Adam Bulbulia

Empathy is one of the most vital skills we can develop. Empathy is sorely needed in these times, and has been a cornerstone for all times. In its essence, empathy is the ability to place oneself inside of someone else’s experience. There are many ways to practice empathy, but the most effective way I’ve found is to feel into the other by imagining that I am actually in the other person’s body. This process gives me the feeling of empathy as well as the sense of being in their shoes, thinking the way they do about a particular situation. 

Perceptual Positions

The Perceptual Positions Practice comes out of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), and is a clear and valuable guide to cultivate the empathy skills outlined above. As a Process Coach for 18 years, my cohort and I used this tool as a foundation for developing empathy and rapport amongst ourselves and with clients. 

There are four basic perceptual positions. They each line up with the first four parts of speech: 

1. First position is the “I” or self position. In first position, you are looking out through your body and experiencing life as you typically experience it. To get a good sense of first position, feel into your body and your self, and narrow your awareness to experience the world through only your bodily senses.
2. Second position is the “you” position. In second position, you are empathetically feeling into another person’s experience. In second position I imagine what it’s like to be you and feel and experience what you are experiencing. I extend my awareness to you and allow my sensations to feel what you are feeling. 
3. Third position, “he/she/they,” is the observer position. In third position we are the observer. We are like a fly on the wall watching the whole interaction. In observer position, we are in a neutral third person position. I am not in my own body or your body. I am a fly on the wall watching the dynamic.
4. Fourth position is the “we” position or field position. In field position, we are feeling the whole dynamic and are no longer neutral as we are in third position. We are looking out for the interests of everyone involved. I, as an individual, am identified with the whole field and in service to everyone in the dynamic. I care about what everyone is feeling and am attuned to it. 

The Fourth Position: Field Position

The most powerful place to anchor yourself is in field position. From field position you have access to all of the positions while being connected with the feelings in your heart. In a sense, the heart is an organ of the field: it senses, measures and responds to the whole body. Flexibility is essential in field position. There are no drawbacks to field position since it is a hybrid position and incorporates the benefits of all the other positions.

The Gifts and Drawbacks of Each Position

Self position is a great place to experience pleasure and joy. When we are in self position, we can drop into our experience more fully and immerse ourselves more deeply. Too much self position can lead one to becoming self-absorbed and unable to recognize the other. 

Going into second position is a wonderful way to experience empathy and compassion. We can sense and feel others as a way to become open to them in very profound ways. Too much other position can lead to enmeshment and a disconnection from self. 

Observer position is great for seeing things clearly and getting a sense of the dynamics at play. Too much observer position makes you removed from the situation and feels aloof to others. 

Field position is the most wonder-filled position of them all. To truly be in field position, we must retain the ability to shift into any of the other positions at any moment. Rather than staying squarely in the ever changing kaleidoscope of experience which is field position, we can flexibly move wherever we are called to move. With our awareness and focus, we can consciously feel into specific facets of our lives, whether inside of us or in the world around us.

The Perceptual Positions Practice:

Take a few moments to recall a recent situation you’ve experienced that matches the following criteria: an in-person, small to moderate disagreement or miscommunication. 

(Position names are capitalized here for ease of use.)

1. Close your eyes and imagine the situation. From First Position, feel your body. Then take your awareness to the midpoint between your body and the other. You are watching the scene like a movie. Watch both people and notice the interaction. (Take a minute to replay the situation in as much detail as possible.)
2. Return to your own body. When you look out, see the other person through your own eyes. Now replay the situation and notice everything you experienced at that time. What were you feeling, hearing, and seeing? (Take a minute in this position to re-experience it just the way you experienced it at the time.)
3. Go back to the midpoint between the two of you (Observer Position) just for a moment so you can see both of you. As soon as you can see both of you, you are ready for the next step.
4. Now you are going to place your awareness inside the other (Second Position). Do this first by getting right behind the other person and up close to them. Let your senses extend into the other person’s body so that you can feel and imagine in your own body what they are experiencing. When you look out, you see yourself through their eyes. As the other person, notice what you are feeling, hearing, and seeing. Experience the situation from their perspective as fully as possible. (Take a minute to get every detail of this experience.)
5. Now return to the Observer Position. From the Observer Position, feel into the whole. You’ve been inside your own position and you’ve lived inside the other person’s experience. Now move into feeling the whole dynamic. This is the feeling observer position which we call Field Position. Replay the situation by feeling into the whole interaction and notice what you experience from here. Take a couple of minutes to glean everything you can from this experience.
6. Jot down some notes or share your experience with someone who has experienced this process. 

