Perceptual positions

By Bhuwan Sharma

What are the perceptual positions?

Your perception of any information, situation, or experience depends on the position from which you process it. In the NLP world, three powerful positions are actively mentioned as useful. These three positions are usually illustrated as first, second, and third positions.

When you are in the first position, you are being yourself, perceiving information, or experience through your own mind and seeing and feeling things from your own individual point of view.

When you are in the second position, you are perceiving information or experience as someone else. You are actively stepping into someone else’s shoes. You are then, intuitively experiencing or imagining what it is like to be that other person. You are looking at the world through the second person’s perception.

When you are in the third position, you are in a disassociated state. You are concerned and examining the context affecting the first and second position persons but you are not emotionally attached. You are a fly on the wall, scrutinizing the situation and moving through your own opinions, ideas, views, or comments regarding the context.

How are these perceptual positions important for us?

Being involved in various perceptual positions helps you distance yourself from your present context. As you are experiencing different positions, you can see things from other perspectives. I feel, this also allows you to collect object information regarding the context you are currently concerned about. Would it also not be great if you could inspect how your current context is impacting people around you and how exactly they may be feeling about the whole thing? This tools helps you do exactly that and enables you to gain clarity on other people’s points of view. Sometimes, it is possible that you discover the information you already have but for some reason, you utterly and unconsciously ignored them due to the overwhelming first position feelings you were carrying regarding the context.

Everyday examples of taking different perceptual positions.

You can observe what is it that you want, or how do you feel, noticing, and being aware through your own eyes. This is being in the first position.

Trying to Grasp what it could be like to be someone else in the same context. What would that person be feeling, seeing, and hearing? This is being in the second position.

Analyzing yourself and maybe others as a distant but concerned observer or a fly on the wall. This is being in the third position.

When should you consider different perceptual positions?

When you see yourself going through a conflict with someone. Maybe you feel some conflicts with a coworker or maybe you are facing a state of conflict in a personal relationship.

You can use these tools when you are working on a project. You can use these tools even when you want a concrete plan for a trek you want to with your friends a few weeks from now. It could help you decide which exact trek would be ideal from your friends’ perspectives.

When you are frustrated by your friend’s, spouse’s, or your colleague’s behavior. And of course, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of more contexts where you can foresee these tools coming in handy.

These are seen as very impactful when you are trying to build or improve rapport. These sets of tools can help you analyze all possible results of your choices and actions before you actually commit to them. Practicing these positions can also provide you with clarity regarding where others are coming from and what emotions or states could be driving them. When you are involved in any negotiation process, these sets of tools can give you an idea regarding the other party’s perceptions, concerns, tensions, and maybe even their internal communication.

“Being involved in various perceptual positions helps you distance yourself from your present context.”

PROCESS

  1. Have three chairs set up in a triangle in from of you. If you don’t have access to chairs, just imagine 3 different spots (circular space) on the floor.
  2. Each of these chairs or spaces are designated for each position.
  3. Step into the first position space (or sit on the first position chair) as yourself.
  4. Close your eyes and bring the context you are dealing with in your mental video.
  5. Pay attention to what you see, hear, and feel. Play with submodalities like colors, sound, and your feelings. Sharpen the volume, increase color contrast. Notice the location of your feelings and examine for any movement of that feeling.
  6. What are your thoughts regarding this context? What is your perspective?
  7. Now you get out of the first position, get off the chair or step out of the space, and break state. To break state, you can stretch your body a little bit and recite your phone number backward. You can try something else as long as you are breaking the current state you are in.
  8. Now you step into the second position space or sit on the second position chair. You are now the second person. Be that second person, how would she/he feel? What would she/he be thinking?
  9. Close your eyes and bring the context you (as the second person) are dealing with in your mental video.
  10. Pay attention to what you see, hear, and feel. Play with submodalities like colors, sound, and your feelings. Sharpen the volume, increase color contrast. Notice the location of your feelings and examine for any movement of that feeling.
  11. What are your thoughts regarding this context? What is your perspective?
  12. Now you get out of the second position, get off the chair or step out of the space, and break state. To break state, you can stretch your body a little bit and recite your phone number backward. You can try something else as long as you are breaking the current state you are in.
  13. Now you step into the third position space or sit on the third position chair. You are now a third person. A third person that is not involved in the situation or has nothing to do with the context. You are now, watching the first position person and second position person’s perspectives like a fly on the wall. Be that third person, how would she/he feel? What would she/he be thinking?
  14. Close your eyes and watch the first position and second position’s context in your mental video. You are completely disassociated from the context.
  15. Pay attention to what you see, hear, and feel. Play with submodalities like colors, sound, and your feelings. Sharpen the volume, increase color contrast. Notice the location of your feelings and examine for any movement of that feeling.
  16. What are your thoughts regarding this context? What are your perspectives? What advice and suggestions would you give the first position?
  17. Now you get out of the second position, get off the chair or step out of the space, and break state. To break state, you can stretch your body a little bit and recite your phone number backward. You can try something else as long as you are breaking the current state you are in.
  18. You finish in the first position. You start with the first position, examine your perspective, and then you go around experiencing other people’s perspectives and you come back to the first position. You can do multiple rounds of this, but it always starts and finishes with the first position.

When you finish in the first position, you ask yourself questions like what do you think the other’s person’s positive intention could be? Listening to the second position’s views, how resolved is your context at this moment? What advice from the third positions can you accept or at least consider?

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