Seeker: I keep eating when I’m not even hungry. Like, I’ll finish dinner and immediately start snacking. My body doesn’t want it.

Companion: What happens in that moment between finishing dinner and reaching for more?

Seeker: Nothing really. It’s automatic. I just find myself at the cupboard.

Companion: Nothing? Or something so familiar you don’t notice it anymore?

Seeker: Maybe there’s like a… restlessness? Or no, it’s more like feeling empty. But that doesn’t make sense because I just ate.

Companion: Empty where?

Seeker: Not my stomach. It’s higher up? Chest maybe. Or everywhere. I sound crazy.

Companion: You’re describing something very real. When did you first notice this emptiness?

Seeker: I don’t know. Recently? I always notice it. When I was a kid I remember I used to sneak sweets to my room. Is that relevant?

Companion: What did those sweets do for you then?

Seeker: Made me feel better? Safer? The sweets were my friends… Again I sound crazy.

Companion: The sweets were there when no one else was.

Seeker: Yeah. Exactly. They were company? In my own world. That’s stupid.

Companion: What else wasn’t there that should have been?

Seeker: I mean, my parents were there. They were dealing with their own stuff. They loved me. They just… I was kind of on my own a lot. Had to figure things out myself.

Companion: And food became the thing that was consistently available when you needed comfort.

Seeker: But I’m forty-three. My dad is gone. I’m not that lonely kid anymore. In fact, I wasn’t lonely. I think I just wasn’t where I wanted to be.

Companion: What would happen if you sat with the emptiness instead of filling it?

Seeker: I don’t want to.

Companion: What are you afraid you’d find?

Seeker: That it’s bottomless. That nothing will ever fill it. That I’m still that kid eating chocolate in her room because nobody… because I couldn’t…

Companion: Because you couldn’t what?

Seeker: Because I couldn’t get what I actually needed. And I still can’t. Because what I needed was… was them. But then not any more. Was someone to tell me it was okay, that I was okay, that I wasn’t too much or too needy or…irrelevant.

Companion: The hunger isn’t for food.

Seeker: No. It never was.

Companion: So what is it you’re actually hungry for?

Seeker: I don’t… I don’t even know anymore. It’s been so long since I let myself want anything real.

Seeker: I’m so tired I can barely function. But every time I try to rest, I just can’t. It’s like there’s this motor inside that won’t turn off.

Companion: What happens when you do manage to stop? Even for a moment?

Seeker: I get anxious. Really anxious. Like I should be doing something, fixing something, getting ahead of something. My brain starts making lists.

Companion: And if you push past the lists? Stay in the stillness longer?

Seeker: I don’t.

Companion: But imagine you did. What are you afraid you’d find there?

Seeker: Nothing. That’s the thing — it feels like there’s nothing there. Just… blank. Like I disappear or something.

Companion: You disappear when you’re not doing?

Seeker: Yeah. It sounds stupid when I say it out loud.

Companion: When did you first learn that equation — that doing equals existing?

Seeker: I don’t know. Maybe actually, my mom used to forget about me when I was quiet. Like literally forget I was in the room. But when I was helping or performing or achieving, then I was “her wonderful helper”. At least this is how I understood this.

Companion: So motion meant being seen. Being still meant becoming invisible.

Seeker: God. Yeah. And my dad — he only knew how to connect through tasks. Fixing things together, working on projects. That was love.

Companion: What happened to the parts of you that just wanted to be? Not do anything, just exist?

Seeker: I guess I stopped having those parts.

Companion: Or you buried them so deep that now they feel like “nothing” when you get close to them. That blank space you’re afraid of — what if it’s not empty?

Seeker: What else would it be?

Companion: Who were you before you learned you had to earn your existence?

Seeker: I don’t remember. When I was very little I used to just sit and watch bugs. They amused me. I used to draw pictures of clouds. Stupid stuff.

Companion: What made it stupid?

