There are times when we have thought about a situation so often that it feels as though we have examined every part of it. Yet we keep returning to the same concern or explanation. What might we discover if we gave our attention to another aspect of the experience?
A painting offers a familiar way to think about this. Standing close, we can see individual brushstrokes and layers of colour. Stepping back, we notice how those details relate to the whole. The painting has remained the same, but our position has changed what we can see.
We can approach our lives with a similar curiosity. A feeling, an expectation, a practical constraint, and something we deeply value may all belong to the same situation. Giving each some attention can help us understand more of what we are living and recognize possibilities we had overlooked.
Imagine a woman who has been thinking about joining a weekly art class. Each time she considers registering, she tells herself that she does not have time. Her days are full, and the question seems settled.
But suppose she pauses to look more closely. She notices how much she misses making things. She also notices an expectation that she should remain available whenever someone needs her. When she looks at her actual commitments, she realizes that some are fixed, while others could be discussed. She still needs to consider the schedule and cost, but she now has a fuller understanding of what is involved.
The question has become more specific. How could she make room for something she values while honouring the commitments she wants to keep? She might begin by asking about a shorter course or talking with someone about sharing a responsibility. Exploring several aspects of the situation has helped her identify something concrete to investigate.
Psychological research offers useful insights into how a change in perspective can affect reflection. In a series of studies published in 2010, psychologists Özlem Ayduk and Ethan Kross examined self-distancing: looking at an experience from an observer’s perspective. Participants who naturally took more of this distance when reflecting on negative memories showed less emotional reactivity. In a study of couples, self-distancing was also associated with more problem-solving during conflict and less responding to negativity with further negativity. [1]
This research gives us a reason to pay attention to how we approach a familiar experience. Replaying an exchange and considering what was happening within it are different ways of reflecting. A little distance may help us notice a concern or response that was difficult to recognize in the moment.
We can also change our perspective by changing the question we ask. What am I feeling about this? What matters to me here? What would I like to understand better? Each question directs attention toward a different part of the experience. Taken together, our answers can give us more to work with.
One particularly useful place to look is at what we already believe or expect. We may carry ideas about what a good parent does, what starting over involves, or what we are capable of learning. Some are well grounded in experience. Others may reflect an expectation we have never quite put into words.
Researchers Charles Lord, Mark Lepper, and Elizabeth Preston explored one way of widening people’s thinking in two experiments published in 1984. They found that asking participants to consider the opposite possibility reduced particular biases in judgment more effectively than simply asking them to be fair and unbiased. [2]
There is an everyday invitation in that finding: give another possibility enough attention to consider it. Before we can do that, it helps to recognize the understanding we are starting from. “I expect this to happen” gives us something more specific to explore than a general feeling that the situation is already settled.
For the woman considering the art class, that might mean noticing, “I believe that making time for myself will disappoint someone.” Once she has named that expectation, she can decide whether she wants to explore it further. Perhaps someone has expressed disappointment before. Perhaps she has never asked what would happen if she were unavailable for two hours. Those are different circumstances, with different possibilities for a response.
This kind of attention can also deepen our understanding of what is going well. We might become curious about why a particular friendship feels nourishing, what we enjoy about a creative practice, or which parts of a new routine we want to preserve. Recognizing what supports us can help us give it a more deliberate place in our lives.
The value of looking from several perspectives is in what we can come to understand and do with that understanding. We may find words for a conversation we need to have, recognize a skill we want to develop, or make space for an interest that matters to us. We can also discover that something we had been questioning deserves to remain as it is.
I invite you to try one small exploration. Choose a situation in your own life that matters to you and feels comfortable to consider on your own. It could be a change you are contemplating, a relationship, or an experience you would like to understand more clearly.
In The Inquiry Framework: A Guided Exploration, I call this lens Held Assumptions. It invites you to notice what you currently believe, expect, or take as given about your situation. An assumption is something you are accepting in your present understanding; the word does not automatically mean you are mistaken.
Begin with this question from the guide:
What, if anything, do you believe or expect in relation to this situation?
Write in your own words. Keep phrases such as “I think,” “sometimes,” or “I’m not sure” when they express what you mean. For now, recording your understanding is enough. If you want to examine whether a particular belief or expectation is justified, you can note that as something to explore later.
Then consider the follow-up question:
Based on what you’ve gathered here, is there anything you might want to explore or follow up on later?
You might identify information to look for or a question to return to. You might simply recognize an expectation that you had not noticed before. Give yourself time to consider what, if anything, you want to do with what you have written.
If you would like to explore this on paper, the free three-page sample includes a short introduction, the Held Assumptions exercise, and a lined writing page.
Download the free Held Assumptions sample (PDF)
Held Assumptions is one of seven lenses in The Inquiry Framework: A Guided Exploration, the first of The Damselfly Path’s Guides for Exploration. The 26-page printable guide offers questions and writing space for considering one situation from several perspectives, bringing your notes together, and exploring what might come next.
You can explore the complete guide in my Etsy shop.
Sources
Ayduk, Ö., & Kross, E. (2010). From a distance: Implications of spontaneous self-distancing for adaptive self-reflection. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(5), 809–829. Read the study
Lord, C. G., Lepper, M. R., & Preston, E. (1984). Considering the opposite: A corrective strategy for social judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47(6), 1231–1243. Read the study
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