Accessing our Observing Self when under pressure

The context for these videos

Each post in this short series is from Alec’s weekly livestream to the Facebook group Finding the Balance with Anxiety Freedom Cards. Each week I focus upon one of our innate resources or needs as depicted in the Anxiety Freedom Cards. And the reason I’m doing this is to show you how you too can live a life free from anxiety and stress.

Please let me know what you think by scrolling to the bottom and commenting below!

Below is a direct transcript from the video shown above.

Well, hello and good afternoon. It’s Alec here from in8 back here for another Tuesday’s Two o’clock Topic on this Tuesday, the 16th of February, of March! Oh dear. It gets better, honestly, stick with me. How are you doing today? Hope you’re well. Today is the second week in the conversation or the monologue that I’m doing on the topic of the Observing Self, one of our innate resources.

And this is the card that we use in the Anxiety Freedom Cards to represent it. If you missed last week’s talk, it is in this Facebook group. If you scroll down, you’ll find I did one last Tuesday. And the format for these talks is always the same in that we spend two weeks on each card and that gives an opportunity for questions to be raised. And for me to reflect more on what I would like to share with you. And so this is the second week on the observing self.

Last week, I mentioned the book by, Arthur Deikman, The Observing Self – mysticism and psychotherapy, which I’ve personally found very interesting, and I’m trying to hold it so the camera can see if it’s surprisingly difficult. If you’re interested in the subject, I recommend you check out that book. It was on the reading list when I trained to become a psychotherapist, some 16 and 17 years ago now.

So yes, I’m not going to repeat what I said last time, but I just want to state the context for this, which is that I sincerely believe, and I have experience to back it up, that when as human beings, when we’re using all of our internal resources, all of our innate skills, the thing, the guidance system that we’re born with, when we know what that is, and when we’re utilising each part of it and putting them, applying them to try and get our needs met in balance.

And these are our innate needs. Things like our need for attention, for security, for meaning and purpose, for achievement, for control, for privacy, food and drink when we’re actually getting our needs met in balance, then we’re operating at an optimum level. And that’s my ambition is to help you not only do this for yourself, but to share this way of looking at the world with your clients so that they can live an optimal life relatively free from anxiety and stress.

And I use the word relatively free because we can’t expect to live life without any anxiety or any stress. Life wouldn’t really be worth living if we didn’t have challenges to overcome. But it’s when those stresses and anxieties build up to a level, which is now impeding our ability to thrive, that we need to take action. And this approach I believe will help you do that.

So the observing self is one of the more, it’s not complicated, but it just, it’s not intuitive for most people. It’s sometimes it’s a completely new idea. So I’m going to be sharing some aspects of this, just going to check the comments.

And I’ve got a good afternoon from sunny blue skies, March day. Hope you’re well, and I know that’s from CG. Yes I’m well, thanks CG. Thank you for commenting. Anyone else who’s watching this. Please drop a comment below just to let me know that you’re with us and whether you’re watching this live or on replay, please drop a comment, ask any questions that you have about the observing self or any observations that you want to share and a different take on, on the subject, perhaps. I’d love to engage in a conversation about this topic because it’s one of the things that really interests me. And I think it can be a really valuable discussion for anyone who works as a counsellor, therapist or coach with clients, either face-to-face or on zoom or in whatever format. And also, I mean, we’ve run workshops using these ideas as well. And I encourage you to think about that. So thank you for the comment, CG. Anyone else who’s watching, please comment and interact, take part, share your ideas, your thoughts, or your questions. And I will do my best to answer them.

Last week, I talked about the various activities, or I mentioned the list of various activities that many people use to access their observing self, whether it’s going for a walk, going for a swim meditating, doing mind, practicing mindfulness, or there’s a whole range of things that people do to quiet themselves and to calm their mind and to access their observing self. But reflecting on what I wanted to share with you this week, I thought it’s all very well to access our observing self when we have the time and the inclination to do so.

