The Watcher: A Responsible Discipline For Managing The Voices in Your Head

A HeartPoint - Phoenix Centre Fas-trax Booklet
The Watcher: A Responsible Discipline for

Managing the Voices in Your Head
Wayne C. Allen, M.Th.

2000
© 2000 Wayne C. Allen, M. Th.
The Phoenix Centre Press

94 Arthur Street South
Elmira, Ontario N3B 2N6
519 – 669 – 8880
e-mail: wcallen@home.com
web site: http://www.phoenixcentre.com
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For information, contact:
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N3B 2N6
Introduction
This book is the result of a depression that lasted for approximately 5 hours. It was a topic of conversation
between me and my therapist and friend, Gloria Taylor. I described the process I led myself through during
the depressive period and Gloria replied, “There’s your next book!” I agreed.
First, though, a disclaimer. I am not, for a moment, suggesting that you self-diagnose and
self-treat depression. Indeed, as you explore learning more about yourself, your moods,
emotions and self-talk, a professional counsellor or therapist is the best idea going. Part of
the process of self exploration – the essential ingredient, in my view, is the presence of and
interaction with an observer or witness who can help guide the process. This book is
intended as a guideline and as an alternative approach to life and to the emotions. How you
choose to use this information is solely your responsibility.
Having said that, let me tell you about my first and only major depression. It began in the late summer of
1978. I had just been let go from a job - one I disliked but which was paying my way, and I decided to take
a few days off and do some photography. During college I’d been a commercial photographer, advertising
mostly, and had a photo studio for a year or so when I first moved to Canada. I decided to go off to
Algonquin Park in the near north of Ontario, backpack into the park and take a pile of pictures.
I went in May. There was, back then, snow in Algonquin in May. Being from somewhat sunnier climes, I
hadn’t anticipated that. I wasn’t prepared, clothes wise, equipment wise or emotionally, for 5 days in the
snow. I did it anyway. (As those of you who know me start laughing and say, “Of course he did!”)
I froze my butt off, took lousy pictures and sat at my fire each night, chain smoking my pipe (1978,
remember) quietly and thoroughly taking myself apart. I managed to do such a thorough job of self-hate that
by the end of the 5 days, my spirit had fled and I was in the dumper. I got home, processed the rolls of film,
confirmed my premonition that the pictures would suck, and promptly sat down in my green leather reclining
chair, vowing to stay there until I died.
Each day I would leave my bed and go to my chair. I’d drink Pepsi, watch tv and stare out the window. My
wife (ex-wife since the early 80’s) would hand me food and I would eat. I survived somehow, but the days
were endless, bleak and black.
I climbed out of the chair and the depression in September, when I started attending a seminary in Toronto.
That experience led to my getting my Masters in Counselling in '83, and establishing The Phoenix Centre for
Creative Living. Since 1978, I have had several episodes of depressive feelings, none lasting longer than a
day or two, most measured in hours. I’ve never taken drugs for any of this, and I believe that my path out
of this loop was in my personal exploration of my internal theatre. As time has passed, I have become more
and more convinced that wisdom comes as we understand and have compassion for this inner realm.
© The HeartPoint - Phoenix Centre

& Wayne C. Allen 3 All rights reserved
Many clients come to me wishing to have me somehow take away their pain. They want to stop hurting, to
stop hurting themselves, to be happy. They assume everyone else on the planet is happy, and that they are
doing something wrong. They blame their parents, their partner, their kids - and most of all they blame
themselves. They tell me how difficult, if not impossible, change is. They tell me that they have tried, really
tried, to change. And they are definitely not pleased to hear me say that they cannot change. What they can
do is to expand their repertoire.
Wait a minute! What do you mean I can’t change! What a useless booklet!
Well, hang on a minute.
Keep reading. What I’m saying will become more and more clear as the pages go by. Who we are at our
cores is hard wired in. My depressive nature, as well as my infamous temper, is a part of me. It used to be
that I thought I simply got depressed (I even briefly jumped on the Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) - you
know, the winter blues - bandwagon.) And back before Gloria Taylor, my therapist, mentor and friend, got
hold of me in 1982, I’d have told you there was absolutely nothing I could do to control my temper and my
tongue.
What I learned was this - my temper and my moods are as much a part of me as my beautiful, deep blue eyes.
;-) What I do with my moods and my temper depends on the breadth of my belief system and my willingness
to challenge my self-perception. And emphatically, all of this has to do with the amount of self discipline
I am willing to engage in. Because, even at this stage of my development, even in the year 2000, with 22
years of practice, it is easier to get depressed than to have the self-discipline to follow the process of working
through the depression. Or the anger. Or the self-doubts. Or the self-criticism. Or whatever game I choose
to play out.
So, let’s have a look at how all of this is set into motion, and look at alternatives. Relax and come along for
the ride.

