You're Not Wrong. You're Just Not Seeing the Whole Bucket.

Ariana Friedlander
Jul 23
6 min read

In college, I worked at a school-to-farm program for high schoolers who needed a different kind of education than what public schools could offer them. I was working with one student in particular who loved photography.

She also tended to see the world as black and white. If she perceived something as wrong, her mindset was fixed. If someone criticized her favorite singer, she would get defensive and fight back. Her fervor was so strong it was contagious, and for a brief moment I wanted to prove her wrong. But something in me changed course before I got sucked into arguing.

Instead, I gave her a roll of film and a camera. I instructed her to shoot a single bucket, hanging off a water spigot on the farm from different angels. Thirty-six shots. Each one from a different perspective. Top looking down. Bottom looking up. Every side. With each click of the shutter, she made micro adjustments so no two pictures were the same.

When the developed roll came back, we sat with the photos together. And the bucket kept changing.

From some angles, the words printed on it disappeared completely, you'd swear it was a plain white bucket. From others, it looked like a different size entirely. Shot from the top, there was no sky. Shot from the bottom, there was no ground. Each photo was true, yet none of them was the whole truth.

This lesson helped my student gain insight into how perspective changes our perceptions of reality. Not only was the evidence iron clad, she approached the assignment with genuine curiosity. Her mind was open and receptive to learning.

Together, we observed that just because the sky wasn’t visible in a picture didn’t discount its existence. She began to understand that just because we cannot see something does not make it untrue. And just because the bucket appeared smaller from one vantage point doesn’t mean it’s tiny.

What Changes When We Feel Safe

When I crafted this lesson for my student, I thought we were just exploring the notion of how perspective matters. But now, I see there was another element to the lesson I was unaware of at the time.

What we're able to see depends not just on where we're standing but what state we are standing in.

When we feel threatened — emotionally, socially, or physically — our visual field actually narrows. Researchers have documented it directly: under stress, peripheral vision drops off, the pupils behave differently, and the brain starts prioritizing whatever's directly in front of us over everything at the edges. It's an old survival setting. Useful if you're tracking a predator. Less useful if you're trying to understand your business partner, your teenager, or your team.

The reverse also seems to be true. When we're calmer, our vision tends to open back up — more panoramic, more able to take in the periphery, not just the center. Some researchers connect this directly to stress levels: the more expansive our visual field, the calmer our nervous system tends to be, and it may run in both directions at once.

So it's not just that a stressed brain sees a smaller slice of reality. It's that a stressed brain that’s dysregulated often can't tell it's only seeing a slice. That's the part that gets us into trouble.

My student was able to grasp the deeper concept in the photography lesson because she felt safe with me. Together, we created an opening for her to accept that two opposing perceptions can both be true. And that felt sense of safety happened because I approached our work together with genuine curiosity. Something in me knew not to fight her or get positional, even though a part of me wanted to.

When I Catch Myself Going Positional

Early in my work as a mediator, I facilitated a session between business partners whose relationship had fractured. My client was adamant: I don't trust her. Her partner was equally adamant: Trust isn't the issue here. That's not what we're investing in fixing here.

The second she confronted me, I felt heat rising up my chest and neck, my throat tightening, something bubbling behind my sternum. And underneath the sensation, a burning thought, You're wrong. I'm the expert. Trust is clearly the issue.

That's what going positional feels like in my body. Certainty. Heat. The need to be right taking up more room than the need to understand.

My mentor, Judith E. Glaser, stopped me before I acted on it. She said something I still carry, They want to feel connected to you, Ariana. Not controlled by you.

Connected, not controlled. That distinction changed the trajectory of how I worked with them. Instead of trying to get the partner agree with my read of the situation, I acknowledged what she'd said she needed and what success looked like from where she stood. We kept working on trust — we just didn't frame it as the center of the work. The heat in my chest settled. My vision, so to speak, widened back out.

And as a result of the microadjustment I made from controlling to connecting, the session I facilitated was a success. The relationship was repaired. A new pathway both parties were vested in following forward was forged. And what was once a tenuous relationship has become a model for collaborative partnerships.

Expand your vision

If you're frustrated that your team isn't seeing the big picture the way you do, or isn't moving the way you'd hoped, it might be worth asking a different question than "why don't they get it?"

What if they're closer to the daily noise, the deadlines, the parts of the work you stopped seeing once you moved to a higher vantage point? And what reads to you as resistance is actually a different, equally real perspective?

And what if, before your team can meet you at the higher vantage point, they need to feel like you see and understand them first?

That's the harder, slower work. Not convincing people to see what you see. It’s connecting not controlling. Showing them that you understand where they're coming from. And in doing so, fostering the kind of safety that enables their vision to expand so they can see beyond what’s right in front of them.

This can be frustrating at times. Especially if you’ve tried a variety pack of tactics to bring people along to create the change you are seeking. And despite your attempts to set expectations or redirect efforts, people keep doing things in ways that are counter productive.

Such experiences can be triggering. And that can lead to myopic vision and thinking. Which is why this shift starts with noticing what getting positional, defensive or controlling feels like in your body. Versus when you’re able to embrace curiosity, openness and a willingness to connect.

Once you can notice and name the pattern physiologically, you can reclaim your agency to change how you’re showing up. Which changes how others engage with you, and enhances what you can accomplish together.

Do you accept the challenge?

The shift from controlling to connecting starts with a sensation — and most of us have been trained to override it, not notice it. If you’re ready to do this work, here’s a few places to start.

Notice what's happening in your body. Heat, tightness, a clenched jaw, a held breath.

Before you can shift out of positional thinking, you have to catch that it's happening. The body usually knows before the mind admits it. And the body communicates via sensations.

Notice the story you're telling yourself. I'm right. They don't get it. I have to fix this. They’re just out to get me. These thoughts feel like facts in the moment. They're usually a perspective built over a lifetime of experiences that impacts how you interpret situations. Just because we have automatic thoughts doesn’t mean we need to believe them or give them power over our behaviors.

Name what state you're in. Are you positional, or curious? Are you controlling, or connecting? You don't have to fix it yet — just naming it honestly starts to loosen its grip.

Find your way back to connection. A few things that help in the moment: