#436 Understanding What Others Are Thinking and Feeling

Understanding What Others Are Thinking and Feeling

How to Truly Understand Others – The Power of Perceptual Positioning

wished you could really get where someone else is coming from? Whether it’s family, colleagues, or even people you just can’t seem to agree with—understanding others can be a game-changer.

In this episode, we’re diving into perceptual positioning, a simple yet powerful way to see the world from different perspectives. It’s like stepping into someone else’s shoes—but with a practical twist that actually works.

🔹 Walk through a guided exercise—see through your own eyes, step into their world, and even observe from a neutral space. 🔹 Transform tricky relationships—turn conflict into connection with deeper empathy and understanding. 🔹 Hear real-life stories of how this tool helped mend relationships, including a heartwarming mother-daughter breakthrough.

the end, you’ll have a practical, mind-shifting tool to navigate life’s interactions with more ease, clarity, and connection. So, hit play, try it out, and see the difference for yourself!

And hey—if you find this helpful, share it with someone who needs it and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a nugget of wisdom.

Listen now: https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/436-understanding-what-others-are-thinking-and-feeling

Shine Brightly 🌟

Paul

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Music Credits

Music by Wataboi, DreamHeaven, ccjmusic, and others from Pixabay.

 

And the transcript WARNING if you're a lover of the written word this may make you frustrated, or angry - you have been warned - is it an 'ism

 

The audio quality of this podcast is not to my usual standard

 

hey, just before you start this longer podcast, I, ah, owe you an enormous apology because to be honest, I bug it up, I did this recording and I put a lot of effort into it and I think the content is really, really good. And the recording's not as good as it should be, not anywhere near, unfortunately. I think there's good parts in it, but generally it's not as good. So if this is going to really upset you, please don't listen to it. But their content, I think is good and I don't think I can record it any better in the content wise. So maybe we just stick with it. Okay, bow through it because there's some really good stuff. But first of all, let me apologize because so the, the audio quality is not to my usual standard and I apologize for that profusely. Anyway, have a listen.

If you want to understand others better, this podcast is for you

 

Hey, my friend, we're back for a longer podcast. A longer podcast. And it's all, well, if you want to understand others better, say, I don't know, saying relationships, and that's relationships of any kind. Maybe family members, how would that help if you understood family members better, understood their thoughts, their feelings. What about people you work with? What about people you disagree with? That's a different one, isn't it? You know, colleagues, there's all sorts of different interactions we have with other people, isn't there? And if we understand people better, maybe that will be to sort of our advantage. But it will certainly make things so much easier for us to navigate our little way through life, wouldn't it? So if that's something that you'd like to understand better, then I think this episode for you. Now here's the thing. I normally start off with a story because we all love stories, don't we? And that story sometimes just brings you in. But this time I'm not going to do that. I'm going to finish with a couple of storawies maybe, but certainly finish with one. And I normally finish with a process. And that process having been explained what to do, but not today. I'm going to start with it and I'm not going to explain about it either. It's going to be weird because the explanation is going to come in the middle, which is where the normal explanation is. But it's us about face. That's what I'm going to try to do. So get ready, get ready to learn. think about a time when you did learn something, or you were so curious to learn something, and you got it. What did that feel like when you felt, this is something I'm going to learn, and, what can I get from this? What can I understand? So that's what I want you to get. Do you understand what people are thinking and why, and maybe what to do with that? Why it's important, and what can you do with that understanding? So with that in mind, buckle up, belt up, and all that stuff. We will get on.

 

 

Imagine you're having a minor disagreement with somebody

 