The Voices in Our Heads
OK. Let’s put our cards on the table. Everyone on the planet hears internal voices. There’s some form
of nattering going on between our ears all the time. It’s why meditation, which is really just sitting still and
being quiet, is so difficult. It’s not the sitting. The difficulty comes from the distraction of the mental chatter,
which Buddhists call “monkey mind.” Yack, yack, yack.
Just prior to sitting down to begin writing this, as I was walking down the hallway outside my office, my
“editor” voice started writing this book. The words were being “said” in my head. All I had to do was sit
down at the computer and begin typing. This, I would judge, is a positive voice.
There’s a book called The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, by Julian
Jaynes. One of the key ideas he presents is that 3000 years ago the link between the right and left
hemispheres didn’t exist. Back then, when people heard voices in their heads, they judged that the voices
were coming from “the gods.” My experience in the hallway, of hearing the words I “should” write for this
booklet, to our forebears, would have been seen as the muses or god “telling” me what to write. Divine
inspiration, in short.
Hmm. Maybe that still applies! I’ve always found my writing to be divine . . .
Anyway, we now know differently. Or, at least, we are aware that the voices in our heads are self-created.
Now, when I tell therapy stories to clients, I’ll describe the process as “hearing a little voice, whispering in
my ear.” Part of me really does think that “inspirations” such as these do come from the outside of me – the
other part knows I simply have a really elegant filing system in my brain, with lots of stories categorized,
and I’ve got a great librarian in there, handling the selection process.
We want to have a look at some categories of “little voices,” as it truly is crowded in our heads. I’m not
trying to cover all the possible voices – this booklet would be 1000 pages long if I did.
In the next chapter, we’ll have a really good look at developing the presence, activity and forcefulness of
a “voice” I call The Watcher.

The Voice of Ego - Identity
“Voices” or self perceptions, are created, not innate. They are the result of socialization. I’ve written about
this at length in my e-Zine, Into the Centre 1, and this understanding is contained in the first lesson of my
book Living Life in Growing Orbits: 52 Weeks to Wholeness.2 Additionally, you’ll want to read about ego
development in The NEW Manual for Life,3 written by my friends Bennet Wong and Jock McKeen.
Parents, institutions, the tribes and groups to which we belong, all “help us” to become individuated persons
by teaching us
• who we are (i.e. a separate entity) and
• how to fit in (i.e. the rules of the tribe.)
We are taught to repress what our tribe frowns upon, and to express what is considered valuable. So, if a
parent says, “Oh, Susie, you’re such a bad girl. You’ve gotten your dress dirty,” and Susie hears this often
enough, she will do one or more things with this information.
1) She may decide that dirty equals bad, and therefore be almost compulsively clean. She’ll hear a voice in
her head which constantly harps on the look of her house or the press of her pleats.
2) She may equate her persona to her environment, and judge her value on a cleanliness standard. If there’s
mud on her floor, she’ll go, “What will people think of me?”
3) She may consider herself to be dirty, and therefore be constantly washing, bathing, cleaning and buffing,
using sprays and potions to cover over “her odours.”
4) She may consider herself a “bad (dirty) girl,” and constantly natter at herself over why she can’t behave
like, you’ve got it, a “good girl.”
Now, there are tons of other responses she could also have. She could pretend to fight against the judgement
by doing more of it. Thus she would be of a rebellious nature, and spend her life getting dirty or being dirty,
maybe becoming a comedian with a vocabulary. In this case, the voice is saying, “I’ll show them! If they
think that’s bad, watch this!”
All of this is in response to just one statement, made repeatedly by, say, her parents. The voice and the ideas
of our parents, our tribes, lodge in the deep recesses of our sub-conscious mind. As we move through life,
the voice expresses itself through an auditory comment in our minds. The vocal expression might also come
with a bodily reaction, like a tightening of the stomach and a feeling of nausea, or a stiff neck, or lower back
1
To see a sample of, and subscribe to Into the Centre, go to
http://www.phoenixcentre.com/articles/current.htm
2
To see sample chapters, or to order this book, go to:
http://www.phoenixcentre.com/sample/starthere.html
3
To order Ben & Jock’s books, go to
http://www.phoenixcentre.com/company_store.htm

