Self Observation

This is a fascinating technique to examine yourself. What you do is simple, but profound. Just step "outside of yourself" and observe your emotions with a nonjudgmental totally unbiased way. Almost as though you are a scientist doing an experiment and noting information to use in a research paper. It has work wonders for me and the improvement of the "inner Jijo"

For example I have been dealing with someone at work that is a contrarian. You know the type you encounter from time to time. He/she always wants to disagree. You say the sky is blue he/she will say, "well not really you see there are clouds in the sky so technically it is white sometimes and when it is getting ready to rain it can turn grey....." ARRRRAAGGGGHHHH!!!!

Now in the scenario above I would have in the past dismissed it as his/her problem, but with self observation I look at myself. Why am I getting so upset about that person. Look deep. I see, I feel he/she is just trying to be difficult. Look deeper. My point is so right how good he/she disagree with me! Look deeper. I want to be right all the time. Look deeper. It hurts my ego when people disagree with me! AHHAAAA!!!!! Now we are getting somewhere. It is that ego again!

Now the trick is with these discoveries is to not judge because I tend to do that a lot. I think oh my goodness why can't I be more humble. The trick is to be AWARE of it. Awareness is everything. There is a saying "the truth shall set you free" I believe "Awareness shall set you free".

On that note I highly recommend Antony DeMelo's book "Awareness" he explains all this much better than I could possible dream of doing.

Try it out. See if self observation works for you. Just be ready to be humbled!