Step into their shoes: perspective-taking closes family distance

The Short Version

The family arguments that repeat for years usually hold because each person is arguing from their own point of view and waiting for the other to see it. The fastest way out is to go first and step into theirs. Mel Robbins calls this "frame of reference": asking what it must be like to be your mother, your sibling or your in-law, and remembering "this is my parents first time being human too" [1]. Her daughter Sawyer describes how looking through her mother's frame of reference turned years of resentment into compassion [2]. Psychologist Stuart Ablon builds his whole method for solving problems with difficult people on empathy first, before any opinion or solution [3], and Marc Brackett adds tools like distancing and reframing that let you understand someone without getting lost in their feelings or your own [4]. Understanding is not the same as agreeing, but in all four accounts it is what finally changes the conversation.

Table of contents

What They Said

Mel Robbins: frame of reference and the family web

Mel Robbins's starting point is blunt: "Your family is not changing. They are who they are" [1]. What can change is your approach, and because families are connected, one person's change travels. She pictures the family as a spider web glistening with dew, with parents and grandparents at the center; tap one corner, say with an annoying message in the group chat, and everyone feels the web shake [1]. That connection is why family can be harsher than friends: your happiness or sadness "affects everybody because they're worried about you" [1]. Her claim is that "it only takes one person in a family to change absolutely everything," and that person is you [1].

The tool

Robbins credits her friend Lisa Bilyeu, founder of Quest Nutrition and host of Women of Impact, with the tool she calls frame of reference [1]. Her description is simple: "We're so focused on our own experience and our own history that we never take the time to step into someone else's shoes and try to see the situation from their point of view" [1].

For her, the shift started with one sentence: "This is my parents first time being human too" [1]. She walks through the questions it opens up: "What must it feel like to be a parent who loves their kid? And the kid moves far away and you only see him three or four times a year?" [1]. Their friends have family nearby; they don't. "Of course they want to see you. Of course they're going to pressure you. Of course they're disappointed when they're not a priority" [1]. The same applies when you marry into a family: "you have not been there since the beginning," so you don't know what the siblings have lived through [1].

With Sawyer, she applied the tool to her own mother. Her relationship with her mom "shifted immediately" when she asked what it was like for her mother "to be 19 years old in the middle of Kansas City," married to a man starting medical school, with a newborn, "working nights at the IRS," with her family "halfway across the country" [2]. Her conclusion: "most people are not monsters. Most people are doing the best that they can with the resources and the life experience that they have" [2]. She borrowed Stuart Ablon's phrase for it: "People do well when they can" [2]. The alternative, she says, is how most of us operate: "we tend to judge from our point of view. And then we sit there and cross our arms" and say we don't understand why our mother is upset with us [2].

Understanding instead of winning

Robbins applies frame of reference directly to the arguments that divide families: politics, religion, how you live, who you date [1]. She is explicit that she is not talking about cases where someone denies your fundamental rights to live, love or worship as you choose, but about "the petty things that we debate all the time" [1]. Her friend Cindy, a grandmother of four, describes a conservative older son who likes to egg on his liberal younger brother, and wishes "the politics would stay in another room" [1].

Robbins's case for understanding is partly practical. When you go into an argument sure you are right, "you will never actually be able to convince somebody else. In fact, you're just going to make them double down" [1]. "The irony is, it's only when somebody that you're talking to thinks you're listening to them, that they're open to considering a different opinion" [1]. So both people locked in a battle over who's right are making a mistake, "because until somebody feels like you're actually listening and you're seeking to understand, they're not even open to hearing your point of view" [1]. Her formula is "let them have that opinion and let me have mine," and then to decide whether to lean in and understand why someone you care about thinks the opposite [1]. "If you're committed to creating connection with your family, you've got to give up the need to be right for the sake of trying to understand" [1].

She admits the limits. It takes an emotionally mature person to detach and step into the shoes of someone you love who says something hurtful or even bigoted: "This is not easy to do" [1]. How you respond, she says, is "a deeply personal choice," and the real question is "Do you want this person in your life?" [1].

