WARM UP YOUR INNER OBSERVER Get in the right frame of mind

Before you begin looking at a problem, it is important to get the right mental set. If you feel any anxiety about looking inside or questioning some cherished belief, remember your discovery metaphor. You are not afraid of the truth. You are Hercule Poirot, a psychologist, or a seeker of buried treasure. The truth will eventually give you peace and set you free!

2 This self-exploration process is similar to the process I use in therapy. It is based upon methods first described by Carl Rogers (1951), Robert Carkhuff (1961), and George Kelly (1955).

Let your inner observer watch inner events neutrally--just recording data.

Hercule Poirot must look at the facts dispassionately as a scientist would--both are searching for the raw, uncolored truth. You cannot understand and solve the problem unless you can observe the raw data from your senses and emotions as clearly as possible--with a minimum of interference from thoughts that want to filter it, interpret it, and judge it. You must suspend these higher interpretive thought processes until you get all the facts. If you start drawing conclusions prematurely, you may bias your perception to fit your preconceived views.

Self-exploration involves developing a subpart of you that becomes a neutral, nonjudgmental observer. It can observe the most positive or negative thoughts, feelings, actions, or events dispassionately. To get in the right frame of mind pretend that you are a neutral observer sent from another planet to unobtrusively study the people of earth. Or pretend that you are watching a movie and know that what is happening is not real. This inner neutral observer can learn to observe events as if none of the events will affect it at all.

Neutral observing may sound easy, but it is one of the most difficult aspects of the self-exploration process. How often have you simply observed your own sensations, thoughts, and feelings for even five minutes without interpreting them, getting strong emotional reactions, or jumping to conclusions? People attempting to learn meditation may take weeks before they can focus inward peacefully for five minutes.

Notice the difference between different sensations, thoughts, emotions, and actions. Everything in your consciousness is either a sensation, a thought, or an

emotion. Thoughts consist of images, words, and their relationships. Even external events are not directly accessible to your consciousness--only your sensations from those events are. Your inner observer must know that sensations are distinct from external world events. Your inner observer must know that your sensations and perceptions can be strongly affected by your preconceptions and biases.

Let your nonjudgmental inner observer use neutral, nonjudgmental language as it talks. Some part of you (not your inner observer) might be judging

someone--calling them "stupid" or "bad." During the first part of the self- exploration stage, don't let your inner observer change that judgmental part or change the language it is using. It will only observe the language and its effects on your other thoughts, emotions, and actions.

Your inner observer may notice that condemning someone increases negative thoughts, increases anger, and increases aggressive actions. The reaction of your neutral observer is not to condemn, it is, "That's interesting-- perhaps there is a causal relationship between my judgments, my anger, and my aggressive responses."

As your inner observer talks about what it is observing, it is important that it use descriptive, nonjudgmental language. If it falls into a judgmental mode, then it will lose its power to be an accurate observer.

Let your nonjudgmental inner-observer avoid zingers and melodramatic descriptions. Zingers are key words that incite emotional reactions. They can disrupt thinking from a "just getting the facts" mode to an "I need to react" mode. At times when you are observing yourself, you will undoubtedly be tempted to think thoughts like, "That was stupid, why did I do that?" But beware of such temptations. Innuendos, digs, subtle put-downs, and defensive comments all stir up parts of us that are anything but neutral--so avoid observational zingers of any type!

Melodramatic language incites emotional reactions. If you want an emotional reaction from someone (including yourself), then you may be tempted to exaggerate or overdramatize a situation. The problem is if you exaggerate the situation, then it also gives you a message that the problem is larger than it really is. It may also give a message that you view yourself as too weak to meet the challenge. This kind of dishonest communication is the opposite of what your inner observer is striving for.

Let your inner observer "rise above" emotions and not get caught up in them. Recall a time when you got really upset and got totally lost in the emotion

and experience. In that experience, you had tunnel-vision. You lost all perspective that anything else exists. You probably felt as if the emotion was totally outside of your control. In this case your neutral observer was not engaged.

In contrast to this experience--try to think of a time when your neutral observer was engaged. Haven't you ever experienced one part of yourself dispassionately observing another part as the second part gets upset? Perhaps the experience felt a little strange, sort of like an "out of body" experience. But it is this dual processing state that you must achieve with your inner observer to accurately observe what is causing your emotional reactions. To achieve this dual processing state take turns focusing on your inner observer and letting the upset part act naturally until it‘s finished with the episode.

PRACTICE: Right now try closing your eyes and with your "inner eye" try

observing all of your bodily sensations, your emotions, and your thoughts. Try just observing them without controlling them or judging them. Especially pay attention to sequences and patterns of internal events. As you feel emotions, notice them and label them; but during the self-exploration stage do not attempt to change them. Observe any correlation between your emotions and thoughts.