Seeker: It wasn’t useful. It wasn’t helping anyone. It wasn’t… I don’t know. It just was.

Companion: You just were. And that was enough?

Seeker: Until it wasn’t. Oh. Oh shit.

Companion: What are you seeing?

Seeker: The burnout. It’s not from doing too much. It’s because there’s no me under all the doing. Like I’m running this program that thinks if I stop, I stop existing.

Companion: And your exhaustion?

Seeker: It’s like… something in me is trying to force me to stop. To find out what’s actually there. But I’m terrified there’s nothing.

Companion: That child watching bugs — did they worry about being nothing?

Seeker: No. They just were. Fuck. I don’t even know how to do that anymore. Just be.

Companion: What would happen if you found out you still exist when you’re not producing?

Seeker: I don’t know. That’s the thing — I literally cannot imagine it. My whole life is built on… on being useful. On earning my spot.

Companion: And now?

Seeker: Now I’m so tired I could cry. And I probably will. Because maybe the exhaustion is trying to show me something.

Companion: What?

Seeker: That there’s something under all this. Someone. And they’re tired of being buried under all this doing.

Seeker: When someone criticizes me, even small things, I just I can’t function. It’s like being erased.

Companion: Erased. That’s such a strong word. What happens in your body when criticism comes?

Seeker: Everything contracts. My chest gets tight. I can’t think straight. It’s not even proportional to what they said.

Companion: Can you give me an example? Something recent?

Seeker: My boss said my presentation needed more data. That’s it. Not even harsh. But I spent the whole night replaying it, feeling like I’m worthless at my job. At everything.

Companion: You went from “needs more data” to “worthless at everything.” That’s quite a leap.

Seeker: I know it’s irrational. I can see that from outside. But inside, it feels true.

Companion: What would it mean if you weren’t good at your job?

Seeker: That I’m… nothing. That sounds dramatic but that’s what it feels like.

Companion: So your worth as a person is tied to how well you perform?

Seeker: I mean, intellectually I know that’s not true. I’ve done therapy. I understand self-worth shouldn’t depend on achievement.

Companion: You understand it intellectually. But something else is running the show when criticism arrives.

Seeker: Yeah. Something panicked.

Companion: When you were young, what happened when you didn’t do something well?

Seeker: My mom would get this look. Not angry, just disappointed. Silent. She’d withdraw. And she was so big.

Companion: And what did that mean to you as a child?

Seeker: That I’d lost her. That she didn’t want me anymore.

Companion: So doing things well meant keeping her close?

Seeker: I never thought of it that way. But yeah. When I got good grades, helped around the house, she was warm. Present. When I messed up…

Companion: She disappeared.

Seeker: Not physically. But yeah. Emotionally, she was gone. I understand it is her problem too at play, but it doesn’t help.

Companion: So you learned that being loved depended on being good enough.

Seeker: But I know that’s not how adult relationships work. Well, I mean I see this at play with other people too. Speaking of adult relationships…

Companion: What if the criticism you receive now is touching that same place — where imperfection meant abandonment?

Seeker: That’s exactly what it feels like. Like I’m about to be left.

Companion: Can you see the difference between who you are and what you produce?

Seeker: I actually can’t. That’s the problem, isn’t it? They’re the same thing to me.

Companion: What would it mean if they weren’t the same?

Seeker: Then criticism would just be feedback. Not a verdict on my right to exist.

Companion: But right now, they’re fused.

Seeker: Completely fused. I AM my performance. No wonder it destroys me.

Companion: What’s that like to see?

Seeker: Honestly? Terrifying. If I’m not my achievements, then who am I?

Companion: That might be the question.

Seeker: I don’t even know where to start with that.

Companion: Didn’t you start already?

Seeker: I have this ongoing fear in the background that something terrible is about to happen. Nothing bad happens, but the feeling won’t leave.

Companion: Where do you feel it in your body?

Seeker: My body? Maybe in my stomach sometimes. Like… bracing. Like right before a car accident, that split second where you see it coming.