Blended families: seeing the grief

Frame of reference changes how Robbins advises step-parents. The common mistake is assuming everyone can just move on into one big happy family [1]. From the children's point of view, a divorce is a hurricane that has hit the web: "Step children are grieving and so are yours. The life that they had wanted is gone," and "every single family event from weddings to baby showers, it just keeps bringing it up" [1]. Seeing that grief leads to her advice: triple down on making the kids a priority, let them dislike the new partner, make room for mixed feelings, and spend time with them without always including the new person [1]. It is never too late, she says, to sit down with your kids, apologize, ask for a do-over and ask what they need [1].

Her own change

Robbins tells how she used to be loud, opinionated, competitive and insecure, in a family of in-laws where gatherings involved debating, poking and drinking, and often ended in tears or someone storming off [1]. As she worked on calming her nervous system, she opted out of the debates, and noticed that instigating often comes from a twisted desire to be seen and connect [1]. Two years ago a brother-in-law told her, "you've really changed" [1]. Her lesson: if you want your family to see the good in you, learn to see the good in them [1]. She also quotes her book: "People can only meet you as deeply as they've met themselves" [1].

Sawyer Robbins: how stepping into her mother's shoes healed their rift

Sawyer Robbins, Mel's oldest daughter and co-author of The Let Them Theory, supplies the case study [2]. The two loved each other and had fun together, but there was what Mel calls an invisible distance built from years of small hurts [2].

Her side

Sawyer describes growing up while her mother was on the road upwards of 200 days a year, talking mostly about work when she came home [2]. She wanted her mom at her games and felt jealous of the bond between Mel and her sister Kendall, a singer [2]. Outside the house she was always Kendall's sister or Mel Robbins's daughter, and people even asked for her number to reach her mom [2]. "I saw it as all these fans, all these people out there who love my mom are taking my mom away from me," she said [2]. Strangers kept confirming the story she was telling herself, "and so it made the force field like indestructible" [2]. Her most striking admission: she liked being mad at her mother, because "I felt like when I was mad at you, then you actually gave me the time of day" [2].

Mel's side

Mel owned it. For nearly a decade she was consumed by fear over the family's debt after losing their business, and she missed a lot [2]. Because Sawyer, the stoic oldest child, did not outwardly emote, Mel worried about her less, which she calls her own failure as a parent [2]. Meanwhile she experienced teenage Sawyer as someone who wanted only her credit card and car keys, so she backed off [2]. Each had a story that made the other the problem.

Mel explains why such stories are so sticky: "when you get on that storyline, it's a very powerful thing to tell yourself because you feel right," and "anger and resentment, it can become the substitute for the love that you actually crave" [2]. The way out is to "step out of the story where you're the victim and you step into someone else's shoes and try to understand what it might have been like for them just to see a different perspective" [2].

The turn

The change came from working together. Sawyer took a two-week paid research project analyzing comments on Mel's viral "let them video, then spent a year writing the book with her [2]. For the first time, she saw the scale of the business and the stress behind it. That also really helped me basically look through your frame of reference and your lens, she said, and it just allowed me to have so much more compassion for you and so much more understanding and just appreciation" [2]. "Once I saw like the internal side of the business and truly put myself in your shoes, I think it's only then that I was like, I need to show up differently and I want to cheer for her. I don't want to boo her" [2].

It worked in the other direction too. Mel watched Sawyer lead meetings with publishers and TV producers and saw skills that would never have shown up at home: you don't know the people you think you know [2]. The stories we tell about family trap us with old versions of each other, which is why, Mel suggests, many people love their friends more than their family [2]. She also saw how Sawyer's mind works, which helped her understand why her daughter is so hard on herself [2].

The two rewrote their stories. Sawyer's old story was that her mom only cared about work and her siblings; her new one is that her mom has worked incredibly hard her whole life to provide for and love her family [2]. Mel's old story was that Sawyer was always mad and didn't need her; now she admires her daughter's mind and work ethic [2].

