Principle 7 - The Principle of Witnessing

Every day I talk (or write) to a lot of people about the stuff going on in their lives. The best feedback I have learned to give is to simply "watch what is happening -- watch with curiosity."

I have practiced my own “witness meditation” for some time and found it to be very beneficial in recognizing that I am not my thoughts, and I can emotionally separate myself from them when I find them going in a direction I do not find helpful or resourceful. That happens a lot.

Being the witness, the watcher, the observer, has been a part of meditative practice for centuries, but what exactly this really means is not often explained in a way that makes down to earth practical sense.

Resistance (to what is happening) is at the bottom of this understanding. If you are experiencing discomfort, resistance is at the bottom of it, not, however much you want it to be, whatever is actually happening. The external situation is triggering something in your map system and you are manifesting a pre-conditioned response.

If you are experiencing any emotional or psychological discomfort, it's because somewhere, on some level, there is resistance. Get used to that. To adopt a position of power, one in which you have control over your destiny, you must take full responsibility for whatever response you are creating to whatever is happening, to whatever stimuli you are faced with. If you cannot acknowledge that you are creating your response to everything that happens to you, you are helpless, a victim of your environment. Not a resourceful way to live.

Only when you take responsibility is there a possibility of doing something about your situation or creating something different. The main source, then, of both personal power and peace of mind is taking all responsibility for what happens (notice I didn't say "blame," I said "responsibility").

So, first, you must acknowledge that whatever is YOUR response. It comes from you, from who you are. Life provides the stimulus, you provide the response." Sometimes this response comes from an unconscious part of you, one you have little or no control over (or so it seems), but it nonetheless comes from you (rather from some force outside of you, regardless of the appearance).

Why would you create a negative response? Because a part of you is in resistance to whatever is happening. What, then, is happening, and why would you resist it?

Here's the answer: Some part of you is trying to reorganize, to change, but you associate keeping that part the way it is with your safety in the world and, at least unconsciously, you don't feel safe letting the change happen. That’s the simple and straightforward truth.

Perhaps you have stayed very self-contained since you were a small child, not letting anyone get close to you because, in your family, it wasn't safe to get close. But now something in your life is breaking up the old pattern and creating a new ability to be close, intimate, and connected with others. Consciously you may want this, but since letting go of the old defense mechanism feels unsafe to that "inner child" part, you resist. The more important this old way of being seems essential to your safety to that unconscious part of you, the greater the resistance will be. And the greater the resistance, the greater the discomfort, the greater the suffering.

Whatever the discomfort, whatever the upheaval, whatever the issue, some part of you -- some inner strategy that you associate with safety -- is trying to grow and evolve, and another part of you is not willing to let go. Psychologists call this state being “conflicted”. Ever feel like that? Can I hear an “Amen!”?

What can you do? Some people (those for whom resistance is a major tool in their survival arsenal, as is occasionally the case with me, at least around selective topics) just want to quit trying to change or grow – and give up. Here is where the concept of watching, witnessing, of being the observer, comes into play.

First of all, remember that the discomfort is not necessary. It is only there because of your resistance. It is NOT there because life is unfair -- or because of the situation you are in, or because of a host of other reasons. It is there because you don't feel safe changing and are therefore resisting the change.

Some very wise people (I like to call them Masters, and there are all kinds of them), over many centuries of slogging through their own personal mental, emotional, and spiritual change process, have discovered that if you can dissociate yourself to some degree from what is happening, if you can just step back and watch, the resistance diminishes and allows the change to take place -- without the discomfort.

Eureka! How totally cool is THAT!

All personal change approaches that actually work or are effective involve the creation of a greater awareness of what is happening, based on the fundamental principle that you can only continue behaviors and feelings that are self-destructive if you do them unconsciously -- without awareness. Most of us have very elaborate strategies designed to keep us unaware -- but there is a very simple way to defeat them.

If you step back the next time you are feeling any kind of discomfort and say to yourself "There I am, feeling angry" (or whatever) and then just notice yourself being angry. Any feeling you have will be a sensation in your body, so just notice where in your body you feel it. Notice if it stays the same or changes, if it stays in one place or moves around. Be curious. Pretend you are a scientist who has been searching the Amazon jungle for 20 years for a certain butterfly, and finally...here it is! How carefully and curiously would you watch? Bring that amount of curiosity to bear on whatever is happening for you in that moment. Be the watcher…

Notice that you cannot be a stuck in your suffering very effectively if a part of you is watching. If you are curious and watching, it becomes harder and harder to resist. Curiosity is on the opposite side of the fence from resistance, and without resistance you cannot create suffering. Once you are successfully watching, it becomes very obvious that you could make another choice of how to respond to whatever is happening.

One of the amazing things that happens if you practice this technique, is that this "watcher" becomes more and more prominent, more easy to summon when needed, and soon becomes a constant companion. This is the real beginnings of what mystics call "expanded awareness." From this point, expanded awareness grows even greater, to include an increased sense of connection with the rest of the universe -- but it begins with the simple ability to reserve a small part of you that just watches yourself and whatever is happening with detachment and curiosity.

The real answer to the question of what to do when you are resisting, but the resistance is unconscious, is to just watch. Stop fighting with yourself and just notice what is happening. Distress and discomfort fall away when you.

So if resistance is your middle name, please take very seriously the simple instruction to "watch with curiosity." It takes some practice and some will-power because the habit of resisting is deeply ingrained and very much an automatic response, but after some practice it will become an effortless part of you, your own personal "Prince of Peace" who will help you through any situation you encounter.

In any situation where you are uncomfortable, not matter what it is; you are resisting whatever is going on. To the degree you do that, you suffer. If you can step aside and watch yourself have whatever reaction you are having, you will find that there are other choices of how to respond, at which point you can pick the one you would like to have, rather than just be an automatic response mechanism who suffers every time a certain trigger happens. People who are spoken of as having "higher consciousness" or "expanded awareness" are those who have mastered this principle of witnessing. You can do it, too. Start practicing TODAY.