Mastering The Watcher
In any given situation, you have two energies that guide your reactions. The primitive part of your mind reacts to threats to your safety while your Watcher is a casual observer of all that’s going on. Here is how to make better use of your Watcher so you have more control over your emotional reactions to life.
Why You React Automatically to Threatening Situations
The primitive part of the brain began as a way to keep you from harm. In the early days of human existence, threats to your safety came from being eaten by a predator or falling off of a cliff. Your brain responded to such threats quickly, because if you stopped to think about it first, you might become some wild animal’s lunch. This part of your brain was in control long before the emotional part of the brain developed.
Now, threats come in many different forms. They may seem minor when compared to being eaten, but your brain sees them as threats nonetheless. Some of these “threats” you may have experienced:
- Your supervisor yells at you for not getting a project done.
- Your partner criticizes you for being disorganized.
- Another driver cuts you off in traffic.
All of these situations trigger the safety response causing you to storm out of your office, raise your voice at your partner or raise your finger at the other driver. These responses happen so quickly that you may not even know what you’re doing until afterwards.
Luckily, you have another part of you available to take control of your responses. The Watcher is the part that actually gives you a choice of how you react. When you master working with your Watcher, you’ll be more in control of how you respond to the world.
Tapping into the Watcher
Your Watcher is there all of the time, just like the part of your brain that has the responses to perceived threats. But the Watcher is a passive energy that you must actively engage. Until the mind had developed sufficiently to let the Watcher take charge, you must consciously use it.
Here is one way to connect with your Watcher:
- Find a quiet place in which to sit for a few moments.
- Take a few deep breaths as you relax your mind.
- Imagine yourself at the base of your spine at the root chakra.
- Slowly begin to rise up through your spine and all of the chakras.
- When you get to your crown chakra, look down at yourself.
- Allow yourself to slip through your crown chakra and float up above yourself.
- Continue looking down at yourself as you float upward a foot or two.
- This is the place where your Watcher resides and you are now viewing yourself as your Watcher does.
While in this space, recall one of the events from above, such as being cut off in traffic. As the Watcher, observe the event as it unfolded. The Watcher has no judgement and will look at the event in a way your primitive mind can’t. As the Watcher, you’ll ask yourself:
- What is the real threat here?
- What is the intention of the other person to do me harm?
- What is the best response to the situation that’s for the highest good of all involved?
Integrating the Watcher
You will need to practice the exercise until you can quickly enable the Watcher. Imagine yourself popping up above you into that Watcher state instantaneously. Develop the habit of asking “What would my Watcher do?” when you face a difficult situation. When you’ve mastered this, you’ll be able to slip into that Watcher state before your primitive mind has a chance to respond.
With the Watcher in control, you’ll have more options as to how to respond, and you’ll be in charge of the response. Your responses will have a more positive effect and you’ll no longer face the uncomfortable situation of the consequences of an unwanted response.