pain. (You might want to see the Body Work section of my web site4 to read more about these reactions, or
watch for my new book which includes this topic!)
What’s interesting about all of this is that this experience (and the beginning of all voices) begins with a
comment that is fixed in time. Perhaps Susie was 3 when the first “mess” happened. Then, mom and dad
decided Susie really was a mess, and commented regularly until she left for college, and frequently reinforce
their belief when they visit her house. The kick is, the basis of the voice begins at age 3, and in a sense, never
gets any older. As Susie speaks to herself about her sloppiness, the voice in her head is 3 years old. The
voice in her head has a 3 year old understanding. And three-year-olds have little choice.
The Voice of Fear - “I’m Scared!”
Believe this - no one is out to get us, to make our life miserable, to torture us. Parents and tribes have to
socialize us and help us to find ourselves. This ego project is critical. Our tribes help us to survive by
teaching us the rules. My theory, however, is that this project should end at age 16 or so, and the next stage
of development would begin, where we are helped to choose what we believe and who we are.
Unfortunately, our society is not so hot at doing this next life project, which I call, elsewhere, deconstruction.
So, the missing piece, for most people, is what comes next. For most people, there is no next. There’s just
a life of critical voices echoing in their heads, giving them grief, all put in place before the age of 16.
Everything from that point on simply builds on what was there. From this comes my belief that the
emotional maturity of most adults is 16. Or younger.
The fear or “I’m scared” set comes because, well, life is scary. Especially when you are small and feeling
helpless. This too is a part of growing up, and all of us have been abandoned to lie in the dark in wet diapers,
hungry and alone. It may have only been for a moment or two, but to an infant, it’s terrifying.
Many parents counter this sense of terror, which then gets externalized in to fear of “stuff,” by saying “Don’t
be silly. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” One of my friends talks about being scared during an electric
storm, and seeing her mom receive a shock. She remembers hiding under a table, and being dragged out by
her father, who used a variant of “For God’s sake, get over it” as a way of dealing with her terror. The result
is that she is still uncomfortable in electric storms, and fears showing her fear, or sadness, or tears, because
she expects not comforting, but “get over it.”
When she, as an adult, has this “fear” reaction, there’s this scared voice happening inside her head. The
voice she hears is the voice of the child, hiding under the table. My lost and alone voice belongs to my 6-
year-old self. It’s line is: “Oh no! If you do that, this and that terrible thing will happen, and you’ll be lost
and alone and everyone will hate you.”
4
To have a look at the Body Work section, go to:
http://www.phoenixcentre.com/bodywork/body_language1.htm

Sexual Voices
I was just working with a 17-year-old female client who is in a battle with her parents. They read her diary
and discovered she’d had sex with her boy friend, and they don’t approve of him.
Now, one sexual voice, which arrives with our experiencing sexual pleasure, is quite positive, and says
“Boy, I’d like to do that!” or “That feels soooo good!” or “I’d like to jump his bones.” The other voice, the
voice of sexual disgust, arises with the onset of puberty, or a little before, when the body seems to sense
the impending changes. This happens because most, say, 12-year-olds think sex is gross. The voice is
curious, but thinks fluids and kissing and touching and “that” is really, really weird. This sense of weirdness
gets coupled with whatever messages the parents and tribes are sending regarding sex – which are typically
about the morality of certain acts. Some things (holding hands, kissing) are OK, others (having sex,
masturbation) are deemed “bad.” More fodder for the voice.
My client desperately wants her parents to like her boyfriend and be OK with her emerging sexuality. I
talked about how difficult it is for parents to accept their child’s sexual activity even when they do like their
child’s partner. The real problem is that it is difficult for many parents to get their heads around their
daughter having sex. She couldn’t see why they wouldn’t just treat her like an adult and accept her sex life.
To demonstrate, I used my favourite example, which you can now think about. I’ll bet you’ll react as my 17-
year-old client did. Imagine your mother, on her back, gripping the headboard, your father on top, (you might
even imagine them in your favourite position) your mother writhing in ecstasy, screaming, “That’s right!
That’s it! Give it to me, baby!”
Ouch. I’ll bet you’re a bit pale, maybe grimacing, maybe clutching your throat, feeling a bit sick. (And of
course, my point was that, in my client’s case, mom and dad were imagining her on her back, in bed, doing
the same thing, and they had the same reaction.)
The part of you that’s having the aversion reaction is 12 years old. Imagining our parents having sex almost
universally triggers this reaction (which is part of the incest taboo), so it’s a good demonstration
visualization. This voice has much to say about many of your sexual activities, and is the voice that often
blocks sexual experimentation. “That’s gross. Only bad people do that!” is the voice of the 12-year-old.
As an experiment, going back to our first example, clear the visualization, and say to yourself, “My parents
had sex often and well, and enjoyed it as much as I do (assuming you enjoy it.) Their sex life was full and
adventuresome, and resulted in me!” If you did that and are basically OK with it, you’ve just inserted a
corrective, and the voice you used is the voice I’ve dubbed The Watcher.

