Being A Detached Witness
Perhaps the key to everything — to all thorny and tricky circumstances in Life — is not to take things so seriously.
Not to worry.
People always say, and I tend to dread it especially coming from a fellow Singaporean in a Singlish slang, "Aiyah, don't worry lah!".
As if their comment to not worry is a magic incantation that immediately wipes out your worry and gives you access to happily-ever-after land.
As if cares and concerns can be erased like marker stains on a whiteboard.
It's not like that, as we all are aware. Yet we engage in the same manner of self-talk towards ourselves.
I believe rather than telling ourselves not to worry, what is more useful is to remind ourselves to detach from the situation.
As a wise fox once said, detachment is a vital skill that allows us to view intense personal situations more objectively, in turn giving us greater clarity.
Let me illustrate with a recent example.
In a large part due to my fatigue from being out for more than 12 hours — and constantly surrounded by people, which drains me exceedingly — I was caught in a whirlwind of violent emotions.
Feeling very strongly. Bawling my eyes out.
I went to sleep with puffy eyes.
When I woke up, my eyes were still puffy and I was still feeling down.
But the notion of detachment came to me and I tried to embody it in that instant.
What did I do?
I began to witness myself with no judgement or attachment — to witness my thoughts and feelings from a detached third-party perspective.
"I am witnessing that she is feeling depressed at the moment."
"I am witnessing that her eyes are puffy from all the crying."
"I am witnessing that she is thinking, everything she does is meaningless and her life and existence is insignificant."
Detachment helped me to some extent, not to entirely succumb to my dark thoughts.
It also created a spaciousness within.
As I viewed myself from a third party perspective, I observed the towering waves of my depressive feelings like those tsunamis in natural disaster documentaries — I was no longer that hapless beachgoer about to be completely engulfed in those waves.
There was a sort of calmness in the desperation, a stillness in the chaotic scene.
Soon after, I managed to fall in a peaceful deep sleep and wake up the next day to the light.
The sun was out again.
Second Photo by Levi Bare on Unsplash