But the real challenge I think, is to be able to access our observing self when we’re under pressure, you know, in the heat of the moment. Perhaps when we’re angered or frustrated or in some way, stressed by whatever’s happening to us at the time. If we can access our observing self quickly like that (clicks fingers), then we have a real advantage in terms of just being able to cope with difficult situations. And what’s that saying that somebody says, if you can keep your head when all around a losing it, then you will be a master of the situation or something like that. And you get the idea. It’s hard sometimes not to react. And this is all about being able to respond intelligently.

So this is one of the reasons, not the only one, but it’s one of the reasons why, and I advocate learning 7-11 breathing. You know, this is a technique looking for my 7-11 breathing cards. Here they are. A technique that I often talk about 7-11 breathing. It’s a very useful way of controlling breath. It allows us to access our Observing Self. Here is some of the artwork that my lovely daughter created for it.

And it’s basically a very simple technique where you breathe. You count to seven on the in breath and you count to eleven on the out-breath. And if you do this for a period of time, a few minutes, more than just two minutes, you know, we’re talking 10 to 15 minutes, maybe it’s helpful if you do it for any period of time, but the real benefits come when you do it for longer. And when you do it for 10 to 15 minutes, you get into a state where you’re really very calm, very chilled out. If you’re tired, most people tend to fall asleep at this point, if they’re doing it properly, but it’s a great way of getting access to your observing self, being able to stand back and see the bigger picture.

And you can’t really access your observing self unless you are relatively calm. These are little cards that we give to our clients to help them remember the steps, because if somebody is anxious enough to need to remember the steps for 7-11 breathing, they’re also unlikely to remember the steps when you explain it. And that’s why we have a little giveaway that we give to people so that they can take the other way with them and remind themselves.

The thing about 7-11 breathing that’s really important to note though, is that although it’s a great way to access our observing self, you can’t use it only when you’re under pressure. You have to learn to use it by practicing, probably trying and failing a few times before you’re in that situation where you need to call on it. And for this reason, I really strongly advocate learning it as in mastering a new discipline. And that means practicing it every day for at least a week, maybe a couple of weeks before you really get it, before your body has it in it’s muscle memory, as it were. So worth learning, worth learning.

But the point is that once you’ve learnt the feeling that goes with it, then you’re in a position to be able to use it. And let’s imagine that you’re with somebody, and maybe there’s a discussion that gets a bit heated and maybe some angry words are spoken. And one of the ways of being able to tap into this observing self, the feeling that goes with it is to, is to take the time to speak on the out-breath and you might say something like, Ooh, Ooh, (my out breath) Let me just think about that a moment. And then very quickly, if you’ve learned the discipline of 7-11 breathing you, you can drop into that state where you can stand back and actually figure out what you really want to say rather than simply reacting.

And this is why I use the word responding rather than reacting, because responsibility is nothing more than our ability to respond, but we can’t respond when we react. And when we react, we’re nearly always emotional. And I sometimes suggest that the observing self is almost the antidote to the emotional state. So we need both, but sometimes it pays to be angry when we need to assert our boundaries when we need to protect ourselves, when we need to defend ourselves maybe. And sometimes it’s more appropriate to access our observing self so that we can act in a more thoughtful, considered manner. So this is the difficult difference between reacting and responding.

When you’re able to access your observing self at will, and quickly, you are much more likely to have more options because you have this ability to respond, rather than this automatic knee-jerk reaction to events. I’ve got a story that I’m going to share with you, but I’ll do it at the end of my description, about, that’s relevant to that.

I also promised rather ambitiously in the comment in the post, in the Facebook post, to share with you a technique that I have been aware of for many years, that has rather, I make the rather bold claim that it will solve any problem. I don’t know if that’s really true, but it certainly helped me solve difficult problems in the past. And it’s a three step process that involves accessing our observing self. So I wanted to just share that with you. I don’t think I mentioned this last week. I’m sorry if I am repeating myself, I’m pretty sure I didn’t mention it, but it might. It is in a video somewhere within the in8 membership, but it’s worth learning as well.

