One of the best ways to reduce stress and promote peace is the ability to work with understanding your perspective. This can be perspective in terms of differing points of view between you and others but also your own perspective on things in how they relate to the bigger picture.
“Perspective-taking is the neglected secret of problem solving, negotiations, conflict resolution, higher-level cognitive and moral reasoning, and most other aspects of human interaction. While it is not always easy or comfortable to do, it is essential for building and maintaining constructive relationships. Teaching children how to take others’ perspectives is a needed aspect of schooling and socialization. Becoming skillful in taking the perspective of others will tend to significantly improve the quality of one’s life” (https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/constructive-controversy/201906/the-importance-taking-the-perspective-others)
It is very easy to get caught up in the stickiness of our ways of doing things, and under stress we can add more value onto something which causes our perspective to go out of the window. Here are some very quick and simple things you can do to try and rebalance your perspective:
- Visualise yourself. Now Zoom out, zoom out again, and again and again. See yourself in the world with all these other people. Somewhere, someone is getting married, someone has food poisoning, someone has found a lost relative, someone is grieving, someone has a new puppy, someone is sunbathing, someone is cooking, someone is screaming, someone is crying, someone has fallen in love, someone has just knitted a jumper, someone is building a house, someone is looking at mountains, someone is caring for a child. And here you are – this is you. You have choice. You have agency. You are part of a bigger world.
- Ask yourself, will I really worry/be anxious/be angry /care about this in 5 years time? It may sound like a cliche but this technique is pretty spot on.
- Try not to sweat the small stuff.