So you're going to have to pay a little bit attention to this and attention with your imagination, which is a great thing to do, isn't it? I want you to imagine you're having a minor disagreement with somebody. Or imagine remembering someone who you may have in the recent past had a minor disagreement. Notice the term minor. And I want you to remember it now or visualize it happening now. So it's okay. By the way, it's sometimes better to close your eyes in this, this part. So if it's safe to do so, just close your eyes because you get less distracted. That's all it is. So if you can, please do. If not, eyes open will do. But make sure you're always safe when you're thinking about other things. So either remember or imagine a new thing happening. A, minor disagreement. Looking through your own eyes. Because you know what you're saying, don't you? You can hear what you're saying, you're thinking what you're about to say. And you know, you know it is with a wonderful tonation. It's clear, it's precise, and it's totally unambiguous. And you're looking through your own eyes, and you're looking at that person. And then you can hear how they react, listening to what they say. Obviously you're listening within intensity, aren't you? And you know they're wrong. That's the thing about this, because it's a disagreement. You're right. And you're looking through your own eyes, and you're seeing everything through you. We call it position number one, first position. Looking through your own eyes being you. So you're now hearing and seeing what you're saying. And the reaction you get and, the retort you get back, if that's the right thing to say. And then I want you to float, float out of your body as if you could flow into their body. Yeah. So you flow into their body. Imagine that. And if it was a past experience, still imagine floating into their body. They're over There, you float over there into their body, into them, looking through their eyes back at you. Imagine that looking through their eyes at you. And, from here you see, you do see from their perspective. Position number two, second position. You see through their eyes and you can feel maybe a little bit of their emotion as they hear what you've been saying. You can hear those words that you said again right now'being replayed. And you're for the very first time listening from their perspective through their eyes, their ears. You're hearing the words, you're hearing the tonation. You are seeing everything from their perspective. You're hearing your tone. Oh, is it as clear and as steady as you thought it was? You hearing the words you using, Are they clear and, precise as you thought they were? What are you getting now? What about your body language from over there? Is it really congruent, aligned? You know, are you really representing what you mean to say? Do you notice from here that, you over there is not really listening to the words being said from me here because you're thinking about what next to say and you're thinking about me, that person. Isn't it strange? When you're in this position, you can start to notice all of that and notice what you thought was unambiguous. Totally correct, totally right. How there may be some flaws in that. Certainly from this perspective, from this viewpoint, from the things that you understand from this person's position, listen to those words. And maybe as you listen to those words from this position, you may want to reply. And as you do that, notice the thoughts that's going through your head from this perspective, this other person's perspective. Listen. Notice a tone that you think is coming out of your mouth. Notice the thoughts or pictures that you make in your mind as you are replying to in fact your words. And then if you want to, you could just float. Well, you will float back into your body and just notice those words coming back. Are you listening differently now when you're back in your own body, looking back in your own eyes? Yeah. Isn't it strange? What will you learn? How will you use what you've learned from that position? Because you know a little bit about their needs now, don't you? I think you understand better. And if you wanted to, you could go backwards and forwards to get a better understanding. I'll explain that very shortly. But, just imagine, just from this very brief glimpse into that other person's feelings, what you've learned, how will this change your response so you can be heard clearly? With understanding now you have these little impressions of what they're going through, what they're thinking. What are your new thoughts from this new. From this position now, right now, from yourself again, maybe you just say something, say something differently with this new knowledge to that person. Excite from your heart, from what you've learned. And if you were to float into them once more, back into that body, their body looking through you or through at you, from their eyes, through their eyes, listen to those words this time and notice how it's different. How does it make you them feel? Do they feel heard? Do they understand differently because of what you've learned and how you can say things differently, you know? And now here's another thing to do. From this position, I want you to float out of their body and just float up higher. Just float not so high that you can't see them, but just so you could imagine seeing yourself and the other person down there having this conversation, the one that you've just had. And as you reear it from this position, this, we call it a meta position, third position, up high, dissociated. Some people call it the director's position because you're doing it with no emotion. The emotions are down there, not up here. You're dissociated. And as you listen to all of that, what advice would you give both of them? Especially you, but give both of them some advice from up here, from what you've learned, maybe it's just one little bit, but you've got that advice. This is you. What is it? From up here, down there, what advice would you give them? And as you think of that advice, maybe say out loud, you begin to float back through that other person and then back into you. We like to pick them all up together, back to you.

 

 

What have you learned that you can use in the future

 

And as you're back in your own body, looking through your own eyes right now, what have you learned? What have you learned that you can use in the future? Use right now? Use to understand? Yeah. Isn't it strange? Isn't it strange? Yeah.