So this three step process for solving any problem in the world. Well, the first thing you have to be able to do is define exactly what the problem is. And that’s sometimes the hardest part is to actually ask yourself clearly, what is my question? What is it that I want to find out? So I’m assuming that that part has already been completed, but actually that in itself is sometimes a challenge. It’s almost as if when you have a problem that you can state fairly clearly in that way, then I’m going to use a metaphor. The problem is like a pebble. You know, you pick up a pebble and you drop it in the water. The solution to your problem are the ripples that spread out when the stone, when the pebble hits the water’s surface. But when you’re struggling to solve a problem, it’s almost like you’re on a boat on the ocean. There are waves tossing the boat around. There’s a splashing, there’s turbulence. Maybe there’s a storm coming, but when you’re on a boat at sea and you drop a pebble in, into the water, you don’t really see the ripples because they’re just masked. There’s too much else, other stuff going on. And I use this metaphor because it sort of describes what’s happening when we’re emotionally aroused. When we’re emotionally aroused, there are waves, we’re being buffeted. We, we’re not really able to do anything other than just to try and stay afloat.

So the way that this problem solving technique works is that it involves calming your emotions, but it’s a three-step process. And the first step is you have to do your homework. You have to actually apply yourself and use whatever other resources you might be able to tap into to try and solve the problem in every way you can think. So you have to think about it rationally. You have to make lists. You have to make, do an analysis. You have to do some research. Depending on what the problem is you’re trying to solve. But if you’ve not asked, if you’ve not done any thinking about it, that’s the first step. You have to think about it. And many problems will be solvable at that stage. You have to imagine what the solution will look like. You have to use your creative mind to be able to create a vision of the problem being solved. Because if you have no vision for what it’s going to be like, or feel like, or look like, or sound like, or any of that at the end of the process, then you’re unlikely to be able to reach it. Having the vision is a bit like programming your sat nav. You know, you need to tell it where you’re going, and you’ve got to call on your memory. When have you solved problems like this, you’ve got to do the homework. You’ve got to, you’ve got to go through these resources and actually use them. And I’m sharing this with you, because this is about difficult problems. When most of these techniques haven’t worked, but there’s no substitute for doing the process first. You’ve got to think about what’s this problem like. Look, look at the pattern match. Is there a narrative here? Is there a story? Is there a, have I got unconscious limiting beliefs? You know, what’s going on here in terms of associations to the problem. Am I stuck because of some other reason? And you’ve got to use your rapport skill. Have you talked to a friend? phone, a friend, if you’ve not done this, then you haven’t done your homework yet. So you have to go to all of these things first. Maybe you’ve even got to sleep on it, but we’ll come back to that. The point is that if, if you have a very difficult problem, or if it’s an easy problem, you may well have solved it by the time you’ve gone through that process because our minds are very capable.

But if you haven’t solved it, even after applying those various resources, then my suggestion is that you then go and do something else. You go for a walk, you do the washing up, you get on with tidying up the house. You do whatever chores or tasks need doing where you’re not working on the problem and go out and take a bath, go and busy yourself in some other activity. This is step two. So step one is you apply yourself and you think hard, you use your resources. Step two is you take your mind away from it and you go and do something else. And nine times out of ten, a solution will pop into your mind when you’re in step two. So you’ve done the homework. Most problems are solved in step one, but the one, difficult ones are not. So then you go and do something relatively unrelated to the problem you’re trying to solve. And then if it’s a difficult problem, the answer may come then.

But if it’s very tricky to solve, you may still not have the answer after you’ve done both step one and step two. And this is where the observing self comes in. And step three really is to relax and calm yourself so deeply that you no longer even really care about solving the problem. Now, I sound, I know this sounds like a contradiction. It isn’t, it’s almost like, you know the solution is coming. You’re not worried about it anymore. And so you use 7-11 breathing or mindfulness or meditation or yoga or whatever works for you to get yourself into a really tranquil state. And when you’re in a very tranquil state, you are able to access your observing self. And it’s a little bit like the boat that was at sea on these waves that are washing it around and splashing it, moving it. You’re calming the waves until the sea is more like the surface of a mill pond. It’s completely flat. It’s completely calm. It’s mirror like. Now what happens when you drop a pebble into the water when it’s like that? Well, the ripples spread out across the entire surface of the pond and you can see the ripples. And if you remember them, the analogy that the ripples are, the answer.

