8. Observation

Observing is for most people something unnatural. We are used to participate in a conversation. Sometimes we react without thinking. Sometimes we speak without listening. When we observe, we do the opposite. The easy thing about observing is you can learn it by just doing it. The hard part is that you have to do it a lot.

Exercise for at home

You can practice by watching pictures. Take any picture out of the newspaper. Describe the surrounding. The persons, the interaction between the persons. Watching this picture? When you observe, try keeping the following things, interpret, what you feel, In other words try starting your sentences with:

• I see / I hear …
• Or I interpret…
• Or I feel …

Tips

• “Interpretation”: it is night. Observation: I see a dark environment. I interpret this as being night.
• “Interpretation”: Person X is mad. Observation: I see that person X has a strange face. I interpret that he is mad.
• “feeling”: I feel my stomach hurts when I look at him.

This last part of the observation is an internal observation, mainly important to learn more about yourself, and to understand why you react to something.

Don’t ignore your feelings when you are observing. Write down what you feel and try to understand where this is coming from. Sometimes your subconscious mind tells you something you don’t know yet.

Example: There is a section in the movie Disclosure, where Tom Sander (Michael Douglas) stops a sexual intercourse. When he later listens to a recording from that event, he realizes that his partner was coughing at a moment this typically does not happen. That made him realize she played and planned it all. His subconscious mind had already noticed it, he just could not see it clearly.

As an exercise it is very interesting to limit your observations.

Examples:

• Only listen: Observe a conversation blindfolded…
• Only watch: observe the body language… (listen to music instead)
• Observe only the (possible) interaction between people, for example try to see who ignores the leader
• Only check if the body language is congruent with what the persons says.
• Are they toughing each other?
• What is the distance between the people?
• Are they watching each other right in the eye?
• Do they laugh a lot?
• What do you notice about the noise they make?