“Try Harder” Voices
Most North Americans have work-related voices, usually passed on both by “dad” and our culture, that natter
at us endlessly about “nose to the grindstone, don’t be a slacker, you gotta work until you drop” kinds of
things. Indeed, most of us grew up watching our fathers (and since the 60’s our mothers) do exactly that. The
messages came across, though, as demands.
This voice harps in our ear constantly about working harder, trying harder, and also gives us grief for failure.
Ben Wong & Jock McKeen make the point that this is the essence of the ego development project. Here is
this incomplete person, who has repressed the things her tribe told her to repress, who confronts life with
a limited skill set, and is driven by inner voices to attempt perfection. Since perfection is not possible, she
is doomed to fail, and then the voice kicks in and gives her grief for screwing up. Barely pausing for a breath
(like this paragraph . . . ) the voice tells her to smarten up and, this time, to be perfect. And on and on.
The set-up is a no-win one. Yet we buy into it because it seems like the only show in town. As everyone
around us is doing it too, or so it appears, it actually is the only show in town. Until we consciously choose
to explore what we’re doing and make changes in what we do when we hear the voice.
The Voice of Sacrifice – “Don’t Be Selfish”

This voice is similar to the one above, and arrises when we are kids and didn’t want to share our toys. We
hear “Don’t be selfish,” but learn (usually by watching mom) “Don’t think of yourself at all.” As we get
older the game becomes one of manipulation.
People discover that others will do what they want if they whine, or criticize, of judge. So, they come out
with “If you love me (or your kid, or your job) then you’ll . . .” The person’s “sacrifice” voice kicks in and
says, “See. You’ve been caught being selfish again. Always thinking of yourself. No wonder no one likes
you.” And so, you do what the person asks, (and here’s the kicker) resentfully.
This is not to suggest that we never take the wishes of others into consideration. It is a suggestion that
perhaps the needs of others (with the exception of small children in our care) are not more important than
our own. Indeed, if I am to grow and develop as a person, I am going to annoy a lot of people by changing
my attitudes and actions. Where I might have automatically done as I was asked, I now judge whether I
choose to act in a certain way.
Moms have a way of setting us off in this area. My mom doesn’t like my long hair. It’s been that way for
four years now, but hey, she figures, one day she’ll say just the right “don’t be selfish” line and I’ll cut it.
She tries, “You don’t look neat, like I remember you,” (meaning when I was a kid.) Then she tries, “Other
people’s sons don’t look like you” (meaning you’re an embarrassment to me and don’t look like everyone
else - I’ve failed at socializing you.) Or, “If you really loved me, you’d cut your hair.” (To which, with a grin,
I reply, “If you really loved me, you wouldn’t ask.”)

