An Exercise for You: What Do You See in the Picture?

A picture is worth a thousand words. There is so much you can learn by just looking at a picture.

Take some time to just look at the picture below. Gaze at it for thirty seconds to a minute, and notice what thoughts, revelations, or images come to mind. Write them down so you remember them, or say them into a recording device. Notice whatever impressions come to you, and don't try to think about them now. Let whatever comes to you do so without any kind of mental review or critique. That will come later. For now, leave your mind open to whatever comes into it, like a flowing river, and just notice what is there.

What do you see or learn from the picture?

Write down your observations from this picture. Write down any thoughts or images that come to you. Nothing is right or wrong. Just write down whatever you think, see, feel, or experience.

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Notice your present mood. How are you feeling right now? Do you think what you saw in the picture has anything to do with your mood? Describe your mood — the way you are feeling in the present moment.

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How do you think what you saw in the picture influenced your present mood? If it didn't have an influence on you, note that too.

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The image used in this exercise is a powerful one. Later, you can use this same exercise with other images that resonate with you.

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Now that you have experienced this exercise with fresh eyes and a clear mind, without expectations, in the next section I will discuss what you might expect to gain from looking at this or other images. I will also talk about what others have gained from looking at this image.

Understanding What You Have Seen

You got a chance to look at the picture and respond from your heart before being influenced by what other people saw in the picture. We are constantly exposed to all sorts of influences, such as the input of our parents, family, and peers; the teachings from our schools and congregations; the latest news presented by the media; and the latest comments from our friends on social media. Therefore, it is important to give ourselves time to meditate and to think for ourselves, isolated from any outside input.

Why Do Different People See Different Things in the Same Image?

When I show the same picture to different people, why do I get different perspectives?

In NLP we say, "The map is not the territory." This means that when one is presented with a map, other image, or reality, one sees what one wants to see, needs to see, or feels like seeing at a specific moment. That's because each individual is unique. Isn't that beautiful? We each have our own unique ways of experiencing the world and interacting with others. The meaning and interpretation that you give to reality make you who you are.

We also see different things because we "edit" (unconsciously) the information we see so we aren't overwhelmed by the huge amount of input we receive daily. Otherwise, we would experience information overload. When we do this editing, we apply our own filters based on our experiences and external influences. In the process, since we can perceive only a limited amount of information per second, we quickly delete, distort, or generalize some of the information.

Deletion occurs when we miss some of the information or leave out part of our experience.

Distortion occurs when we modify or exaggerate the accuracy of something or we assume certain things that are not true based on what we see. For example, we see a rope and think it is a snake.

Generalization occurs when we take a specific experience and think that it is one of a large number of experiences that are all the same. For example, if your little dog can't find his way back home, you generalize that all little dogs can't find their way back home.

We use these various filtering processes when we interpret things from the information we take in. Then, based on this processing, we form our own mental representations, which determine our behaviors, actions, and reactions.

Therefore, what you see and how it makes you feel is personal to you. Your perception is a reflection of who you are now, of your past, and of your wishes.

When you think about something, you will often see whatever you frequently think about. Commonly, you see what is relevant to you and things that relate to your current profession or studies. For example, when I was joking with my hairstylist and asked if she had readily noticed the cat's hair, she really had!

Thinking about something will also lead you to see it more frequently. Suppose you think about buying a specific car; all of a sudden you will see that car everywhere. Or suppose you learn a new word, and soon you hear it everywhere. There have been many times when I learned the meaning of a word in school and then went home and watched a movie or read a book in which I noticed that the word was mentioned multiple times. This increased awareness occurs because when something is on your mind, you are more aware of it around you and notice it more.

Some Examples of Different Ways of Seeing the Same Image

To illustrate these differences in the way people see the same image, a few people at my seminar described their perceptions of the expression in the tiger's eyes in the picture of the cat looking at the mirror. While some didn't even notice the tiger's eyes or expression, the participants who did see the eyes differed greatly in what they perceived. Some described the eyes as kind or eager, whereas others characterized them as sad or happy — two opposite extremes. What is amazing is the way one person can consider an expression to be sad and another can think it is happy.