The first time you do this, it’s good to talk to someone who can help ensure that you’ve experienced all four positions distinctly. After you’ve done it a couple of times, it’s easy to do on your own. Once you’re comfortable and adept at moving through this practice, the next step is learning how to move between the positions in real time as you are communicating. I make a practice of feeling into the other every time I start speaking, when I’m listening, and periodically as I’m speaking to gauge how effectively I’m communicating. I also feel for how well they are feeling into me or what position they are in primarily. I try to use my communication to help bring them into a deeper field position where they can access both empathy for me and can feel into the whole field more effectively. 

The Immense Power of this Practice

This practice has been the backbone of Bridging Worlds. I’ve used it innumerable times with autistic and developmentally disabled clients and been able to bridge to them and communicate with them more powerfully. Recently I used it with a client with Prader Willi Syndrome to help him adjust to new rules around his diet. By using this practice, we were able to help him move through a really difficult conversation with grace and ease. 

I also use this practice while coaching neurotypical adults. It allows me to support others even when they are having experiences that I haven’t personally experienced. As I was working with a client who is coming out of some narcissistic patterns of behavior, I was able to feel with him what it was like to come out of a defense pattern he had been using since childhood. Everything was so brand new to him that it was like he was learning to walk all over again. Even though I had never had this experience, I could feel it with him through using the perceptual positions practice. 

The practice of moving through the perceptual positions daily has given me deep and immense insight into what another is feeling at any given moment. By using it in every interaction I have, I continue to deepen and hone my ability to feel others. When you practice this exercise 1-3 times everyday, it becomes second nature to you to feel the other and the field in everything that you do. 

The Gift of Flexibility

When we are flexible with our perceptual positions, we are able to move easily to other positions. Similarly, when we are flexible in perspectives, we don’t get stuck in one point of view. Anchoring in field position allows us to move into other positions and self position at will. Field position gives us maximum flexibility. Remember that there is no wrong perceptual position to be in. They are all equally valid ways of experiencing reality. It’s a great practice to do when you are bored or annoyed by an interaction. When you start using perceptual positions, there’s always something interesting to discover in even the most mundane situation. 

It is my sincere hope that this article gives you a sense of how to actually deepen your ability with empathy. The awareness and practice of perceptual positions has been one of the single most transformative practices I’ve ever done. From the time I learned it, this practice has informed everything I do. I even named my first company Bridging Worlds Behavioral Services because I believe that when we put ourselves in the shoes of the other, we can truly bridge worlds.

Join the Revolution

To join Heart-Centered Revolutions and make a world that works for everyone, sign up for our mailing list. This act places you firmly at the center of our communication channels. By far, the best way to join this revolution, though, is to practice opening your heart and truly coming from unconditional love for yourself and everyone else around you. For more on how to bring heart-centered principles into your everyday life, we have a collection of books covering an assortment of topics. You can also continue your exploration of heart-centered principles by reading the articles on our blog. We offer business consulting and personal and parenting coaching.  We also offer workshops.  Register for them here.

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If these words and ideas truly resonate with you and make your heart and soul sing, visit us online and join the revolution!

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We are not given a guidebook or instruction manual for human interaction. Most of our understanding of social contexts arrives through learned behavior and the development of our intuition. We don’t learn how to deal with social interactions in school, nor do most of us receive any formal training in this field. Yet, social interactions are some of the most complex dynamics we will ever deal with. The ability to feel and sense “the field” gives us a moment to moment guide in how to navigate the challenges of each social interaction. In quantum physics, we conceive the universe as made up of particles and waves. The particles are the matter and the waves are the energy. In a social dynamic, each person is a particle, while the dynamic fluid movement of energy between the people interacting is the wave. This wave function is what we call the field. The field is the energy that moves through us and between us. Through opening our hearts, sensing, and feeling the energetic field of an interaction, we have vital information for how to navigate this world. Our feelings can help us sense and unlock the hidden potential in any interaction. In this article, we will outline the basics of how to  sense the field by getting in touch with and relating to our feelings, the truth, our bodies, and human dynamics.

The Power of Feeling

Feelings are not widely understood in our society. Philosopher David Hume said, “reason is and ought only to be the slave of passion.” He was speaking to the way in which our thought processes and decisions are driven and ruled by what we feel underneath. Our feelings include both feelings we’re aware and conscious of, along with those we are unaware and unconscious of. With so many layers of feeling that we aren’t fully aware of, there is immense power in understanding what drives our unconscious. Humans have been aware of the gap between the conscious and unconscious for eons. Shamen, oracles, and medicine men and women, as well as psychologists and therapists help us navigate our realms of knowing and knit together our vast identity. They have always used the realm of feeling to help with this.