And in my experience, when I’ve had very difficult problems to solve in my life, and I’ve used this three step process, it’s never failed to provide an answer. Now, because you have to let go completely of your desire because desire is an emotion. You know, if you’re still really hoping that you can solve the problem, you’re still emotional. That means there’s still waves around you and not, you haven’t quite achieved the flat mill pond. In order to achieve the flat mill pond you absolutely have to make sure that you’re observing self is far stronger than any emotional desire that’s still going on. And when you can actually let go of the problem, confident in the knowledge that the answer is about to arrive, then it does. And I don’t know how it works. It seems like magic to me. Some people would say you’re tapping into a universal intelligence or something like that. It only works if you do the all three steps in sequence. You’ve got to do step one before step two. You’ve got to do step two before step three. So it’s only really for difficult problems, but I, I use that a lot and in the past, and I found it incredibly powerful technique to use. And the third step is all about accessing your observing self, pure awareness.

Just going to check the comments. I’ve got a comment here: “I notice I react a lot and feel pressured in the moment. So have learned to say, if you don’t mind, I’ll take time to think that over it and get back to you. I can then ground myself and respond rather than react.” Thank you. I’m going to put that on the screen cause I think that’s a really, really valuable observation. I notice I react a lot and feel pressured in the moment. So I have learned to say, if you don’t mind, I’ll take time to think that over and I’ll get back to you. Then I can ground myself and respond rather than react. Thank you for sharing that, whoever that was, and someone else has said: “I like stormy waters then calm, because that’s what it feels like I’m doing to my brainwaves, rough to smooth and calm. So access to my thinking creative parts of the brain.” Yes, that’s absolutely right. I think that when we are not calm, when our emotions are running strongly. (I’ll just hide the message), then we don’t really have access to any of these. We don’t have access to being able to think rationally. We don’t have access to being creative. We don’t really have access to memory. We can forget even the most obvious things. When I’m stressed, I can even forget why I’m leaving the house, if I can’t find my keys or whatever. And we can’t access most of our resources, we’re not really good to talk to you when we’re really struggling in that way. And the answer to all of these things is to tap into our observing self because it’s an innate resource. We’re born with it. And the more that we access it and the more we practice accessing it, the easier it gets.

So that’s my simple three-step process for solving any problem in the world. What do you think about that? Do let me know in the comments. Have you used it? Have you used it yourself? Do you think it would work or are you skeptical about it? I used it when I was even doing software work, writing code. It was a completely different life, 20 years ago or whatever, and it worked for that as well, which is kind of mind blowing to me.

So let’s run through the worksheet. I’m going to put the work. I promised that we’ll share the worksheet. There is a link under this video. Now, because of what happened last time I did a worksheet thing. Somebody pointed out that there are two posts in the Facebook group. One is the announcement of this video and the next and the separate post is the video itself. If you can’t see it under this video, it might be under the announcement that I made earlier this morning. And I think it may be CG still. I, I meant I like your stormy waters analogy. Not that I like stormy waters. No, although they can be fun every now and then when you get to choose. So yes, the word, the worksheet is in a comment that I placed under my own post in this Facebook group, but it might not be the post that you’re watching right now. It might be earlier. Anyway, this is what the worksheet looks like. And essentially there’s, first of all, there’s some description of the observing self concept, which I won’t go through now, because I’ve talked about that in the previous one. And then as it, all of these worksheets, there’s an opportunity for you to write down some thoughts.

And the questions that I’ve suggested might help are: Describe a time or place when you really, when you feel really yourself. Now CG used the word grounded. And I think that’s an excellent word to use here. When have you felt grounded? Where were you, when were you? What’s… try and get in touch with the, as much of the sensual, the sensory aspect of that as you can, because there’s a clue in that experience to what helps you get connected with your observing self.

