“If we observe ourselves truthfully and nonjudgmentally seeing the mechanisms of our personality in action, we can wake up and our lives can be a miraculous unfolding of beauty and joy.”
~ Riso and Hudson
What is the Inner Observer?
The Inner Observer is the neutral, non-judgmental aspect of ourselves that allows us to witness our thoughts, feelings, and sensations. You can manifest it when you are truly present by practicing conscious breathing. Simply breathing deeply into your belly and exhaling through your nose can center yourself and enable you to connect to your Inner Observer.
The Inner Observer can watch you having a thought without having to act on it or having a feeling about it. The Observer can witness whether the thought is a memory, a plan, or an imagined fantasy. It simply watches like the lens of a movie camera which does not judge or interpret the thought.
The Inner Observer has the capability of watching a bodily sensation without having an opinion about it. To illustrate this point, bring your attention to a sensation in your body right now. Begin to notice the qualities of this sensation in detail. Is it?
- Warm
- Cold
- Hot
- Heavy
- Tingly
- Tense
The Inner Observer can also be mindful of emotions and identify them without attaching a commentary or a storyline to the emotion.
Why is it necessary to cultivate an Inner Observer?
The Inner Observer is a neutral witness of patterns of thoughts. The more we develop the Inner Observer, the more we can bring unconscious patterns of thinking, feeling, and sensing into our awareness. If these patterns are not serving us we can then make a decision to redirect our energy and move into new ways of thinking and behaving.