“This is the root of Self. You are not your thoughts; you are aware of your thoughts. You are not your emotions; you feel your emotions…. You are the conscious being who is aware that you are aware of all these inner and outer things.” ~Michael Singer
I sat across from my colleague with a growing sense of discomfort. I had accepted an assignment from the boss, but I heard from my colleague an undercurrent of questioning and uncertainty—or so it seemed. It was so subtle that I couldn’t quite tell what was going on.
Did she not believe I could do it? Nobody else was stepping forward to meet the need. Was she saying it’s better to go with nobody than with me?
All I knew for sure was that I wasn’t hearing this outright. I decided to let it go, head on home, think about it tomorrow, and be fully present with my family instead. But the next morning as I pulled into my parking spot in front of the office, a subtle agitation rumbled in my stomach.
I walked into the quiet building and set my things down in the office, distracted by my disquiet and wishing I could focus on my task list. The thoughts prickling at me wouldn’t let go.
I laid my pen down and asked myself, “Okay, what’s going on?”
In my top drawer I keep a deck of “grok” cards that I bought from the folks at the Center for Nonviolent Communication. Each one has the name of a need or value—things like “hope,” “trust,” and “balance” show up in this deck. I frequently use these when I can’t quite put a finger on what’s bothering me.
I flipped through the cards and sorted them as I went. In the “not now” pile went cards like “freedom,” “competence,” and “creativity.” In the next pile, the “Maybe?” pile, went cards like “security,” “meaning/purpose,” and “friendship.”
I went on sorting between just these two piles until I hit one that resonated: “Acknowledgement.” That went into a new pile: “Yes.”
A couple of cards after it I found “Appreciation.” That went into the “Yes” pile too, and then I noticed something really interesting happen: I got angry.
Usually when I sort through these cards, the experience of finding the right word to put on my current needs or values results in feeling more settled, more clear. Frequently my agitation will be replaced by a sense of gratitude, or courage to act in a way that helps me meet my needs.
Typically, that is the value for me in identifying my needs. It helps me find a more straightforward and effective path toward getting those needs met. But it didn’t happen this time.
Instead, the voice in my head just became louder and more insistent.
My coworker should be grateful for my willingness to take on this new project! She wasn’t going to step in and do anything. Why wasn’t she acknowledging that I was making a sacrifice on behalf of the team?
This narrative swept me up. It threatened to pull me under.
Slowly, I started to notice another, quieter voice saying, “Why am I getting so upset? That doesn’t usually happen after I go through the GROK cards. What can I do for myself that won’t be so negative?”
I’m going to admit this was an odd experience for me. I don’t typically have this second, quieter voice. Or, if I’ve had it, I haven’t been able to hear it.
But I did hear it this time, and it called to mind Michael Singer’s book, The Untethered Soul. I read it just about a month before.
“You are not the voice of the mind,” he wrote. “You are the one that hears it.”
He suggests that when we’re bothered by something, we can change what we identify with. Rather than identifying with all of those thoughts and feelings, we can instead identify ourselves as “the observer” or witness of what is being experienced.
As I felt myself getting swept up in defensiveness against my coworker, I decided to try it. What would happen, I wondered? I started up a new voice in my head that said, “I am not all of these thoughts and feelings. I am the observer who is noticing that Amy is having a powerful experience.”
It was almost meditation, but not quite the same as my usual practice. Michael Singer might say I was doing it wrong. A psychiatrist might have a lot of questions for me—I don’t know.
What I do know is what happened inside myself. As I identified myself as “the observer who is noticing that Amy is having a powerful experience,” I relaxed. I let go of the waves of negative thinking.
I realized that I could talk to myself the way I would talk to a dear friend who is feeling unacknowledged and underappreciated. I realized I could give myself compassion.
I imagined telling myself, “I’m sorry you haven’t been appreciated. That’s hard. You are still okay.”
I admit I feel extra vulnerable as I type that out. Part of me doesn’t want to admit that I talk to myself in this way. On the other hand, this was such an amazing experience!
I was able to walk myself through processing my own needs and emotions in ways I’ve never done before. As soon as it happened, I wanted to shout it out to the rest of the world, “Hey, I’ve found a path that looks like it leads somewhere good! Come check it out!”
Do you ever feel the emotional undertow of unpleasant, uncomfortable feelings? Have you tried to resist them without success? Perhaps it would help to identify yourself as the observer.
Accept that the feelings and thoughts are there, but instead of identifying with them, try identifying yourself as the observer or witness who is noticing that this experience is flowing through.
Perhaps you already know this part of the path. Have you tried a practice like this? What works for you?

About Amy Kay Watson
Amy Kay Watson is a speaker, ICF-certified leadership and career coach, and author of the recently published Kindle book, Working with Stress and Fear: Your Guide to Feeling it and Rocking the Job Anyway. Learn more at careerleadershipalignment.com and contact via Amy@CareerLeadershipAlignment.com.