 

 

Perceptual positioning can help improve communication between people

 

So now we're back in the middle. Now back in the middle. What do we do? What do we do? Well, we've done a thing, what we call an nlp, Perceptual positioning. Going from first position, yourself looking through your own eyes, to the second position, which is looking through the eyes of others, to third position, which is that meta position, looking down when you're dissociated. And what happens is, it's quite strange, but we all have these filters. You see Filters made up of our, experiences, our values, our beliefs, all the things that's happened in our lives. And then we distort, delet and generalize so we can make sense of the world. And by going into these perceptual positions, we alter the filters, we change them slightly. And when you change a filter, things will appear differently and you can learn so much more. You can learn o. You get a sense, a sense of their emotion, maybe a sense of where they're coming from. You get a sense of where their belief is. Because we're looking at the world through that difference filter, their filter, our filter, the meta filter. And we put it all together and we learn so much more. And it makes life richer, but it allows you to then have that communication, have, that communication that will be harmonious. It can change so much and it's something you can just do whenever you want. It's easy. It was easy then, wasn't it? It was so bloody easy. You just have to remember to do it. But you do it with intention. You do it with the intention to learn. You learn. I want to learn what's not working, maybe. How can I change what's not working so I can get a better understanding and therefore a better set of communications so we get a better outcome for both of us. It's not just for you, remember, because when you both have the same outcome, even if it's, at the highest level, you can work backwards to keep that joint intention, that common intention, and find strategies to bridge the distance. And now you don't have to guess what people are thinking, because when we guess, we're always bloody wrong. Well, we've got one chance of being right and a million trillion times of being wrong, aren't we? But sometimes it's understanding a little bit more about people's beliefs, values, things like that, that you just get a sense of. It's so wonderful when you do things like that. So what have we done? We went into first position, looked at the other person and, just understood what we were doing, how we felt. Then, once you've done your bit of conversation, you go into their position, the other person looking through their eyes and notice how you appear to them, how you sound to them, how you come across to them, how you connect to them and what do they feel about it, and you can go backwards and forwards and then you take that meta position, that dissociated position where you get to see everything with no emotion, so you can see it for what it is and you can take advice from there. And then you put it all together by going back through them back to you, and you bring everything together. It can make a world of difference to you. It really can. You see, this is the story, the beginning of the end. You see, I used to run an NLP work group that was a practice group. Once a month we would meet and we would go through various processes to keep things alive in ourselves. You practice and practice because practice makes permanent, not perfect, remember? So you practice well, and it'll be permanently good inside you. So one day we were doing this, or one evening we were doing it, and Sally came and said, I'm having a real problem with my daughter. We're not getting on. And, it's really upsetting me. Cause I know I. I'm right because we always are. And I know that she's unhappy and I just need to do something. So. Hell fire. This is the process just to explore, to play with perceptual position. So I, got Sally to imagine seeing her. Her daughter in front of her and say the things that she had been saying to her, to her daughter. And she went through that and explained everything to her daughter, who she imagined standing in front of her. Then she stopped and said, there you go. That's so reasonable, isn't it? There's nothing wrong with what I've said. Said, okay, now imagine, And we made her walk and actually stand in that position. This is a great thing to do. If you can actually do this in your mind, great. But if you can actually walk around into different positions, you're actually changing your spatial awareness, as it were, your spatial positioning. We got her to walk into that place about 2 meters in front of her, turn around and look back to where she used to stand or was standing before. And, he said, I can't remember a daughter's name, but I said, okay, you've listened to Sally. Well, do you understand? What do you want to say now? What do you want to explain to your mum about how you feel? What do you want her to know about this? And as she started to do this, you could see in Sally's eyes as she stood in this place of where her daughter was, her eyes were moving round. It's called a derivational search, where she was looking for different emotions, different thoughts, different things. Because she was confused a little bit, because she was beginning to understand somehow what her daughter or what she thought her d were thinking from this position. And she began to speak back to her mum as if she was a mum in front of her to explain what she felt. And from there we got Sally to come back to where she was originally, looked back at, where she imagined a daughter to be and to keep responding. So she had a, a small conversation backwards and forwards, understanding things differently. And the conversation began to change and you could see in Sally's eyes and her physiology how things were changing from the understandings. Each time she went into her daughter's position, look back at her and noticed how she was coming across, how she was connecting, what she was saying, was she explaining what she really meant, and she was guessing what her daughter was feeling and she found out it was completely different from there. And then we got her and said, well, we need to get a meta position up high. So I said just come to the side, and look at the two of you. That's where you were standing and that's where she's standing. And she said, well that's not high enough really Paul, because I'm at the same level, said, okay. So we got a table. I don't know how we did it. We got a table and ah, she stood on the table looking down at these imaginary positions. She says, n still not high enough. Oh, bloody hell. So we got a chair and put it on the table. Now this is not the most safest thing to do. So we had a few people around. I was holding her hands, making sure she was right. She climbed up on the table onto the chair and looked down at these two imaginary positions and say, oh, I see what's happening. And she gave. I said, well, what advice would you give Sally and her daughter? And she just said some words. I can't remember exactly what they were, but she just gave some advice from what she was getting from this position. Then we got down off the chair onto the table, safely onto the floor. She walked back into that position of where a daughter she imagined an order to be, look back at where, where Sally was or would have been.