So describe a time or place where you feel really yourself and then the, the rating is: How good at you were seeing how, sorry. How good are you at seeing the bigger picture? So are you someone who regularly gets into a reactive situation, or are you someone who’s got a pretty calm, level head and can stand back and see the bigger picture? Give yourself a score out of that from zero, which is not very good, to 10, which is really good. And I would maybe suggest that there might even be… Sometimes I wonder if I, I have too much access to my observing self because it stops me being involved in the drama, if you like. I don’t, I don’t like drama. I don’t even like watching drama, which is a sort of a bit of a handicap in a way. But that’s because I’ve always felt there’s a strong observer in me. And, and I, I like to watch, I like to observe. Anyway, we’ll go through the worksheet. What was the next bit I was going to share?

So then we have, and this is using CG’s word: Describe some activity that you could do or that you have done in the past that helps you to feel grounded. So this could be anything at all, whether it’s, you know, Tai Chi or Chi gung, or sitting in the garden and watching the, listening to the bird song, if you’re lucky enough to have a garden with birds, which I am. I’m very grateful for that. And then the final question is: What could you do over the next few days to repeat that feeling? So how can you tap into that feeling, feeling of being grounded, of being calm, of being really yourself? So those are the questions on the worksheet. You’re most welcome to download the worksheet, to share it, to use it in your work, if you find it useful or to just use it for yourself personally, if that’s a benefit.

So I promised that I would share a story about observing self. Actually. No I’m, I’m out of order. I’m sorry. I’m not going to do that next. First of all, I wanted to talk about, there’s always an aspect of, of this where I… Because I’ve been thinking about these ideas for a long time now. I can sometimes go off into an esoteric angle and more, a less practical way of looking at things. What I wouldn’t say it’s less practical, but it isn’t relevant to everyday therapy. Let’s put it that way. So, and this is related to something that I call the third option. And it’s really, it’s a conceptual idea. It’s that in order to be able to react, respond to something which is highly polarized, which has black and white, you know, it is either or, we have to be able to take the third option and stand back to evaluate it.

So I’ve used the analogy a few weeks back when we were talking about our innate need for attention, to give and receive attention that sometimes kids will do anything to get your attention. Now it’s nice to get their attention when they’re well behaved and happy and, and playing. That’s one of the benefits of being a grandad. But sometimes if a kid isn’t getting attention, they’ll kick off and they’ll, I can remember my daughter when she was tiny having a complete meltdown in the pink aisle of Toys R Us, cause she wanted every pink dolly toy that there was. And she wasn’t, we weren’t, it wasn’t a birthday or Christmas, or we didn’t just buy toys for the heck of it. So she had a meltdown and she stomped and kicked her feet and lay down in the aisle. She’s not like that now, I have to say. But we tend to think of attention as being good or bad. We very rarely ask the question how much attention? This is the third option. In order to be able to ask that we have to access our observing self.

I came across this just this week and in, an unusual format, somebody on a, in the counsellors’ staff room Facebook group got a little bit upset. They had a bit of a rant about the current census survey that’s going around. There’s the census this year measuring how many people are in the country and everything they can measure about us. And one of the questions was to state your sex, male or female. And the rant was that, Oh my goodness. It was a bit stronger than that, but it was, Oh my goodness. It is 2021. Haven’t we evolved beyond the simplistic idea that there’s only two sexes, male and female. Now, really, she was talking about gender identity rather than sex. And I think that is an important distinction to make. But even with the gender identity thing, you know, are you male or female, or are you gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual. There’s so many, non binary. There are so many classifications that people adopt these days that it isn’t any, any longer appropriate to ask. Are you male or female?

And it’s, it’s surprised me this rant a little bit because I’ve developed surveys in the past, which I’ve put out to my email list and on the advice of a marketing guru by the name of Ryan Lavesque, he always says, if you’re going to ask people to fill in any kind of survey, start with no brainer questions, start with questions that people can answer easily without having to think. Because if you ask people to do difficult things early on in a survey, they’re much more likely to abandon it and just, Oh, I can’t, I can’t be bothered to think that one through, but if you can get them engaged with a simple question early on, then that increases the chances that they will actually ask the question, answer the questions that you want to ask.