Different minds, not bad intentions

Part of what perspective-taking revealed was simply that they think differently. Mel calls herself a "box jumper" who can see point W without a map; Sawyer and her father are box steppers who go A to B to C [2]. "I want Sawyer to be a box jumper. I want her to think like me I want her to be like me and that's why I feel frustrated," Mel said, and most people build invisible distance "because we've never learned how to say let them" [2]. She adds that "two things can be true at once": someone can be disappointed in you and still love you [2].

Say it out loud, and don't wait for them to match you

Two cautions come out of their story. First, Mel warns: "When you step into their shoes, do not expect the other person to do the same thing," because they cannot meet you at that level unless they've done the work [2]. The good news is "You do not need the other person's participation because your behavior and your emotional maturity is so powerful that it influences the dynamic" [2]. Her image is a tug of war: The fastest way to win the tug of war is to actually just drop the rope [2]. Sawyer confirms that when she tugged, her mom dropped the rope, and she realized her mom simply wasn't playing that game anymore [2].

Second, understanding someone doesn't mean going silent. Sawyer often stopped at "let them and said nothing, which left her feeling sad and unheard until she exploded [2]. Mel's fix: when we say let me tell them how their behavior is impacting me. Now I'm taking a step closer and seeking connection instead of creating more distance [2]. Sawyer's script: I am trying to let you do X. And at the same time, I need you to let me do X [2]. And she notes the gift in it: all I want is for people to use a let them theory on me" [2].

Mel's final suggestion is to find a shared project, because working on something together accelerated their healing [2]. She cites National Institutes of Health research that solving a problem together creates a common goal and mutual reliance, and a University of Texas study finding a jump in happiness among families who went through Hurricane Harvey together [2].

Stuart Ablon: empathy is the first step, not a nice extra

Clinical psychologist Stuart Ablon, founder of Think:Kids at Massachusetts General Hospital and a Harvard Medical School professor, developed Collaborative Problem Solving in residential treatment and correctional facilities before it reached homes and workplaces [3]. He brings the structure the others imply.

Why empathy comes first

Ablon says decades of social science point to "only really one reliable predictor of helping somebody to change their behavior": "the degree of helping relationship between helper and help" [3]. That relationship is built on empathy, understanding and non-judgmental acceptance [3]. His core philosophy, "kids do well if they can," applies equally to a spouse, coworker or mother-in-law: people who struggle lack skills, not will [3]. And he adds a humbling note: the people who frustrate you may be saying the same about you, and they will never listen to you unless you start by listening to them [3].

He is precise about what empathy is. Telling someone you can see they are struggling is not it: "Empathy is really trying to understand somebody else's perspective, point of view, concern, what's hard for them" [3]. So "the first ingredient, the empathy ingredient, is not coming in with your perspective, your point of view, your solutions, which is the mistake we make all the time. Instead, it's starting with, let me understand where you're coming from" [3].

Why first? Because "empathy is the most powerful human regulator we have" [3]. "If somebody really empathizes with you, really tries to understand where you're coming from. It is incredibly calming" [3]. Words of real understanding, he says, can change the listener's "blood pressure, their skin conductance, their heart rate. Empathy regulates. And when people are regulated, they're much more able to express what's going on for them" [3]. Robbins shared a line she loves that captures the responsibility: "it's not your child's job to help you understand them" [3].

Perspective-taking is a skill, and a hard one

Ablon lists empathy and perspective-taking among the social thinking skills, calling it "one of the most complicated of all social thinking skills, which is an essence. Can you try to understand where somebody else is coming from?" [3]. The skills overlap: "if you're a very concrete literal thinker, it might be hard for you to step into somebody else's shoes and empathize" [3]. That matters for families, because the relative who can't see your side may be missing a skill rather than refusing to try. He stresses adult brains can change with repetition and practice, and he has never seen anyone who couldn't improve a skill incrementally [3].

