoints that each make sense from the inside but are invisible to each other.

Where People Get Stuck

The most common resistance is in Position 2. “I don’t want to see their side. They don’t deserve it.” That resistance is worth noticing. It usually means the wall is particularly thick around this situation. The viewpoint is locked tightly because seeing from their position threatens the certainty that’s holding the wall in place.

You don’t have to agree with their viewpoint. You don’t have to forgive anything. You just have to see from there for a few minutes. The wall can handle it. And the lock might loosen — just a click.

Another sticking point: Position 3 feels fake. “I can’t be neutral about this.” You’re right — you can’t be perfectly neutral. But you can step back far enough to see the pattern. You’re not pretending to not care. You’re expanding your view so you can see more of what’s happening.

The Connection to Walls

Every time you successfully see from another position, a wall gets a little less necessary. Not because the other person is suddenly safe or trustworthy. Because your viewpoint is no longer the only data you have. You’re operating with more information. And barriers built on incomplete information lose their rigidity when the picture gets fuller.

This isn’t a one-time thing. It’s a capacity you’re building. The more you practice perspective shifting, the harder it becomes to stay locked into a single viewpoint. And without that locked viewpoint, the wall doesn’t have its anchor anymore.

Today’s Practice

Pick one stuck viewpoint from yesterday’s work. Choose one that involves a specific person and situation — not an abstract belief about people in general.

Write it out from all three positions.

Position 1 (You): What happened? How did you experience it? What do you feel about it? Be fully in your own viewpoint.

Position 2 (Them): Step into their shoes. What might they have been experiencing? What was their version of this? What were they dealing with that you might not have known about?

Position 3 (Observer): Step back and watch both people. What’s the pattern? What can you see from here that neither person can see from their position?

After writing all three, notice what shifted. Did anything loosen? Did the certainty change, even slightly? Did you see something you hadn’t seen before?

Write one sentence about what the exercise revealed. Even if what it revealed is “my position hasn’t changed.” That’s still data.