The Voice of Teenage Rebellion
This is the voice of, “You can’t make me!” Anyone who has been around a teen likely remembers hearing
some version of this one, and if you’re honest you’ll remember your own rebellions.
My favourite Dar “rebellion story” is that she sewed a lot of her own clothes. This was during the late 60’s
and early 70’s, so Dar sewed mini-skirts. She was still in High School and living at home. Dar knew her
parents wouldn’t approve of where she wanted her hemline to be, so rather than fight with them, she’d make
the skirt several inches shorter than what she really wanted. Her mom would take one look and tell her to
lengthen it. Dar would argue a bit, then give in and sulk off to her room, there to gleefully lengthen her skirt
to the length she actually had in mind. This is passive rebellion, to a tee.
My first marriage (which I wrote about briefly in my booklet “Compassionate Relationships,”) happened
because my parents uttered the following clause at the end of a sentence - “You can love her and look after
her, but you can’t marry her.” My teenage rebel went, “Wanna bet? You can’t tell me what to do!” I married
her two days later. This is active rebellion.
Another, more serious way this voice comes out is when we’re hurting ourselves in old and predictable
ways, and someone offers us an alternative view (like this booklet!). The inner, rebellious, know-it-all voice
goes, “What does he know? This is the way I am and I’ll be damned if I’ll change just so I’ll feel better. He
wants me to come up with alternative behaviours. I’ll show him. I’ll refuse to even listen to his ideas.”
Great. Boy, that was standing up for yourself. Except in the rebellion, the stomping of the feet, nothing
changes and life is hard, and there you are, feeling proud of yourself for standing up to the suggestion of
another way! Boy are we ever good at making ourselves miserable, eh?
The Hyper-Inflated Voice

This voice comes in two flavours. Or at least it seems like two flavours. The “positive” version is the voice
of the “entitled” person. This voice judges that, because the person is so “special,” people should treat them
specially. This voice expects others to immediately notice them. Secondly, because of this noticing, the
voice expects others to place its owner’s needs before their own.
Now, in reality (whatever that is!) I know that people don’t necessarily notice us much at all – and certainly
not in the way this voice implies. People actually notice themselves and their reactions to stuff. None of us
actually relate to others at all. We relate to others through the mental image we have of others.
This voice, however, expects that people should be aware of its “owner’s” moods and needs (through
telepathy - this voice says, “I shouldn’t, in my importance, have to tell anyone anything.”) This voice also
expects that others have nothing better to do than to meet the unstated need. Needless to say, this voice gets
constantly disappointed. Eventually, this voice becomes aggressively external, and shouts, “Don’t you know
who I am???”

The other flavour of this voice provides “hyper-inflated self-criticism.”
My mom is a classical “negative hyper-inflation person.” She is always sicker than anyone else. She is
always the most hard done by person on the planet. She will do anything or say anything to get others to
notice her negative condition. Lately, she’s even taken to being quite nasty in order to prove how unloved
she is. Interesting approach, eh?
When I was at Haven5 a month ago, there was a Phase 1 happening at the same time. I got to know some of
the people. One day, one of the women said, “You know, I’ve just realized I’m an arrogant, controlling
bitch.” I suggested she put that on a tee shirt.
Now, my mom, and others who hyper-inflate, would need to put their list on a nightshirt. Big words, lots
of them. “See? I’m more screwed up than you are! More hard done by. More confused. Don’t you see how
special I am?”
In both cases, the voice of hyper-inflation blocks us from being able to hear, truly hear, others. Dar, for
example, may say, “When you use that tone of voice, I want to shut down.” If I am truly listening to her, I’ll
be curious about her reaction and want to know more. If I go into the hyper inflated voice place, the
“positive” voice will say, “How dare she! Doesn’t she know I’m a therapist? I know how to talk, after all.
Who does she think she is?” The negative voice, on the other hand, will say, “Do you know what I’m doing
with your words? I’m hurting myself. See? I just can’t get this stuff. I don’t know why you stay with me.”
If I say any of these lines out loud, without using The Watcher, I will be trying to manipulate Dar into
changing what she is saying, for fear of “hurting me.” In my manipulation, I cease to be in contact.
In neither case am I hearing her. I am, in both cases, attempting to get the focus over to me and my needs,
effectively totally discounting Dar.
5
Ben & Jock’s training centre on Gabriola Island, off the coast of Nanaimo, B.C.
For information on their programs, go to
http://www.pdseminars.com

