Be the Witness
How observing your thoughts can set you free.
Ever walk into a room to do something and forget what exactly it was you wanted to do?
Yeah, me too. For a moment, you just stand there, pantsless in the kitchen, a little stunned. What the hell was I doing? What was I looking for?
Ever snap back into a conversation, your friend has been talking for who-knows-how-long and you have no idea what about. You might nod your head, you might mutter the occasional “yup” and “uh-huh,” but meanwhile you are thinking about chimichangas or an expected email. Your attention returns to the conversation and all you hear is, “…so I just feel like I was screwed over, but maybe I’m overreacting. What do you think?”
You scramble for a response.
Sometimes this happens when you are driving… all of a sudden you pull into the parking lot and somehow wonder how you got there. As if you were somewhere else entirely during most of the ride. And no, you don’t have a Tesla.
Of course, you weren’t somewhere else, but you might as well have been.
Your body was in the driver’s seat, but your mind was somewhere else entirely. You saw a Texas license plate and thought about your cousin, who moved there. You thought about how she owes you money and how you got into a fight during the last family party. You thought about that family party coming up, and how you hope you don’t see her. You thought about how she never liked you and you shouldn’t have to make an effort to be so nice, like your mother tells you…
By this time, you’ve driven two miles.
We have this incessant stream of thought that continuously robs our attention throughout the day (and night). We are compulsive thinkers… constantly absorbed in our thoughts. The voice in our head that just won’t be quiet. The tireless commentator, going on about absolutely everything:
Oh, a dog! I wonder what kind of dog that is… Looks like a Golden Retriever, but it might be a Yellow Lab. Sometimes I get them confused. Maybe I should ask. No, she looks like she doesn’t want to be bothered. Isn’t it funny how people often say hi to the dogs they see, but not their owners. What if we all greeted each other like we greet dogs? That might be weird. Hi, Susan, let me rub your head aggressively while you lick my face. This underwear is riding up my ass. I need to remember not to wear these underwear on hikes. I wonder what Steve is doing, haven’t talked to him in a while…IS THAT A SNAKE!? Oh, no, just a stick. Thank goodness.
This is what goes on. All day.
In The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer calls this the Inner Roommate.
He states, “Basically, you’re not alone in there. There are two distinct aspects of your inner being. The first is you, the awareness, the witness, the center of your willful intentions; and the other is that which you watch. The problem is, the part you watch never shuts up. If you could get rid of that part, even for a moment, the peace and serenity would be the nicest vacation you’ve ever had.”
That voice in your head.
You might be thinking: Why am I reading this… I have better things to do with my time. This isn’t even making sense. What voice is he talking about?
Well. That’s the voice I’m talking about.
You get the idea. Of course you get the idea… you live it everyday, just like I do.
We are compulsive thinkers. Our thoughts cloud our view of reality, forming a smoke screen of labels, words, judgments, beliefs, and ideas.
These are the perceptions that shape our view of the world.
If these perceptions are not often challenged (as they should be), they become rigid, forming barriers between us and the world around us. These barriers become the walls in which we live, isolated and absorbed in our own pile of delusion.
Prisoners of our own stories.
I tend to agree with Thoreau, who writes, “I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things.”
The intellect, or the mind, obscures reality in a way. The objectivity of the world gets replaced with subjectivity.
The Truth gets distorted by stories about the Truth.
When we are born, we see the world as bare as our asses.
Imagine this for a moment…
Imagine seeing a tree without having a name for it, or knowing what kind of tree it was, or knowing it was a plant, or knowing why the leaves were turning red, or knowing that deforestation was destroying the ecosystems in many areas of the planet?
Exactly.
The older we get the thicker the lenses become. The lenses through which we see the world.
When Thoreau mentions “the secret of things”, I can’t help but think he means the interconnectedness of all things. The essence of all things, which exists beyond the comprehension of our minds.
Disturbances inside of us, those unpleasant thoughts and emotions, are often prompted through external events.
But we must remember: it is not the events themselves that cause the disturbance, but our interpretations of them.
It’s not what happens. It’s our thoughts about what happens.
Sometimes, it doesn’t even take an event. We might just be sitting on the couch, eating that chimichanga (sorry I’m hungry), when BOOM, we think about something unpleasant, whether it be in the past or future (because if we were in the present we would just be enjoying the food).
Sometimes our minds dig up painful memories. Sometimes they scan the future for threatening events to worry about.
Whatever it may be, we typically get sucked up in this vortex of toxicity, feeding into these disturbing thoughts, thereby giving them energy and creating more disturbing thoughts.
Almost instantly these thoughts lead to emotions as the body responds to the mind, resulting in physical symptoms. This might be shortness of breath, a gnawing feeling in your gut, a burning feeling in your chest. Before you know it, we have gone from a state of calm relaxation to a state of inner chaos.
Many psychotherapeutic modalities would intervene by attempting to change or “restructure” those thoughts.
In my experience, this is fighting an uphill battle.
I’m not denying it works. In fact, I know it can work. I’ve facilitated those interventions with hundreds of people, myself included. But the efficacy always seems to be temporary, lasting only until the next time our mind acts up.