Robbins admitted the problem most of us have: "we want to try to understand, but we don't know how to step into someone else's shoes" [3]. So Ablon spent about five years studying recordings of these conversations to see what separates empathy that works from empathy that goes off the rails [3]. "When we do a good job of empathizing with another human, we're doing four things and four things only," he said, and "anytime we do anything other than those four, it tends to go off the rails" [3]. Two gather information: "asking questions, clarifying questions, like any good detective would do," and taking tentative, educated guesses when the person struggles to explain [3]. Two regulate: reflective listening, putting what you heard into your own words rather than parroting it, and reassurance that this isn't a sneaky way of imposing your will [3]. He suggests openings like "I just want to understand," or telling someone you know there must be an important reason for what they're doing [3].

Then your concern, then solve together

Only once the other person's concern is on the table and they are reasonably calm do you share yours, and "you're not sharing your solution to the problem" [3]. Offering your solution at that point is what he calls "tricky plan A" [3]. Robbins recognized herself: when she's worried she jumps straight to problem-solving and ends up "running people over" [3]. Ablon's reply: "people want advice far less often than we think. And even when people seem open to advice, they're typically not going to follow the advice if they haven't been co-authors of the solution" [3]. He recommends "and" instead of "but, and then a third step: brainstorming solutions together that address both sets of concerns [3]. His shorthand, borrowed from Bruce Perry, is Regulate, relate, reason"; if the other person gets upset, go back to empathy [3].

He places this among three plans for any problem: Plan A imposes your will, Plan C strategically drops the issue for now, and Plan B collaborates [3]. Only Plan B builds the helping relationship [3]. Robbins linked it to her own framework: "let them" is choosing Plan C, and "let me is coming back to the work when you're ready [3]. Ablon also advises listing problems specifically, as situations and triggers rather than labels like disrespect" [3].

He shows what happens when you skip the empathy step with a young adult who hasn't launched. Parents issue deadlines for a job and an apartment and get a checked-out yes, which he calls "dissociative compliance": "the kid is basically checked out saying exactly what they think you want to hear so that they can get this over with" because "their concerns aren't on the table" [3]. His series on social media makes the same point: "It's not how to talk to your kids about social media. It's actually how to listen to your kids about social media" [3].

Extending it to your own parents

Ablon applies perspective-taking backward, to breaking generational patterns. Fully breaking them may require forgiving your own parents by remembering that parents do well if they can too [3]. "There's a big difference between excusing and explaining," he says: you can be hurt and still recognize they did their best with the skills they had [3].

Marc Brackett: empathy with distance

Marc Brackett, director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, adds the regulation tools that make perspective-taking sustainable [4].

Three kinds of empathy, and the risk of getting lost

Brackett distinguishes three forms [4]. Cognitive empathy: "I've never had your experience, but intellectually I get that you've suffered." Emotional empathy: a shared feeling, as when he meets other survivors of abuse who have felt shame. And compassionate empathy, which he thinks society needs more of: "we feel compelled to be in relationship with that person and be supportive" [4].

When Huberman, who had been told he was codependent, asked whether strong empathy undermines our ability to help, Brackett disagreed: "you can lose yourself and someone else's shoes. But that's not emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is saying, you know what? I've noticed myself, I'm getting lost in your feelings. I need to pull back a little bit" [4]. His example comes from oncologists at Yale's Smilow Cancer Hospital, whom he encourages to frame their work as "giving them a gift of my presence," pulling back when they notice themselves getting lost [4].

Distancing and reframing

Brackett's favorite regulation tools are ways of stepping back far enough to see clearly [4]. The hot air balloon: look down on your whole life to see what is going right. The picture frame: when his father insulted him at a family dinner, he imagined his father as a TV show to observe with curiosity rather than absorb [4]. A time check: "is this really going to be something that's going to bother you next week?" [4]. And reframing: when a flight was canceled, "I actually reframed it as an opportunity to like have some space and write" [4]. He also walks away from small disputes, like one over $7 almond milk at the grocery store, by asking whether it's worth the relationship [4].

Understanding the cause behind behavior

Brackett warns against reading emotions off behavior: "There's no correlation really between behavior and emotion" [4]. As a child he yelled and acted out, and his parents punished the anger when he was really feeling fear and shame [4]. His father, years later, is a case of perspective-taking in action. His stepmother called saying his father was angry all the time. Over coffee his father revealed he resented his wife spending time helping her struggling children and grandchildren; when Brackett named it as jealousy, his father began to cry, aware of his feelings for the first time, and his wife later said he was a changed man [4]. Brackett noted that "as he got older, his anger did come back," which is where the picture-frame technique came in [4].