And so I did a deep dive survey on the subject of anxiety maybe last year, I think it was. And one of the questions that he suggests is that we ask is sex: male or female? This is supposed to be a no-brainer question, but obviously it isn’t anymore. People get upset being asked that question because their life is, there is more subtlety to it. There’s more richness. It’s not simply polarised male / female. Now in order to be able to look at that objectively, we have to stand back and access our observing self. This is the third option, if you like. And actually when we look at it in detail, we can see that that edge between male, male and female is not as cut and dried as we might at first think. That there are people born with different sexual organs or with confused. I don’t use the word confused, but with, with physiology that doesn’t conform to our simplistic ideas of what sex somebody is.

Whenever you look at the edge between two polarised things, you will see richness, you will see more variation. Now we lived in a world when I was a kid where those subtleties were less important. They didn’t matter so much. In 2021 they do. And so I think this whole idea of being able to access the third option means to be able to stand back and look at the bigger picture. And you always have to do that in order to examine the edge between any polarised issue, whether it’s Trump was good or Trump was bad, you know, actually look hard at what he brought out that was good and what he brought out that was bad. And you’ll see that it’s never quite as cut and dried, as black and white.

And I’m just going back to the comments because there’s a couple of come in here. And I think they’re from CG still. “I noticed my heart rate drops by anything up to 10 beats slower, and I do 7-11 breathing. So physical proof it calms and is better for you.” Absolutely. Yes, I, I agree. I think I once had a biofeedback system, a system that measured your heart rate through little things on your fingers, little sensors. But it also measured string, skin transconductance, which is the, like the lie detector test, how much you’re sweating, really. It was an incredibly sensitive system. And by using the biofeedback system, I realised I was able to calm myself far more when I had that feedback than what I’d thought by just doing the 7-11 breathing. But the 7-11 breathing is magical for doing that. It really is. Another comment. I’ve just noticed your amethyst believe to stand for grounded-ness, tranquility and calm. Just looked out my amethyst today and not thinking of the connection. Thank you. Yes, that’s my little, that’s my connection to my spirit guide, if you like. It’s not always visible, but it’s always worn. Well spotted.

So looking at edges, pet theme of mine, a fascination of mine, look at the edges between anything that you think is polarised, whether it’s life and death, whether it’s good and bad, whether it’s you name it, anything that you think is cut and dried into two, right and wrong. And then interesting way of applying that to anger as well. Cause I that’s talking about anger earlier is that anger feels like it’s about right and wrong. You know, when you’re angry, you’re the person is wrong and you’re right. And that’s pretty much guaranteed if you’re angry. The reality is that anger is, usually when you can stand back, access your observing self and look at it objectively, anger is about needs not met. So it might be needs for security, needs for respect. It can be any of the needs. Needs for privacy.

When you look at anger from the perspective of needs not being met, it makes a whole lot more sense. And it allows you to judge when anger is appropriate and when it’s inappropriate, because anger is like any emotion, it’s there to, it’s part of our guidance system. It’s there to alert us to the fact that we don’t feel safe or we do feel disrespected or whatever, but once we’ve had the signal to point us in that direction, then we can respond intelligently. We don’t have to just react and we don’t have to get angry ourselves unless that’s what we choose to do.

So it’s time to share the story as I promised. And this is a story that… I’m trying to find it in my notes here, that I came across. Cause I watched the series on Netflix that was about Osho. And whatever you think of Osho, whether whether he’s a good guy or bad guy is less important to this than the story that I want to share. And why can’t I find it? Here we go over here. Sorry. So it’s about Gurdjieff now Gurdjieff was an amazing person, whether you know anything about his history or not. Quite a remarkable man and quite controversial as well. And some of the things that he did and some of the teachings that he shared. But apparently, this is a story that I heard Osho talk. I heard Osho give this talk or tell this story in a short clip on YouTube. And it goes like this.