I propose that we can go a layer deeper. You’ll come to realize, I like to go as deep as possible.
Because depth is where we begin to influence causality.
See, the problem is not in the thoughts we are having, but in the way we experience them. It’s about our relationship with our thoughts.
The problem is not thought itself, but our unawareness of thinking.
Most of the time we are totally wrapped up in our thoughts. Entangled in our cognitive processes.
We are not in control of our minds; our minds are in control of us.
Our brains are the most powerful instruments we have, but we have forgotten how to optimally use them (if we ever knew how). Instead, our brains use us.
Our internal state directly influences every area of our lives. I think it makes sense to learn how to understand it, navigate it, and shape it.
After all, our minds construct our reality.
So, it’s time we disentangle ourselves from the chaos that swarms around our mind and find the still center, an inner calm. Presence. Being. Awareness.
In doing so, we can awaken from the dream of thought, a dream that we’ve dreamed for so long that we’ve forgotten it’s a dream at all.
To do this, we must first disconnect from our thoughts. Now, this does not mean that we should deny or resist them. That tends to make it worse. Ignoring our thoughts often makes them grow louder- these parts of us begging to be heard.
The disconnection I’m referring to is the realization that you are not your thoughts.
Let that sink in.
You are not your thoughts, because your thoughts can be observed.
You cannot be that which you are observing, for observation implies the existence of a subject and an object.
So who are you?
You are the awareness.
The awareness of your thoughts. The awareness of your emotions, The awareness of whatever you are aware of.
You are the awareness of awareness itself.
You need nothing more than your direct experience to Know this. Again, the mere fact that you can be aware you are thinking is enough to prove this Truth.
When we are lost in thought, daydreaming or perseverating or remembering or anticipating, we often are not aware we are doing it. We are fully immersed in the thought stream. But swim to the shore and you can watch those thoughts go by, without drowning in them.
Once you observe your thoughts, you create distance by separating yourself from them. You experience spaciousness within.
You can observe your thoughts by listening to the voice in your head, that commentator we talked about earlier.
Listen to that voice and recognize that you are the one hearing it. Let it speak all it wants. Let it talk about how your father screwed you up. Let it complain about your partner. Let it ramble on about the meeting you have next week.
Try to shut it up, and it will only get louder.
Try to resist, and it will persist.
So just listen gently. Listen without judging. Listen without arguing with it, without getting tangled up in what it has to say.
Listen unconditionally.
Just observe.
What do you notice?
Thoughts consist of bits of language and images. Little motion pictures. That is all.
Just watch them, like you would the clouds in the sky.
Listen to them like you would the radio in another room.
Be the witness of your mind’s content.
Eckhart Tolle calls this “watching the thinker.”
If you watch closely, without getting too involved, you will see that these thoughts are fleeting. They drift in and out of your field of consciousness. Sometimes they might come back, only to drift away again, making room for another thought to float on by.
Thoughts are not facts. They are just objects of consciousness.
The same thing goes for emotions. To observe them, feel them in the body. Shed your awareness on that feeling.
Watch the emotional rollercoaster, rather than riding it.
Feel the energy underneath the content of your mind, throughout your body.
Once you observe this and experience the transient nature of thoughts and emotions, you will be compelled to not take them so seriously.
You’ll see them for what they are: Not you, just things you are experiencing.
When we identify with the content of our mind, we lose awareness of who we really are. This results in a state of unconsciousness. Unfortunately, it is a state that many of us spend a majority of our lives in.
Wherever the mind goes, we go. We are unstable. We are suffering. We are chaotic. We live unconsciously, in blind obedience to the thoughts and emotions arising within us.
By separating yourself from the stories of your mind – by observing them – you cut off their main energy source: You.
When you no longer fuel those cognitive processes, they disperse. They fade. The volume is turned down.
You reclaim awareness. You recognize yourself as consciousness. You reconnect with what’s underneath the mental fabrications.
In doing so, you create a subject-object relationship with your thoughts that was not there before.
You become aware of your thoughts, rather than being your thoughts.
And as you create that space, you experience stillness.
Become aware of what’s going on within you. Observe disturbances, which are nothing but thoughts, before they consume you.
If they do consume you – if you find yourself caught in a spell of anger, jealousy, hatred, or fear – simply witness that experience.
Don’t judge it.
Don’t question it.
Don’t analyze it.
Just watch it.
There’s no need to react. Just observe.
Through practicing these methods, you will gradually increase your awareness and cultivate inner peace.
You will foster a state of equanimity – freedom from disturbance.
You will grow in spiritual mastery.
This is to say, you will no longer feel identical to your thoughts.
You’ll begin to uncover the truth of who you are.
It’s not that you won’t think anymore. Thinking, after all, is not the problem. In fact, it can be quite useful. Problems only arise in your relationship to thought.
Your mind will wander where it wants, but how you respond to the mind’s wanderings is up to you.
Observe your thoughts.
Be the witness.
Be still.
There you will find freedom.