Companion: You’re bracing for impact.

Seeker: Constantly. Even when everything’s fine. Especially when everything’s fine, actually. Actually, I wouldn’t say bracing for impact. This is always there.

Companion: Tell me more about that — especially when things are fine.

Seeker: That’s when it’s worst. When things are quiet, calm, going well. That’s when I get really anxious. Like the calm before something explodes.

Companion: What does calm mean to you?

Seeker: I don’t know. Dangerous? That sounds crazy.

Companion: Not crazy at all. When did you first learn that calm was dangerous?

Seeker: My dad. He’d be fine, totally normal, then out of nowhere — rage. The quiet days were the worst because you never knew when it would flip.

Companion: So you learned to read the signs.

Seeker: I got really good at it. I could tell by how he closed the car door. By which coffee mug he used. I think I got really good at this.

Companion: You were the family weather system. The early warning.

Seeker: I’d warn my siblings. Get them out of the way. Try to redirect him sometimes, distract him before it started.

Companion: That’s a big job for a child.

Seeker: Someone had to do it.

Companion: What happened when you didn’t catch it in time?

Seeker: Things got bad. Really bad. So I got better at watching. Always watching.

Companion: And now?

Seeker: Now… oh. I’m still doing it. I can tell myself there’s nothing to watch for, but honestly, I don’t believe it.

Companion: Your body doesn’t know that.

Seeker: It’s still scanning. Still… on duty. Even though that house, that danger — it’s twenty years gone.

Companion: What would happen if you went off duty?

Seeker: I don’t know how to do that. It feels like if I stop watching, stop bracing, that’s when it’ll happen. This became part of me.

Companion: The very act of relaxing feels like dropping your guard.

Seeker: Yeah. Exactly. Like I’m inviting disaster by not expecting it.

Companion: You’re still protecting everyone from a threat that isn’t there anymore.

Seeker: But my body doesn’t believe that. It’s like I’m still twelve, reading coffee mugs.

Companion: Still standing watch.

Seeker: Still standing watch. God. I’m so tired.

The realization

What makes self-observation work is the realization of how valuable it is.

Valuing something starts with seeing what that thing really is, its essence. When one starts to see the essence of something, then one can value it based on one’s own mindset and values. This post can only assist with the former: Describe some qualities of self-observation. It cannot assist and does not want to interfere with the latter.

Only when you take in how valuable self-observation is will it start to truly work for you. It is a personal experience, in its deepest sense.

Below, I bring two qualities as my own personal attempts to describe the value of self-observation.

It is unique

It is genuinely unique that a form of life recognizes its own existence and thus is able to look at its own self. Humankind has this ability. Some other animals have it to some degree, but not comparable to our abilities. Today, we don’t know of other forms of life or other forms of existence on our planet or anywhere else that possess this ability. Some say that this ability is a product of nature’s experimentation. Others say that it was meant to happen. Uniqueness here refers to its unmatched function — nothing else in nature does anything close. It is not merely the fact that we may be the only ones who possess it.

We have unmatched potential through it

Let me have the luxury to put this simply and not be politically or scientifically correct: How do you otherwise have the ability, or at least a viable chance to change towards where you want to go? How can somebody have a conscious choice, an act of conscious change (or maybe change at all) without the ability to look and understand their own self? My experience is that people can answer this question, and certainly according to their values.

The paradox of the self and the mirror

The reason why many people do not see what tool they possess (I didn’t) is because of something else:  Self-awareness and the ability to observe one’s self is so much our given nature that we have a hard time seeing that this is our most potent tool for progress. We need to value a tool with the use of that very tool, while that tool is so much our nature that we are the tool itself.

Let’s do this thought experiment: Imagine that you don’t know you exist as a separate being. In other words, you don’t have self-awareness. Imagine that you go and look in the mirror. You will not know that you are seeing your own self. Now imagine that something happens, you may react, and now imagine that you simply do not have the capacity to look at your own self in relation to that event that happened. Let alone have a conscious choice. The reality is that we do have a self and we do have a mirror (the capacity for self-observation). But many times we use the mirror only to fix our hair.