Different perceptions can occur when people look at you and think you are feeling one thing and other people think you are feeling something else. You might have one reading on a particular person, and someone else might have a different perception. You each might see something different in the image at different times. You need to be careful to avoid coming to conclusions about what a person is thinking or feeling based on reading their facial expressions or words. To know what a person really is thinking or feeling, rather than trying to read the person, just ask him what he thinks about something or how she feels. Ask yourself, "When I looked at the image of the tiger, did I notice the eyes?" There is no right or wrong answer. You see what you see based on the physical qualities of your eyes, your past and current experiences, and your current interests and focus.

When you looked at the image, what did you not see, now that you've learned what others saw in the image? As I found out when I asked this question in my workshop, some people didn't notice the eyes of the tiger, the colors, or other details. Conversely, some people noticed only the eyes. A benefit of doing this exercise in a group is that you can learn from what you don't see as well. What you don't see is also affected by your personal preferences and your internal representation.

Looking Deeper Within

Now that you have looked at the image of the cat and tiger without much conscious thought, you can learn how to look even deeper to learn more about yourself. While you can do some of this deeper looking on your own using this book as a guide, it helps to have a coach or teacher guide you.

What's important is that different people see different things in the picture. While the picture actually shows a cat looking at the mirror and seeing the image of a tiger, some people see a lion, which feels good for them. And that's fine. A reason for this different perception is that the individual wants the image to have certain characteristics he or she associates with a particular image. In this case, the individual may see differently because he or she views the tiger as wily, clever, aggressive, and sneaky, whereas the lion is bold, strong, powerful, and regal — qualities the person wants to acquire rather than those associated with the tiger. So seeing a lion in the mirror rather than a tiger is appropriate for that person because it is what he or she wants to see.

Another difference is that some people relate what they see in the image to a recent experience or to an earlier experience as a child, while some people relate the image to what is happening now. Still other people may reverse who is doing the looking in the mirror, such as one man who imagined that the tiger was looking in the mirror and finding the kitten in itself, which he recognized as his way of looking at the little child within himself. Thus, he took a perspective that was opposite of the usual, in that most people saw the cat looking in the mirror. Since he is a man in his seventies, the image made him feel young and joyful. Apparently, his memories from childhood were revived by this exercise, and he liked to access his childhood self as a source of positive energy.

He reached this realization as a result of us going into more depth about what he saw in the picture. I asked him, "What do you see in this picture?"

He answered with the following statements:

• "I see a tiger seeing the little kitten in itself."

• "It reminds me that although I am old, often when I look at the mirror I see the little child in me."

• "It keeps me young in my spirit when I see the joyful child in me."

When you look at the associations and insights triggered by the image, it is important not to be judgmental or critical about your experience. Whatever you see in the picture is fully acceptable, and you should respect whatever you see for the insights you gain.

How Your Conscious Mind and External Influences Can Affect You

The reason to look deeper into our unconscious minds is that due to external influences, we often experience inner identity conflicts. These external influences suggest we should be one thing, while our true selves tell us we really want to be something else. Is that true for you? Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• When you look at the mirror, do you see your deeper identity?

• Do you see only the surface and your impulsive reaction to things? Or do you also bring back the parts of yourself that are suppressed?

These external influences come from a number of sources. As growing children we experience all kinds of feedback from our surroundings, and we build walls within ourselves and conflicted parts are formed in our unconscious minds; we do this as a defense or survival mechanism. For example, if your parents forbade you from being silly when you were growing up, you had to hide this inner trait and suppress it. Whenever you have to repress a quality you want to express, that creates a gap between who you want to be and what other people expect you to be.

