Changing your perspective is one of the hardest cognitive reappraisal techniques.
Here are some examples of changing your perspective:
- See the event from your manager’s perspective.
- See the event from your children’s eyes.
- See the event from your parent’s perspective.
- See the event as someone from another country.
- See the event as your younger self or your older self.
Try to really put yourself in their shoes to understand and feel what they are feeling.
Seeing an event from another perspective (or even multiple perspectives), modulates your thinking to help you accept that what happened just is.
While the event creates intense emotions for you now, maybe it’s even harder for your manager or child, maybe it’s a good thing for your parent, maybe your younger or older self would love it.
Who knows? And that’s the whole point.
The event is an event, and it is you who decides your perspective.