The mindset that follows

You will have realizations about your own uniqueness. If you haven’t yet, you will realize the importance of the life you live. Most of us struggle to accept our own value. Don’t be surprised if your self starts to work on it more. You will inevitably reach the stage where you stop valuing yourself in relation to external expectations. Be willing to go further than you ever imagined as your life deepens.

Your mind, your thinking will be more comfortable with paradoxes. As your self-observation deepens, so will your acceptance for what reality is. You will look at yourself more broadly and that will have an integrative effect on you.

You will be clearer in how you develop your values and logic. Your deepening self-observation will lead you to question your values and beliefs. You will value your ability to consciously form and change your values more than any particular value you hold. Your heightened internal clarity will drive clearer choices.

You will start to value the spirit behind things more than before. Put another way: you will prioritize your instinct over your mechanical, conceptual thinking. This is what we call magic, especially in our overengineered world. We are taught to be technocrats even with such human qualities and practices as self-awareness and self-observation. It is not about understanding it with some mechanical logic or seeing what personal benefit it can bring. While techniques and methods can be valuable (and this post ‘How self-observation works’ somewhat touches on those), they aren’t any substitutes for deep realizations.

Self-inquiry on where my assertiveness has disappeared

• This is what I see about myself as the first thing: I have tried so many times and never really gotten what I wanted.
• I have been assertive before. And I did get what I wanted. I remember now how I used to enjoy being wild and assertive. And how much it helped me achieve success.
• And then it was gone.
• I think I stopped being assertive because, as I was growing older, I realized what I got wasn’t really what I wanted. 
• I have given up. Let me just be and do the bare minimum. Wanting things isn’t for me.
• Honestly…I am just waiting for something or somebody to get me out of my misery. Genuinely pathetic.   

• Wait! There is something wrong here with my “genius” logic. 
• So actually, I have been assertive, and it did work. The reason I gave up is hardly my assertiveness’s fault. 
• I just didn’t want the right thing for me. So after all, those things like money, beautiful smiles, nice car aren’t the stuff that ultimately make me happy. I know that. For the last 15 years, roughly. That was when I finally decided to go all in to finding out who I really am.
• So actually, I have to conclude that a good thing happened to me: I stopped going for things that are not for me…
• Why don’t I like what I have concluded here? I have to admit that it is not how I feel. 
• When I think of my assertiveness, I see that I miss it. I would like to see it work. I would like to use it. 

• There is a key thing that recently came to me.
• (Having read Carl Jung comes in handy here. He made me realize that it is the opposites that make things be in balance.)
• I am a sensitive type by nature. I understand emotions and thought patterns, maybe a bit more than average. I am intuitive, and I value depth. Relationships and receptivity are very important to me.
• And now I am realizing I have overrated these at the expense of my assertiveness.
• I have done it on purpose. This has given me the idea of righteousness. The idea of being morally above the other – after all, I haven’t taken anything, I just have been empathic. And I see the other lies I have hidden behind. I will work on these later. This is getting too much now. 

• My assertiveness is part of me. That is my Animus. 
• I admit I have made it dormant.