 

 

Paul says talking to Sally has changed the way he feels about relationships

 

And they just asked her to just notice what you can learn from this and the advice you'd been given from up there. And then we got her to walk back into her original position, look back at where a daughter had imagined to be. And I said, well, just notice what you can learn from all of this, Sally. And that was it. We broke state. We had a little thing. how'd you feel about this now? She said, well I feel a little different, but we'll see because I'm not 100% certain PA but I obviously learned things. So we left it then I got a phone call and I thought, oh, dear. Sometimes I think that when you do something with somebody and they phone you back pretty quickly, you go, oh, what's happening? And she says, aul, Paul. It is so weird. It was a Saturday morning. Paul and daughter was there. No one else was in the house. I said, please, Sally, come and sit on the settee with me. Come and just listen to me. And I spoke in a different way. I don't know what it was. It was if. And I said things like, is this how you're feeling? and if it isn't, will you explain to me? And, she said, My daughter said, that's so close to what I do feel. And then she explained a bit more and I got it. And as we were talking about her feelings and my feelings, because I explained them in a different way now. I didn't impose them. She said, our relationship changed there. And then we hugged, we had a little cry. But she said, it's absolutely wonderful. We are, ah, so different now. All because of that bloody process you did. Me standing there walking, around up on that bloody table and chairs and all that stuff. But it's made such a difference. Wow. And that was good. And this is what I've done in the past as well, because sometimes've, when I was in a different. I call it a different life, when I was in a different type of industry, different career, I used to have to make phone calls. I have to and are important phone calls to our, company. It was like trying to get into a person's office so we can really meet and talk to them. And sometimes that was difficult. And I certainly didn't want to do it. The salesman's technique and things like that, because that's not me. So I used to imagine what I'm going to say to that person. And, then. And I'd imagine them like over there picking up the phone, listening to me. And then I'd walk over and stand in that position and listen to that conversation again, what came across and get a sense of what's happening. And then go back to me and we have this imaginary conversation, but in different positions. Then I'd go to the side because I didn't have a table and chair there. I kind of. I just get what's happening here. What advice can I give myself about all of this? What am I sensing? What can I learn from this? And sometimes the learnings were really clear. Sometimes just. They were fuzzy in the way. I think I've got something, but I don't know what it is. But then on those phone calls and I remember one particular one when I know I d previously had a phone call with this guy and it wasn't the best and I thought he was having a pop at me and I wasnna. I wasn't go going toa take that. But I did this thing when I phoned him up, I said, just before we start, we had this conversation yesterday, day before. Didn't quite like it, but I just wondered what's going on? I don't want to pry, but I just get this feeling that it's not you. And he said, paul, don't talk about it too much, but you're the first person to'said this. But he said, I'm having some problems at home, my wife's not very well and it's on my mind and, and sometimes I get frustrated. Sometimes I get angry about what's happening and how I can't help or. And things like that. And I'm sorry. I, apologize because I think I took it out on you. I said, well, I knew there was something going on now I had to think about it. And he said, well, I know what you do that funny stuff in the brain. But he said, thank you so much for asking. He said, is it okay? Because I've still got these things going. I do need to attend. You've made me think I need to attend to them now. I want to go and find my wife and talk to her. Could I speak to you tomorrow? And I will phone you. And you know what he did? And it was a really pleasant conversation. We did the business all because I think I took the time to do this process. And, did I really know what he was thinking? I don't know. How did I know something? The intuition came and if you think about it, here's a real I'SAY it again. This is the weird one. And we werenna do some of these on a longer podcast. What would happen if you're constantly feeling an emotion, let's call it a negative emotion, or you're consciously got this negative belief, limiting belief in your head. I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough, or this can't happen or whatever. Maybe a belief about money, maybe a belief about other people, maybe a belief about yourself. I'm not good enough. You, they're out to get me. Impostor syndrome.

 

 

If you've got a disease, an ailment something that keeps happening

 

What would happen if you did it with this process, with an emotion? Imagine the emotion standing there. Joseph and I, my younger son, we do this in trainings we do it with money because people have a weird connections to money. A lot of people have and they all think we have the same emotional connection, but we don't. They're all different. And m we get people to imagine money standing in front of them, telling money what they think about them and then going into that position of money, money looks back and talks to them. And when they finish this process they go got such a different understanding about finance and money now. Wasn't my friend, but now I can make it my friend who this is metaphorically, whatever. What happens though? Here's another one, here's another one. If you've got a disease, an ailment something that keeps happening that you're not quite sure of, maybe it's like a headache. We're not talking about a miraculous healing here, by the way, but it does happen, doesn't it? Instantaneous healing. And I think that sometimes comes from understanding the message. I don't know, maybe woo woo lala But I do know if you've got like a recurring little thing, maybe it's like a backache, a migraine, a headache and you did this process. Imagine that disease in front of you. What would it look like? And talk to it, ask it. What can I do for you? We did this with a shadow, remember? Imagine the shadow coming out us in front of us. What can I do for you? As opposed to the other way around? What are you trying to do for me? That's another question. Ask both. What are you doing for me? What can I do for you? Do we understand that there's a conflict here? How can I make it better? What am I not doing that if I started doing would change this? What am I not doing or doing? Just I don't remember which one I've just said but what am I not doing that if I did do started doing would change this or what am I doing if I stopped doing would change this? And you get some inspiration, you write it down, you work on it. How are you going toa change it? And notice sometimes that disease begins to disappear. We'll do a whole process on that, I think on a longer podcast. Caus I think a lot of people suffer from these, call it minor recurring diseases, you know, anxieties, fears, guilt, anything like that. Limiting and negative emotions, limiting beliefs, seeing them. It'be awesome to do one of each other. Wouldn't one emotion, one belief and one disease. Hey, disease. So that's what we'll do in the future. Hopefully that's of interest to you. But just notice even now, what have you learned about that person, about yourself? Because you know when you look at something differently, what you look at is different. Hey, you know it. I do hope you enjoyed all of that. I hope I made it clear. I hope you like the change of format occasionally. I hope you didn't mind. There was a helicopter going off and I had to try to do something about that. Not the helicopter, but the noise. If I did explain it in a way that wasn't clear, because I could do a perceptual position to find out. But if something wasn't quite clear, I didn't articulate it in a way that made it something you could understand, that would be my fault, because that's my responsibility. Let me know, please. [email protected] do that's my email address here. Send it to me. I'm the only bugger who gets it and I'll answer you personally. And if there's something we can either direct you to or create a new podcast or find a process or mold a process that would suit that, that's what I will do. And of course, hopefully you found this interesting, but you share it with people. Share what you learn, share your notes, because you've made notes, haven't you? Maybe it's in a note of a mind map of those different positions. Let me know [email protected] but please do share if you share the podcast. I know I say this every blooming podcast, every longer one. Anyway, please do share this with people you feel. I say people, plural. People you feel would benefit from this, this understanding or this type, of sharing at the personal development Unplug podcast. You know, breaking down the complicated into simple ways. Because you e all know in simplicity there is genius. There you go. Hope you enjoyed it. I'd love to be here with you in your mind and let you into my mind. And just before you go, just another sincere apology about the buzziness and all that stuff. I hope it didn't mess up your enjoyment and your learning and hopefully it won't ever, ever happen again because I've learned a lesson. Check and check. And then guess what? Check again.

 

 

Personal development unplugged. It's time to fly on your own

 

So until next time, my friend, to the better quality of personal development unplugged this pool you ma. See you soon. It's time to fly. Warning, you are now leaving the unplunged mind of Paulloughf. It's time to fly on your own. Be brave, my friend. Personal development unplugged.

Personal development [self improvement] [self development] [NLP] [Hypnosis]