The emotion mentor

His turning point came at 12, when his uncle Marvin noticed something was wrong, asked how he was feeling, and said they would get through it together [4]. In surveys across cultures, only about a third of adults had someone like that growing up, and the traits people describe are being non-judgmental, empathic and compassionate, and actively listening; nobody names being smart or a problem solver [4]. When asked why adults resist giving this permission to feel, the barriers were time and skills, with some parents afraid to ask their children how they felt because they couldn't handle the answer [4]. He cautions that endlessly retelling a bad experience can make things worse ("just talking about it is actually not helpful") without moving toward strategies, and that good supporters ask questions rather than tell people what to do [4]. On bullying, he says rules alone fail; people need "Empathy, perspective taking, you know, doing role plays, having people understand what it feels like to be in that situation" [4].

Where They Agree, and Where They Don't

All four put understanding before persuasion. Robbins says people only consider another view when they feel listened to [1]; Ablon says empathy comes before your concern or solution [3]; Brackett's emotion mentors listen without judgment rather than solve [4]; Sawyer's shift came from seeing her mother's world, not from winning an argument [2].

They agree that understanding is not agreeing or excusing. Robbins: "let them have that opinion and let me have mine" [1]. Ablon: "there's a big difference between excusing and explaining" [3]. Brackett's picture frame lets him observe his father's insult without absorbing it [4].

They agree one person can change the dynamic. Robbins says it only takes one person in a family [1] and that you don't need the other person's participation [2]; Ablon's Plan B is something you initiate [3]; Brackett's regulation tools are things you do for yourself [4].

They agree that bad behavior often hides a different story. Robbins: most people are doing their best with what they have [2]. Ablon: people do well if they can, and struggle with skills, not will [3]. Brackett: behavior doesn't reveal emotion, and his father's anger was jealousy [4]. Sawyer's anger was, in her own words, a way to get her mother's attention [2].

They differ in emphasis on the empathizer's limits. Robbins frames perspective-taking as a decision and a mindset [1][2]. Ablon treats it as a skill that some people, like concrete or black-and-white thinkers, find genuinely hard, and gives a four-tool protocol because good intentions are not enough [3]. Brackett stresses the opposite risk: that you can overdo empathy and lose yourself, so you need to pull back [4]. Put together, their views suggest perspective-taking takes intention, skill and boundaries.

They differ on what to do when the other side won't reciprocate. Robbins says don't expect them to, and drop the rope [2]; she also says whether to keep someone who is hurtful or bigoted in your life is a personal choice [1]. Ablon's Plan C allows strategically dropping an issue for now without giving in [3]. Brackett confronted a colleague who humiliated him publicly, telling him it was not cool and could never happen again [4]. So understanding someone does not rule out setting a firm limit.

One tension concerns speaking up. Robbins's "let them can sound like staying quiet, but Sawyer's experience shows that silence built resentment until she exploded [2]. Ablon's second ingredient, sharing your concern [3], and Mel's let me tell them how their behavior is impacting me" [2] resolve it: step into their shoes first, then say how it affects you.

Why It Works

Being understood calms the nervous system. Ablon calls empathy "the most powerful human regulator we have," with effects on blood pressure, skin conductance and heart rate [3]. A calm person can explain what is really going on, which is information you need to solve anything [3]. Brackett's co-regulation idea is similar: we influence each other's emotions through faces and tone in real time [4].

Regulate, relate, reason. Ablon's order reflects how the brain processes information: calm first, connection second, reasoning third [3]. Arguments that start with reasoning skip the first two steps, which is why, as Robbins says, people just double down [1].

People commit to what they help create. Ablon notes people rarely follow advice unless they co-authored the solution [3], and deadlines without empathy produce dissociative compliance [3].