We are not as rational as we like to think we are. For example, economists build their models on the assumption that human beings are not ‘rational actors’ and factor that in to govern how the economy works. Rational actors would simply weigh out events and consequences and act accordingly to what was logically best. Instead, human beings make decisions based on our feelings and intuitions about things. Social scientists have come to understand this principle as well, when predicting behavior of individuals in various settings. The advertising industry uses these principles to manipulate us into consuming what they want us to consume. Humans don’t follow logical systems. We generally go with what intuitively feels right to discern how we move through life. 

The power of feeling can be used to help align us and move us toward health. Our feelings and intuition always want what is best for us. They guide us to the truth of the heart and help us be more honest with ourselves so we can move through life in a more integrated way. 

The notion that we are not rational actors is in fact a fallacy. We have the choice to enter into a new paradigm of freedom and integration between our minds and our hearts where we recognize that decisions are made by the heart and the intuition for our best good, and that living our lives from this place is actually the most rational thing we could do.

The Body Knows the Truth

The human body is the great truth teller. The body cannot lie. Your mind can say, “my shoulders feel relaxed.” But if there’s tension in your shoulders, the body will show it. The mind may say, “I feel okay with this break up I’m having,” while the body continues to express and hold onto all of the sensations that the mind is refusing to acknowledge. In the book The Body Keeps the Score, author Bessel van der Kolk writes, “The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves.” These lies cause suffering because the body only knows the truth. All of the lies we tell ourselves are stored somewhere in the body. 

Author and physician Gabor Mate’s book, When the Body Says No: The Hidden Cost of Stress, presents case after case of people carrying symptoms in their body, even when their mind has no idea what is occurring. Whatever the body feels will come up as a symptom, even if the mind denies its importance. The way we know the body is through sensations. Sensations are it’s great messenger. When we are honest with ourselves, our body feels more at ease, and we can have a better path to navigating our truth in this world. Honesty is simply good for our overall health. 

Feeling Sensations in our Body

We live in a culture that prioritizes the mind and emotions over the pure sensation of feeling. We often talk about what we’re feeling with emotional stories attached, such as “I feel sadness about breaking up with my partner,” or “I’m angry and anxious about losing my job.” Many of us have lost touch with the actual sensations these emotions are based on. Feelings are sensations we feel right now in the body. Anxiety is not a feeling, it’s a summary label of an emotion to describe the associated sensations. When we say, “I feel a fast moving sensation in the pit of my stomach when I think about not having a job,” we are describing a sensation. For some, the distinction between sensations and emotions is a completely new way to think about the complexities and nuances within feeling. The benefit of understanding this distinction is that it reconnects us to our actual experience of life, and not just our mind-made interpretations. 

Thought Verses Feeling Experiment

It’s important to do this exercise with your full attention, to understand the difference between thinking and feeling. Reading this exercise without experiencing it may not allow you to understand this essential difference.

1. Focus on a rock, crystal, or small object near you. Do not touch the object. 
2. Look at the object and get to know it by thinking about it. Here are some questions you may want to ask yourself:
   1. How was it made or formed? 
   2. What color is it? 
   3. What is its shape?
   4. Is it shiny or dull?
   5. Does it look smooth or rough?
   6. What do you think it will feel like in your hands?
3. Let your mind about the object in any and all ways possible.
4. Now enter the realm of feeling. Pick the object up in your hands and feel it.
5. Close your eyes and feel the texture of it as you run your hand or fingers along its surface. Feel and explore every inch of the object.
6. Take your time to get to know this object through your sense of touch by feeling it rather than seeing it. If you find yourself thinking about it, that’s okay. Simply acknowledge your thoughts and return to your focus to feeling the sensations of the object.
7. Open your eyes now as you put down the object. Take a few moments to reflect on the difference between thinking about the object and feeling it. 
8. What were your experiences like? What were the differences between thinking about and feeling the object?

Did you notice that when you are thinking, you are perceiving the world primarily through your mind, while when you are feeling you are sensing the object directly through your body? Feeling is a kinesthetic sense, while thinking comes in words and images from the auditory and visual centers of the body. I’m curious if you were able to drop out of your traditional way of thinking as you felt the object. For most of us, our thinking is so strong that even when we focus on sensation it can sometimes be hard to actually feel the sensations.

