Robert Burns composed his "To a louse" having observed the creature strolling around the collar of an elegantly dressed woman who was totally unaware of her less than fashionable accessory. In his poem he wrote:
"O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us, To see oursels as others see us!"
Thinking about Burns's words, I wonder how many times there have been, when I have failed to notice how my mood, responses and actions have appeared to others.
A lack of awareness.
Then I am aware of other times when things didn't go as well as I had planned. How must my behaviour have looked and sounded? What if I had behaved differently? Been more resourceful? That raises the question of how to learn from such situations?
NLP offers the gift of seeing ourselves as others see us in the form of Perceptual Positions. The techniques are described in this Wikipedia item. Essentially we are invited to see not only from our own position, but from a second, third and even more positions. The technique allows us to revisit a situation and to learn from it. It is also useful in planning to be more resourceful in a given situation.
One of the great things about being an NLP practitioner is that you get to help others help themselves to more resourceful states. It's great to sense that subtle shift when a different perceptual position changes someone's subjective experience of an event.
So being at a "louse" end, I am off to plan an upcoming meeting.