This experience from your childhood can carry over into your adulthood, even though you may not be aware of it. That's what happened to one client who told me that every time she visited her parents, she became very emotionally distant from her father. She feels that she was not her real self around him because she acted the way he expected her to act, not how she really wanted to be.

This conflict between who you are and how you feel you should act affects many people, and that disconnect can cause you deep emotional stress. For instance, how many times have you told yourself, "I will not be hurt by what a certain person tells me," yet you keep letting that person hurt you? How many times have you told yourself, "I will not eat junk food," yet you eat that food, as if something stronger than you had taken over your free will?

We often don't recognize ourselves due to this split between who we really are and who we become to please others. This split first occurs because a baby's mind, which is a tabula rasa (blank slate), receives impressions from others the baby comes in contact with, such as the baby's parents and siblings. At the same time, the baby is born with certain propensities and personal traits that may or may not be congruent with these impressions. This lack of congruence is what leads to this split, which can become wider and wider as a child grows up.

The good news is that you can learn to access the true inner you. One way to do this is through self-talk, which is often very therapeutic. You can personify parts of yourself and talk to them as if you were talking to a person, which can be anyone — a friend, a guide, a teacher, or an angel. Some people even personify animal guides and teachers and gain insights from them. Like many people, you may find it easier to connect with who you really are by personifying parts of yourself.

To bring balance into your life and become happier, you will want to access the authentic you. A powerful way to do this is to have a dialogue with the different parts of yourself that you have suppressed. Just as you can communicate with the parts of yourself that you already recognize, you can personify these suppressed parts that still exist within you but have become dormant. By communicating with them, you are in effect waking them up so they may play a more influential part in your life. You are bringing back to life the real you that is lying hidden within.

Let's say that you notice that you respond in an impulsive way when someone has a different opinion from you. As a result, you may insult or put down that person because he or she doesn't see things as you do. Later, you may feel sorry about what you did. You may realize you were out of line in confronting someone just because of a different point of view.

To change the way you react and, therefore, your behavior in the future, talk to the impulsive part of yourself. Imagine that part of you is a person you are speaking to, and ask him what his higher intention is and what he wants instead. At the same time, you can bring up the part of yourself that is soft, accepting, and tolerant of others' opinion and talk to it, too, so you bring that part of yourself back to your life. By doing this, you empower the part of yourself you want to be.

I used this approach to deal with my own issues growing up as a child in a big family. Since I came from a big family, I wanted to make everybody around me happy, especially my parents. I still like to make everybody happy.

At the same time, I wanted to give legitimacy to my feelings, desires, and wants, and I wanted to overcome my tendency to put these parts of myself down. I wanted to reconnect with the suppressed part of myself and talk to it too. When I did, I gave it more power and vitality and therefore became more naturally aware of my own wants and needs and validated them. As a result, I now consider what I want and not just what makes other people happy.

A good illustration of a similar inner struggle and how these different parts of oneself can be in conflict is the struggle going on inside Riley's head in the movie Inside Out by Pixar. Riley tries to keep herself and her parents happy, but she goes through an inner emotional struggle between emotional states of fear, anger, disgust, sadness, and joy. The experience is similar to the way one might sometimes hear different voices in one's head. When sadness takes over, Riley needs to find a way to access her joyful part, so she engages in a self-balancing act by using an inner dialogue to overcome her automatic brain's interpretations of the situation. You can do the same by calling on the voices that represent different parts of yourself, which is a good way to sometimes manage intense emotions.

Since we see more of something when we think about it, why not choose to think about good and positive things? Then, you will invite more good and positive things into your life. You will see them much more in your surroundings and have more positive experiences.

What you see affects your thoughts too. Choose to see positive and inspiring things, and those will affect your thoughts and actions. You can also decide what you want to focus on at a certain point in your life so things that don't help you reach your goals don't distract you. You can learn to develop this level of focus from observing children at play. When a child is in the middle of a game and you call his/her name, they often don't hear you because they are concentrating so deeply on the game.