Feelings are:

1. Sensations in the moment.
2. Present right now.
3. New – It can’t be something you knew from before, something that is not happening in the present moment, or something you’re not feeling. If it is something you think you already know, you’re actually just remembering it and thinking about feeling rather than directly feeling.
4. Impossible to conceptualize. You can try, but they will always elude the concept.
5. Hard to express in words. Poetry and music are the best ways to express feelings.
7. An extremely powerful way of knowing and experiencing life. 

Note: In our mind dominated society, feelings are rarely fully experienced. Unless you are giving birth, present with someone dying, making love, or having some other peak experience with awareness, you may not be feeling. Oftentimes we think we are feeling because we are having emotions. But most of our emotions are simply a reaction to our thoughts. We are rarely experiencing the direct visceral bodily sensations of feeling. 

Exercise: Take Emotion, Find Feelings 

1. Think of an emotion you’ve recently experienced. It could be anything: happiness, anger, grief, joy, or fear. Find where you feel the roots of this emotion in your body. A good place to look for it is anywhere between your neck and your buttocks.
2. What does it feel like? Is it tight or loose? Moving or still? Warm or cool? Sharp or dull? Heavy or light? What are the sensations you experience? How does it really feel?
3. Notice as you feel the sensations, you are now in touch with the direct felt sense of your experience.
4. Accept all the sensations you are experiencing right now.
5. Return to the original emotion you started with. What do you notice now?
6. What is different? What is the same?
7. Give yourself acceptance for all that you are experiencing right now. The emotions and sensations all get to be loved equally.

Perceptual Positions 

The Perceptual Positions Practice comes out of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), and is the most effective way I’ve experienced to cultivate our empathy skills. In the Process Coaching work I was a part of for 18 years, we used this tool as a foundation for developing empathy and rapport. 

There are four basic perceptual positions, which line up with the first four parts of speech: 

1. First position is the “I” or self position. In first position, you are looking out through your body and experiencing life largely as you typically experience it. 
2. The second position is the “you” or other position. In second position, we are empathetically feeling the other person’s experience. 
3. Third position, “he/she/they,” is the observer position. In third position we are the observer. We are like a fly on the wall watching the whole interaction. In observer position, we are not in our own body, but we can see our own body as well as all the others in the dynamic from a neutral third person position. 
4. Fourth position is the “we” position or field position. In field position, we are feeling the whole dynamic and no longer neutral as we are in the third position. We are looking out for the interests of everyone involved. 

Each position has its advantages and disadvantages. Field position is the most wonder-filled position of them all. To truly be in field position, we have to have the ability to shift to all the other positions as needed at any moment. So rather than staying in field position, which is an ever changing kaleidoscope of experience, we can flexibly move wherever we are called to move and feel more penetratingly into every facet of life in and around us. 

Sensing the Field

We all sense the field. When you walk in a room and feel the vibe of the room, you are sensing the field. Through the conscious use of field position, we can become even better at this. The better we get at feeling sensations in our own body, the better we can feel and sense into other people’s feelings as well as whole dynamics. This is best taught in person or online and is difficult to write about. If you’re interested in learning this, reach out to us. We offer individual coaching, and have a variety of online and in person courses which can teach you how to sense the field and read other’s feelings.

When someone speaks, you can feel in your own body whether or not their speech resonates as true. If you listen closely, you will either get a yes when it resonates or a no when it doesn’t resonate. Similarly, you can feel into a group and sense how harmonious and connected or how disconnected it is. When a group is very connected, there’s a feeling of warmth in the heart. When the group is disconnected, there’s often an unsettling feeling in the solar plexus. The exact sensations in your body will vary depending on what is happening. 

The ability to sense the field is the most powerful leadership skill one can develop. When we can read people and dynamics accurately, and lovingly tend to them, we have nearly everything we need to be a good leader. This ability can serve as a compass to guide our decisions in every interaction. The more perceptive we are of human dynamics, the better we are able to navigate the complex social structures of our human world. I’m so grateful for the heart’s ability to feel and sense what is happening in the moment. With this guiding light, I find it much easier to find my way through even the most challenging situations. 

Join the Revolution

Adam Bulbulia is the author of three books on the topics of unconditional love, nurture being, and authenticity – all of which are available on Amazon. His upcoming book, Parenting from the Heart: A Guide to Create a Family Culture that Works for Everyone, is expected to be published next year. 

As you continue your exploration of heart-centered principles, we invite you to read other articles on our blog. We also offer parent coaching, personal coaching, and business consulting.  Tell us what you thought about this article.  Like us on Facebook and share your thoughts. 