Stories filter everything that follows. Sawyer had decided her mom didn't care, so everything afterward confirmed it, building an "indestructible" force field [2]. Mel explains why such stories persist: they make you feel right, and anger can substitute for the love you crave [2]. Perspective-taking breaks the filter by adding information the story left out, as working together did for both of them [2].

Behavior points to the wrong cause. Brackett's research and experience show behavior doesn't reliably reveal emotion [4], and Ablon's work shows challenging behavior usually reflects missing skills [3]. Punishing the surface behavior, as Brackett's parents did with his anger, misses the fear and shame underneath [4].

Distance makes empathy sustainable. Brackett's distancing and reframing tools, and his instruction to pull back when you are getting lost in someone's feelings, keep empathy from turning into overwhelm [4].

Systems respond to one member's change. Robbins's web image explains why a calmer response from one person sends a calming wave through the whole family [1], and a tug of war needs two players [2].

Where It Applies, and Where It Doesn't

Perspective-taking fits the long-running, everyday conflicts families have: disappointment over holidays, political sparring, sibling comparisons, step-family tension, a parent-child distance built from small hurts [1][2]. It also works across generations, from young adults who haven't launched [3] to aging parents whose anger resurfaces [4].

It is not a demand to tolerate harm. Robbins excludes situations where someone denies your fundamental rights [1], acknowledges there are difficult and narcissistic people and real hurts [1], and treats whether to keep a hurtful person in your life as your own choice [1]. Brackett says "it's a human right to be protected" and models confronting a colleague who humiliated him [4]. Understanding why someone acts as they do does not require staying in harm's way.

It may not be returned. Robbins warns not to expect the other person to step into your shoes [2], and Ablon notes some people lack the skill, at least for now [3].

It can be overdone. Brackett cautions against losing yourself in someone else's feelings and against endlessly rehashing a bad experience without moving to strategies [4].

And some situations need more than a technique. Ablon's work draws on settings like residential treatment [3], and Robbins's divorce advice acknowledges grief that can take a lifetime to process [1]. Where a family rift involves abuse, trauma or serious mental health struggles, a family therapist or other qualified professional is the right guide.

What To Do With It

1. Name the story you've been telling. Write down the one-line version, such as my mom only cares about work or my brother always has to be right, and recognize that it makes you feel right, which is why it sticks [2].

2. Ask what it must be like to be them. Use Robbins's frame-of-reference questions: What is their history? What are they afraid of? Remember it's their first time being human too [1][2].

3. Picture them at a specific moment in their life. As Mel did with her mother at 19 in Kansas City, imagine their circumstances when they formed the habits that bother you [2].

4. Open with understanding, not your position. Start with "let me understand where you're coming from" or "I just want to understand," and use only Ablon's four tools: clarifying questions, tentative guesses, reflective listening and reassurance [3].

5. Share your concern, not your solution. Once they're calm, say what worries you, using "and" instead of "but," then brainstorm together [3].

6. In political fights, drop the goal of winning. Say, in effect, let them have that opinion and let me have mine, and try to learn why someone you love believes it [1].

7. Say how their behavior affects you. Don't stop at silent acceptance; use Sawyer's script: "I am trying to let you do X. And at the same time, I need you to let me do X" [2].

8. Use distance when emotions run high. Try the picture frame (watch them like a TV show), the hot air balloon, or ask whether this will matter next week, and pull back if you notice yourself getting lost in their feelings [4].

9. Find a shared project. Plan a trip, a home project or anything that puts you on the same side, since working together helped the Robbinses see each other anew [2].

10. Extend the same understanding backward and inward. Separate explaining from excusing when you think about your own parents, and give yourself the same grace, since skills can always be built [3].

Sources

1. The Simple Tool That Will Transform Your Family Dynamic · The Mel Robbins Podcast
2. The One Tool to Transform Your Relationships: The Let Them Theory · The Mel Robbins Podcast
3. Harvard Psychologist Shares 6 Words That Will Change Your Family · The Mel Robbins Podcast
4. Dr Marc Brackett How To Increase Your Emotional Intelligence · Huberman Lab