And apparently when Gurdjieff was dying, He, his last words to his son were immensely significant. And Osho suggests that perhaps no father has ever advised his son with such great insight. And it’s worth remembering that Gurdjieff was only nine years old at the time. And what he said to his son on his death bed was this. He said, you may not currently be able to understand what I have to say to you today, but I’m dying and I have very little extra time. So I have to tell you now, and in time, if you can remember my words, then when you get the maturity to understand what it is I’m telling you now, then please act on those words. But you may not have the capability to make sense of these now at your young age of nine. But I would like you to remember the sentence I’m going to tell you, and I want you to repeat it back to me three times. So that I absolutely know that you’ve understood it and then I’ll be able to die in peace. So repeat to me the sentence three times so that I can die peacefully. And he also said, and forgive me because I’m not actually leaving anything in the way of an inheritance other than this single sentence.

So what was the sentence? Well, this is what Gurdjieff’s father reportedly shared with him. He said: “Remember that if somebody creates anger in you, tell the person that you’ll come back in 24 hours and answer him. And for 24 hours, just wait. After 24 hours has passed, whatever comes to you, go and do it.” And that was it.

So he got his son to repeat that three times said, you may not understand the full implications now, but when you’re older and more mature, as long as you’ve committed this sentence to memory, and then you act on it. And apparently it sounds like strange advice, but it’s not strange when you really understand the incredible power of your innate resources. This single sentence is suggested to have changed Gurdjieff’s life. And the old man must have been a man of great insight because he left nothing else for his son. His mother was dead. He was dying himself and he said, you’ll have to fend for yourself. This is my gift to you, this sentence.

And I wonder now what it would be like if we really took that advice to heart and lived according to it. How would our life be different? And I have two observations to make on that. One is that we would tend to respond more intelligently to angry words. We would have to because in that 24 hours, it’s very likely that we’re going to end up accessing a lot of our resources. We’re going to think about it. We’re going to imagine what might happen if we respond in different ways. We might talk to other people about how to respond. We’ll certainly reflect on it. We’ll access our observing self. We’re likely if it’s 24 hours to even sleep on it. So the wisdom in the saying is partly to, to my mind, that it implies use of all our innate resources before we respond to it.

But the other thing is that if we took 24 hours before we respond to every angry word spoken to us, we would take care not to anger other people because it takes too long. 24 hours before I can get back to someone? You know, you can’t have three angry conversations at once. You’ve got three 24 hour periods running in parallel. So I think it would help us to be a lot more considerate in our response.

And there is so much polarisation going on in the world at the moment, you know, the, the, the vigil for safety for women, which I fully respect and fully understand the importance of them and the need for, but I do believe that any solution that forms a polarisation of “us and them”, like “we get it, you don’t” in destined to fail. We’re at a stage now in our evolution where we have to look for solutions where we don’t have a “them and us” mentality. A “them and us” mentality is never realistic in my mind. And whenever you look at the edges between our tribe and those outside our tribe, when you really examine the edge by getting into your reserving self, you’ll see that actually there are many points of view to consider. And the simplistic idea of “it’s us against them” is the old war-like mentality that we need to evolve away from now.

So, and another comment I’m just seeing here, “Thank you. Especially nowadays, never text, email or social media respond when emotionally aroused.” I’m going to share that. That’s an important one. Thank you. Thank you. If that’s you CG, thank you for that. Never text, email or social media respond when emotionally aroused. I think that’s good advice. It’s the, it’s the short version of the Gurdjieff story. Isn’t it? Wait, wait 24 hours. Yeah. That’s not how social media works though, I suspect.

Okay. I think that’s it for today. I’m just going to check my notes cause I got myself in a bit of a tangle earlier on. Hope you enjoyed the story. I did actually prepare some other stories, but I’m going to save those for another day, cause they’re not directly relevant to this topic. So I hope you found that useful. If you have any thoughts about the observing self or any other observations, please post a comment below this video.

Please share your insights, your questions, your observations, and let’s work together to help more people use all of their innate resources to get their needs met in balance and whatever else you’re doing don’t forget to keep breathing.

Here is a link where you can download the Observing Self worksheet:
>> Observing Self Worksheet

Please let me know what you think by commenting below!
Thanks, Alec