Top Floor and Ground Floor Perspectives

I’ve noticed that a lot of times, people get triggered by each other because they’re coming from different perspectives, but don’t realize it.

When a person sees circumstances from a top floor perspective, life can be understood metaphorically or conceptually or theoretically.

When a person sees circumstances from the ground floor, they’re in survival mode.

And in these moments on the ground floor, a person’s life depends on being able to navigate what’s going on down there and being available to respond. And for good reason. They very well may be fighting for their survival—whether the battle is within or from being traumatized or persecuted by another. Or perhaps their jobs on the ground floor are about saving other people’s lives.

Both top floor and ground floor perspectives are valid and real. And we all fluctuate between the two to some degree or another.

When we’re having a hard time with circumstances, or working hard to push through them, we’re on the ground floor.

And if and when we’re able to find some distance, and have the opportunity to understand them from a top floor perspective, we can bring that understanding back and get some relief on the ground floor.

But sometimes, a person on the top floor will take their top floor perspective down to the ground floor and interrupt a person who’s in the middle of their ground floor circumstances, and offer them their top floor perspective.

Sometimes it’s with good intentions, but even so, this interruption will invariably offend people, who at the moment, don’t have the luxury of a top floor perspective.

And sometimes, a person will bring their top floor perspective down to the ground floor just to challenge someone on the ground floor, so that the person on the ground floor is left feeling shamed, and with their perspective completely dismissed.

From what I’ve noticed in myself and others, once a top floor perspective makes it to the ground floor for the purpose of being right or better-than, it’s really nothing more than another kind of surviving—using that larger perspective to win a ground floor battle.

So when we do discover a top floor perspective, I think there’s a responsibility to remember that no matter how profound that top floor perspective may be to us, the bigger picture we see up there is for OUR lives, not for anyone else’s. It is to help US on the ground floor of our own lives.

If we want to share our top floor perspective with others, it must come from a space of acknowledging that this top floor perspective is what helped US have an easier time on the ground floor, and by acknowledging that really, we have no idea the context of anyone else’s ground floor experience.

That really, ground floor perspectives are unique to each person and we can only understand them IF the other person is willing to share their experiences with us.

If a person is going to share their top floor perspective with someone on the ground floor, I think it’s most important to bring our vulnerability with us, to share what we’ve learned about our top floor perspective that helped us find peace in our own life.

The main ingredients of a top floor perspective are empathy and compassion, for ourselves.

So to travel to someone else’s ground floor and make the effort to see their perspective the way they’re seeing it, and truly understand what they’re fighting for, is how to hold that top floor perspective on the ground floor for another.

The top floor is always a privilege.

It should never be taken down to the ground floor to challenge someone’s surviving. Because really, challenging someone is never top floor. It’s always just another way of surviving.

Still, there’s no shame in this. It’s just ground floor survival behavior. It's just an opportunity to go back up to the top floor and see yourself down there too, wanting to make a difference but needing to capitalize on it, by somehow having others imagine that you’ve got all the answers.

Maybe your needing credit is a coping response from being dismissed in the past, who knows. Whatever the reason, offer yourself some of that top floor compassion and carry it with you back to the ground floor.

There’s a lot of wisdom on the top floor. But the wisdom isn’t for all those people struggling on the ground floor. It’s for YOU on the ground floor. And you can share what you’ve learned up there, without needing anybody’s agreement or reward.

And if you are having a conflict with someone on the ground floor, you can ask yourself, am I on the top floor here, or am I surviving on the ground floor.

And you can also read the person standing before you. If they’re defending themselves, they’re on the ground floor.

And if you are in a more privileged moment, to be able to access a top floor perspective and then offer some compassion by reflecting the struggle they’re trying to communicate, you might be surprised by what a difference it makes.

“Wow, you are really having a hard time down here. How can I support you?”

From what I’ve noticed, to resolve conflict, both people need to be able to be on the same floor.

Even if only one person is willing or able to make the effort to travel to the top floor to bring down some compassion to the other person’s ground floor perspective, both people can benefit by having created a little pocket of peace in this often toxic world.

-JLK