🌊 Cultivating an Inner Observer

Essays on Self-relating, part 1 of 3

one tree rising above the others near my house

I think how we relate to ourselves is wildly important—a crucial factor in our mental health and happiness.

I have quite a lot of thoughts on the topic of self-relating, so I’m starting an essay series to write some of them out (because writing is how I best learn and think about things).

This is the first essay in the series, with this main point: it’s important to cultivate an inner observer.

Contents:
I. What is an inner observer?
     A. Children at play, adults at defense
     B. Example from my own mind
II. Attentive presence, not abandonment
III. How do you cultivate an inner observer?
IV. Other Approaches
V. Mindfulness Replay

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I. What is an inner observer?

By this I mean simply observing yourself—noticing your thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Some other words for self-observing include:

• mindfulness (being aware of what you’re doing); attentiveness; self-consciousness

• metacognition (thinking about your thinking); self-reflection; introspection

Every time you practice noticing your own experience, you create and cultivate an “inner observer.” You add an extra layer—a higher level—of awareness to your experience, above the one that is immersed in whatever is happening.

And from that higher level, you can better access perspective, intelligence, compassion, and calm.

A. Children at play, adults at defense

Think of children immersed in play, without self-consciousness: their awareness is fully joined with the stories of their play. (Their caregivers are serving the role of the higher level of awareness, looking out for them.)

In the same way, when we’re not mindfully observing ourselves, we’re just fully joined with the stories of our day-to-day lives--which, by adulthood, are very much shaped by our egos and defense mechanisms.

B. Example from my own mind

My default, idle-mind mode is that of a Type A people-pleaser, so when my awareness is just fully immersed in the stories of my day-to-day life, it sounds like this:

“I’d better hurry up and do that…oh no, I forgot about that thing…I hope so-and-so won’t be mad at me…but I’m really tired…well, maybe I can rest after I do these next things…I’ll just try to do these four things all at the same time…”

But when I (manage to) practice mindfully observing myself, I add a new layer or level of awareness, on top of the ordinary, default one. From this new level, I watch myself, and it sounds more like this:

“I see that I’m running around doing stuff, even though I’m tired…hmm, I wonder if I’ll stop and rest soon…oh, nope, there I go again with another chore…well, compassion to me in the meantime…”

It’s like an affectionate parent observing a child at play.

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II. Attentive presence, not abandonment

The practice of self-observing is about attentive presence—keeping company with yourself.

Every time you practice it, you add a new layer of awareness to your experience: you create an inner grownup to attentively observe your inner child, who is immersed in the stories of your day.

Thus, the vibe is compassion, not coldness. This is an essential distinction, I think, especially for people who did not get warm emotional attunement from their caregivers as children. For them, advice to “observe yourself” may feel like an echo of the apathetic bystanding they got instead of love, so a better phrase may be “keep company with yourself.”

It’s about accompanying, instead of abandoning, yourself.

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III. How do you cultivate an inner observer?

It can be as simple as just trying to pay attention to your own goings-on, external and internal—and the more you practice, the easier it gets, like a muscle you strengthen.

But there are also lots of creative ways to help yourself cultivate an inner observer, including:

• Mindfulness meditation, in which you sit for a designated period of time and try to just notice your experience (such as by focusing on your breath)

• Journaling

• Making art that reflects on your experiences

• Rewarding yourself each time you notice yourself noticing yourself! My best friend has a system of using a click-counter: she gives herself a click each time she notices a feeling; then she can use the cumulative tally to give herself a designated reward (for example, chocolate).

• Imagining different parts of yourself talking to each other, such as:

  • “Inner parent” and “inner child”

  • “Thinking Brain” and “Feeling Brain,” as described by Mark Manson in his book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

  • “Protectors,” “exiles,” and the core “Self,” from the book No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz (and the corresponding Internal Family Systems therapy model)

  • Or your own creative names unique to your own system

    • My writer friend Josh has given a name to his shadow side: “Jeremy”

    • I used to frequently imagine my “future self” as a wise, compassionate observer looking down on me kindly, ready to offer guidance and perspective. It was a helpful device for accessing my own rationality and long-term thinking.

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IV. Other Approaches

There are myriad other approaches, discussions, and teachings to be found, in various realms of thinking, about the importance of cultivating an inner observer. Here are just a few that come to mind:

• Zen and other forms of Buddhism that teach mindfulness practice

• Stoicism, as in the writings of ancient Greek philosophers such as Marcus Aurelius

• Some more modern philosophers and psychologists such as Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Jung

• Contemporary writers in philosophy and psychology such as Eckhart Tolle, Ram Dass, Brene Brown, Michael Singer, Kristin Neff, and Daniel Siegel

  (I haven’t yet gotten to read all of the above personally, but those names have all come up in my research and exploration of this topic so far, probably along with others I’ve forgotten—feel free to add recommendations to the comments here!)

Who “God” really was

A note here: for the first part of my life, I called my inner observer “God” and had a very rich relationship with “him.” Only later did I come to understand that it had actually just been myself and my imagination (trained to Christianity) all along. It was extremely comforting to realize, after losing my faith, that “God” was not there anymore—but I still was.

And I still am, more and more.

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V. Mindfulness Replay

The more I practice observing myself, the more I access calm and intelligence.

But it’s very much a practice-forget-practice-forget sort of thing, in my experience, as I described in a previous “Serenity Splash” poem called “Mindfulness Replay”:

Like a ball on a string around my wrist,
my mind comes back to me.
It’s been lost down in the dirt and weeds,
where it falls redundantly.

So once again, I pull it back
to be here and attend
this moment with me as my own
witness—ally—friend.

May we keep pulling our minds back again and again to be our own best witness, ally, and friend.

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