Self-reflection on why I can’t figure out what I want from my life

• What is it really I am looking for? 
• I want to feel calm and relaxed.
• And sometimes quite the opposite; I want to feel wild.
• I want to feel safe.
• I am looking for love also. And Success.
• Ah, I could go on with this list. 
• What I do see about myself now is that I am in a state of chaos.
• I want this chaos to end.
• This chaotic state depletes my energy level, and I just want to relax and calm down. 
• I have my ways of calming myself. I go into my warm, dream-like state that is so well known to me. It is like being in a cradle. 
• And this ‘cradle’ is sucking me in. It is truly comforting and nurturing.
• But when I observe myself, I see that this is not what I really want. Deep down, I feel that this alone isn’t right for me anymore. 
• I don’t want to be ‘sucked into this cradle’ anymore. I don’t just want to be one with it; It is not enough for me; My life has to be about other things too. 
• And as I am looking at this cradle, I realize I am afraid of it. 
• Actually, it is a big soup of chaotic everything. And the more I immerse myself in it, the more I lose my consciousness. 
• I realize now that my ‘cradle’ isn’t just all good. It is actually dangerous. 
• And most importantly, it wants to suck me in. It is its nature.  
• I am truly frightened to totally immerse myself in it. And I am frightened not to become my own Self. 
• It is fear that keeps me confused.
• And luckily, my open heart. 
• I cannot think of a better feeling as I am writing these lines than the vision of my open heart. It is coming from both poles.

Self-observation on why people are mean to me

• I am mean to people too. I hate this recognition but it is true.
• I have been working on this exercise for a while and for quite some time all my self-reflection was around the above recognition that I am at least as rude and sometimes more than those I find rude. Until recently, when things took some meaningful turns. Here are the outcomes of my self-reflections after.
• Yes, I am rude to people. It is sad for me to recognize this.
• I get rude to people when I get triggered. 
• Almost anything can trigger me. I am in such a state of irritation that the slightest thing can trigger me. 
• It is interesting to realize that deep down I still find that I have some righteousness with my anger. Yes, I overreact, yes, I can be a jerk; but still. It isn’t coming out of nowhere.
• The feeling I have is anger. 
• I am happy I learnt before that anger is a normal, healthy reaction to some kind of intrusion.
• Bang! Such a change in how I understand myself. All the time I was thinking that I was facing my shadow by seeing that I am also a mean and aggressive person. 
• The reason why I get triggered and become mean is because I feel my boundaries are overstepped. This causes my aggression. 
• What have those intrusions been in my case? Contempt, judgement, shaming, and probably most importantly, the simple ignorance to my limits.
• My and others’ “mean” behavior has a different light to it.

No, politicians will not destroy the human race. Politicians are nothing more than a mirror to our present ways of thinking. We choose them, they don’t have power on their own. They are just one manifestation of our inner drama.

If we end our race, it will be because of our psyche. This short post is published at the end of 2024. A lot of dreadful things may happen but they don’t need to. In fact, a lot of life-giving and beautiful things can happen. 

There are truly a lot of us who find that we, humans have already won and our direction is precious. Join us if you want. Joining is easy: Give credit to this and have some nice thoughts about this.  

Self-observation on why I don’t have self-confidence

• I always fall back.
• I always question myself. I become anxious. 
• I am just afraid I will screw it up.
• This has to do a lot with how I relate to people. Even if my lack of self-confidence shows up everywhere. 
• Right now I am angry. My anger has to do with someone abusing my limits. 
• Sometimes I just feel like giving up. Then it is not anger. But sadness.
• I don’t dare to confront.

• I try to convince myself that I am worthy. 
• And I am trying to convince others that I am worthy. In all kinds of ways. Sometimes I am trying by being overly kind and ‘forgiving’. Sometimes I am trying with aggression.
• Many times I just lose my consciousness when the situation gets too tense. I mean when I am trying to convince the world around me. I either overachieve or underachieve.
• I just don’t know what causes my lack of self-confidence. 
• This works! I need to find what causes it. 
• What is the real root cause?
• Am I not good enough? That is hardly the answer.
• …
• It is not because I don’t trust myself. Indeed, I don’t trust myself but it is not the cause.
• This is the real root cause: I don’t have self-confidence because I am afraid to lose my sense of safety.
• This sounds strange but it is true.
• In other words, I don’t have self-confidence because I am afraid!!!
• I am afraid of what others will say. 
• When I really think about it deeply, this is what I see in myself: When I look at myself in times of lack of self-confidence, I see that I start to question myself because I start to think about what others will think. And this is why it is the real cause.