To join Heart-Centered Revolutions and make a world that works for everyone, sign up for our mailing list. The best way to join our revolution though is to practice opening your heart and truly coming from empathy and unconditional love for yourself and everyone around you. 

Heart-Centered Revolutions is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to making a world that works for everyone. We can’t do it alone – we need you to join the revolution! 

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The ability to center in the heart at will is what humanity needs most. When enough humans are living in their hearts, the world will truly work for everyone. We’ve created a Heart-Centering Scale as a tool to assess where we are at any given moment: are we in our heads or in our hearts? It has eleven numeric distinctions for the various states of energetic heart-centeredness we can experience at any moment. The purpose of this scale is to guide us to be more conscious, self aware, and self-regulating. Using this scale over time can impact how heart-centered we are at work and in our life. 

HEART-CENTERING SCALE:

Head-Centered States:

0 – I feel no sensations and my awareness is completely centered in my head.

1 – I’m starting to feel sensations but they are very thin, and the center of my awareness is mostly in my head.

2 – I’m feeling sensations. The sensations are a little stronger and more palpable but the head is still the primary energetic center.

3 – I’m feeling clearer sensations, but still I’m referencing my head for where to decide from.

Heart-Centered States:

4 – The sensations are apparent and I’m starting to feel the openings of my heart. My center is halfway between my head and my heart.

5 – I feel my heart and I’m starting to center here. The thinking information is still strong but I can feel my heart.

6 – I feel my heart and know I’m centered here. I’m comfortable with the sensations I’m feeling in my body. I am heart-centered.

Ecstatic Heart-Centered States:

7 – I feel deep sensations in the moment and it feels touching and connected. Tears come or a palpable emotion which touches the whole field.

8 – I feel a profound upwelling of love and connection. I’m touched and touching everyone I interact with.

9 – I feel my own heart so fully and other hearts so fully I’m totally tuned in in an ecstatic or deeply profound state of connection.

10 – I feel full blown oneness with all that is, in my heart. Everything I experience is part of this profound connection to all that is. My heart is completely opened and I’m in surrendered connection to all that is.

How to Use the Scale

Once you learn the scale and become familiar with the distinctions, you can begin guiding yourself towards a 5 or a 6. Being at a state of 1-3 means we are head centered. States 7-10 are peak experiences which we cannot force, but we can set up the circumstances for them to arise more frequently. When we ground our lives in states 4-6 most of the time, we are embodying heart-centered living. States of 7 will happen more often the more centered we are in our hearts. When we aim for a state of 6, that’s really the best we can typically do through the use of conscious effort. States 8-10 are mystical experiences and we rely heavily on the grace of the divine to experience these states. We cannot force them; we can only entice and allow them.  

It is my intention that we use this scale to help us center in the heart. None of the numbered states of experience on this scale are wrong. It’s a valuable experience to be at a state of 0, just as it is to be a 10. Peak states are wonderful to dip into, but we could not live a successful and functional life in this society if we were constantly in states 9 or 10. Wherever we find ourselves naturally being, the goal is to accept ourselves and move closer and closer to centering in the heart. When we aim for the grounded, heart-centered experience of 6, this maximizes the most effective use of this scale. 

How to Move from Mind-Centered to Heart-Centered

There are many ways to move from a more mental way of being to a more feeling centered way of being. Touching the heart with your hand is a profound way to center your awareness more deeply in the heart. Saying what you feel always brings you deeper into the heart. Authenticity puts you directly in touch with your heart. After touching the heart, you can also notice the sensations you feel in your heart. Are they tight or loose? Moving or still? Sharp or dull? Heavy or light? Warm or Cool? When you are aware of and embracing the sensations in your heart, you will naturally be more heart-centered. Choose to remain in your heart. Return here any time you lose touch with it.

Let us know how using this scale has been in your life. We welcome feedback to help evolve this tool and all of our work at Heart-Centered Revolutions. 

Heart-Centered Revolutions was created to lead humanity into an age of empathy and unconditional love. You’re invited to participate in the revolution through joining our mailing list for the newsletter  and enrolling in events or courses.

The best way to join this revolution, though, is to practice opening your heart with empathy and truly coming from unconditional love for yourself and everyone around you. For more on how to bring heart-centered principles into your everyday life, we have a collection of books to help guide you. You can also continue your exploration of heart-centered principles by reading the articles on our blog. We offer business consulting and personal and parenting coaching, as well as workshops and courses. 

If these words and ideas truly resonate with you and make your heart and soul sing, visit us online and join the revolution!

Heart-Centered Revolutions is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to making a world that works for everyone. 

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