Amy,
Thanks for this wonderful post! This is an area I am constantly getting stuck. The way you’ve described your experience has given me a new angle to work from. Thoughts and emotions can be so, so powerful! I know we are told “we are not our emotions,” but I struggle to really apply that knowledge in a useful way. This post really helps make the connection (or the disconnection, as the case may be)! Thank you for overcoming your feelings of vulnerability and sharing your experience with us!
Anna
Thank you, Anna, for letting me know that you can relate! I would love to hear how your practice develops.
Amy, You’re gorgeous. I just wanted to tell you that and thanks for the tip. Peace.
thank you for sharing your experience. i get caught in the same negativity, that i know if i were being logical i could see how it is my own mental struggle.
These were my exact thoughts too. This is awesome!
Being usually even tempered, not easily offended, and even serene, when I feel emotional discomfort, I often step away from it as an observer and ask myself “Why?”. Why am I feeling this, now? Is it really the situation, or have I been neglecting something that’s left me vulnerable, such as time to myself, my spiritual practices, my physical needs, socialization, etc. If this is not the case, then I have, at the very least, given myself a break from the emotions and can look at them more clearly.
Beautiful. I went through an experience yesterday with a therapist where I realized that I just didn’t want to leave the negative emotions behind. I was thrown a fit and wasn’t finished. When I admitted that to myself, it was quite freeing. Just to say, “I’m not through being mad.” And, accepting the discomfort and frustration. Then, today, it seemed to lift significantly.
I’ve been searching for a way to deal with myself when strong emotions grab hold… As up to now, I am ruled mainly by my emotions, they can and have reeked havoc upon me! I look forward to putting an end to that!!
It is so important to fully embrace your painful emotions with mindfulness. Mindfulness is the combination of conscious presence and compassion. This heals everything it touches. Mindfulness Meditation, at least as I teach it, is for the purpose of embracing our suffering directly to facilitate its resolution. This is what the Buddha taught as the Four Noble Truths.
The Boulder Center for Online Mindfulness Therapy
The moment I fully realised, not just in my mind but in my entire body, that I am NOT my emotions but the one who carries them… I breaked through my endless circle of suffering. The practice you’re describing sounds very familiar to me, and I am glad you decided to share it with the world :).
I feel the same way. I understand the article and philosophy from an intellectual standpoint but I am having some difficulty putting into practice and truly grasping it on a deeper level.
I think having compassion towards ourselves inevitably leads to having compassion and empathy for others, and ends up in seeing things in all of their complexity (why you act, think, feel the way you are, and why others may be acting, thinking, or feeling a certain way, for instance). And by seeing things more clearly, I think we can calmly but actively adress life in the best way for everyone involved. This is not easy as it is something we’re not used to and we’re certainly not taught (if we feel anything negative, or if we have fear/anxiety, we “must act” to stop it or eliminate the feeling instead of understanding what might be happening), but when you start doing it, you really feel free.
Thanks for sharing!
It looks like a cop out to me. “Оh are you experiencing something that you don’t like? Well guess what, that’s not you, that’s someone that experineces it!, you are merely an observer!”. This one of the most hypocritical things I’ve ever heard. If there is something good happens to you, you want to fully embrace. But does it mean that observer is going to be left without anything to do? I don’t think so.
Angry much?
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Thanks for your comment, Lorri. Our emotions are an important part of our makeup, but they don’t have to have the last word. There are ways of leaning more on your rational mind for support. This is a great place to learn.
One of my clients suggested this way of interpreting the article: When drama is happening around you, you can choose not to participate.
I think you have a point, Willie. We need to balance our rational mind and our emotional experience. Leaning too much in either direction leads to problems. Certainly when I was growing up, I learned to lean too heavily on rationality, and sometimes that meant I didn’t develop the means to really process emotions. My intention with this practice is to find a way of feeling the emotions at a rate in which I can process them. If they’re overwhelming, there’s a way to detach from the overwhelm.
Aren’t we all? 🙂
Thanks for your thoughts, Daniela. I’m with you.
Thank you, May. I’m glad to hear this resonates for you!
I learned about this initially through Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
Isn’t that interesting? Sometimes it seems like our resistance to feeling negative emotions actually makes them bigger/worse. What would happen if we just accepted that, well, it’s stormy today!
“What’s really going on here?” is a great question. One of the things I’ve been grateful to learn is that becoming curious is one way of bringing our rational mind back online, thus restoring balance.
Thank you, Regina. Just becoming aware of ourselves in the context of our larger life can be so powerful.
Hah, thanks James. 🙂
Thank you, Lacey.
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This is a great technique! It is so powerful to realise we can choose our emotions, but I haven’t always known exactly how, especially when it is a strong emotion… How awesome to be able to be your own friend in this way…. Definitely going to give this a try, thank you for sharing.
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