Week 19
The Concept
"The Art of Observation"
"I think that my job is to observe people and the world, and not to judge them. I always hope to position myself away from so-called conclusions. I would like to leave everything wide open to all the possibilities in the world."
- Haruki Murakami
As I wrote in Week 2 (link can be found in the 'Previous Weeks' section, below), as a little human growing up, I learned to behave through "judgment", as did many of us. I was taught to do things because they were "the right thing" to do, or not to do other things because they were "the wrong thing" to do. I learned that if I behaved in certain ways, I would be deemed a "good person", and if I behaved in other ways, I would be deemed a "bad person". I also learned that I "should" do some things and that I "shouldn't" do other things.
As I grew up in this environment, judgment helped me to fit into society. It helped me belong, stay safe and understand. Yet, at the same time it did not help me develop a sense of self-connection or compassion very well.
I learned that I (and others) could be considered "stupid", "selfish", "lazy", or any number of judgments. These terms helped motivate me (by fear) to behave differently. And although this accomplished that, again, it did not work very well in helping me experience connection or compassion. I was taught to dislike or even hate myself.
What Do Judgments Have to Do with Observations or Compassion?
As we have discussed before, with practice, we can learn to translate our judgments, to find out about our needs. There are needs connected to every judgment, and when we identify them, it gives us a chance to have more connection in our conversations. I say "a chance" because having the awareness of our needs is the first step to a connected conversation. The second part is to be able to express ourselves in ways that reflect our awareness. So how can we talk about the actual situations, events and people in our lives without using those very same judgment words we grew up with? Observation.
Observation is a "replacement" that we can use when we want our consciousness and conversations to move from judgment to connection and compassion. If I can't think of an observation, a neutral, judgment-free way of thinking and speaking about something that I or someone else did, I probably need more empathy to get to a clearer understanding of my needs and the actual event or events that are at issue.
For example, imagine I said to my friend, "Hey listen. You know when you were yelling and complaining to me about your car keys yesterday?" My friend might say, "I was not yelling! I was just being emphatic!" As you may see, this conversation could easily turn into a debate about "how" he was speaking... not what was said, or how it was for anyone.
Now imagine I said, "Hey listen. Remember when we were talking about how I lost the keys to your car yesterday?" It is much more likely that the my friend will be able to focus on the actual event and move on to a more connected conversation.
How Can I Be Sure I'm Making an Observation?
A question I ask myself, to figure out if I'm observing or judging is, "Could I capture that on a video camera or in a written transcription?" In our example above, "yelling" and "complaining" are subjective or evaluative terms. Yes, we could capture that an elevated volume level was used, although it gets a bit unwieldy to say "when you were speaking at 25 decibels...".
Tone of Voice
In the discussion of observation, it becomes a bit confusing when we want to acknowledge that we are hearing a different tone of voice. How do you observe that someone seems agitated or angry or frustrated? Often these are things we pick up on by tone, right?
The best way I have learned to stay in "observation mode" and still express what I think I'm hearing is:
1) Ask. For example: "So is it that you're really frustrated that I lost the keys to your car?"
2) Observe your reaction. Sometimes I have the thought that someone is being "condescending" or "sarcastic". These are certainly not observation words, and yet I want to address what is going on in me, to create a space for self-empathy to translate my interpretation into needs and a request. In this case, I can observe that I am having a reaction to their tone. "I'm noticing I'm having a reaction to your tone of voice and I'm having a hard time hearing what you're saying right now. Could we take a minute to check in or take a breather here?" (See also week 12 - Slowing Down)
I know this is not always going to work perfectly, since I can never control how someone is going to react to me. I can only know I'm doing the best I can to get to a connected place and go on from there. Sometimes I can simply hear their pain and in so doing, the tone of what they're saying becomes less important to me and allows me to stay connected or get reconnected to them.
More to follow as the Compassion Course continues....