The Voice of “Understanding”
We in the West value, above all else, explanations. We hover around the tv, listening to commentators tell
us what things mean. We assume they actually know something.
Our “Understanding Voice” wants, above all, to know “why.” Why this or that was done, why I said that,
what my motivation is. The last thing this voice wants to hear is, “You do that because that’s what you do
when you feel stress.” Or feel whatever you’re feeling.
No, there must be an explanation. But the endless search for the explanation leads us deeper into our heads,
and often deeper into despair. We begin to look for things or people to blame, situations or people to fight
with or run from. All because we think we understand why we are the way we are. Or because we can’t
figure out why were are the way we are.
If, for example (and this is true of me) someone says something I choose to take personally, my tendency
is to want to pull away, feel sorry for myself, and feel self-righteous, as in “That’s not fair! She shouldn’t
treat me that way!” I can pretty well guarantee that this will be what my internal process will look like.
If I go there, I’ll physically pull away and sulk. If I then trigger the Voice of Understanding, I’ll sit there in
my aloneness, analysing myself. “I’m this way because of my parenting,” or “I’m that way because I was
short,” or “This always happens to me because I’m unlovable.” Whatever. But the actual result is still the
same. I stay by myself, out of contact, make myself feel more miserable, and nothing changes. Even more
strangely, the next time, I’m going to do it all over again, the same way. The Voice of Understanding, for
all its “brilliance,” doesn’t notice how “stuck” it is.
The Voice of Sadness and Depression
We gain this voice as we experience the world. The world is a profoundly variable place, full of exquisite
beauty and senseless violence. Just yesterday, a Canadian Bi Athlete was mauled to death by a bear while
out for a training run. Senseless. Little kids see and take in the capricious nature of life from the get go. If
they have depressive parents, they see a model of taking what is happening and despairing over it. Even
without a model, almost all of us, at some time in our lives, will experience enough “bad” stuff in a row to
cause us to question whether it’s worth being alive at all.
This, as opposed to understanding that life is not awful, but rather, is neutral. It is our interpretation that
makes something good or bad. The wise person, in the end, knows this, and knows there are no explanations
for the senselessness of some aspects of life, other than understanding that, at a deep level, I really don’t
understand. Most people simply take situations and awfulize them. This is the voice of negativity, sadness,
melancholy and depression.

For me, this voice is a constant companion. My parenting was interesting. I’m an only child (thus the inflated
ego, I hear you saying) and am reasonably smart (see, I learned to be modest) good looking in a middle aged
sort of way (God, it’s tough when you have so much to be humble about) and highly proficient at what I do.
(That’s a statement of fact.)
My dad, as I look back, was my friend, was kind, compassionate, caring, and a real “fixer.” And, he was at
work a lot. He’d toss a ball around with me and take me places, but parenting was left to mom. Mom . . .
mom . . . where do I begin?
For her, I was the star (emphasis on “star”) of the universe and certainly the centre of her universe. I walked
and talked before the age of 10 months (precocious) and much of the family mythology revolves around how
bright and social I was. One story: well before the age of 2, I could say, “The chiropractor says I have a
subluxation of the axis, which means a misplaced vertebrae.” And I did. Say it. To whomever would listen.
I used to put on little performances in the chiropractor’s waiting room. No wonder he drank.
I became a literal star both in church (singing solos and reading scripture, by age 6 or so) and at school
(always the lead role - until university - when I stopped acting for a while, angry that they didn’t appreciate
my talent.)
I also was not tall. I was, in fact, short. AND I lived, from birth until I was 17, in the city of Buffalo, N.Y.,
not known as a Mecca of peacefulness. I learned to use my mouth and my popularity to keep larger people
from beating the crap out of me.
I equated my self worth, I’ve since realized, to praise for a job well done. Marks mattered. Being the star
mattered. My mother equated her identity with mine. Before I got hoofed out of the church, that a story in
itself, my mother would introduce herself by, “Hello, I’m the minister’s mother.” I wanted my mother’s love,
so I performed, all the time, and the better I did, the more, it seemed, she loved me. I soon equated
performance to getting love, in general.
The problem with this approach to life, as any actor can tell you, is that your happiness is entirely dependent
upon the next review. And it becomes deadly easy for me to assume that people like “my act” – I can judge
that people like me for what I do for them, not for who I am. This often comes out as feeling hard done by.
My little voice is always there, but usually in the background. Left unchecked, it will offer comments
incessantly, all in the voice of the cruelest movie reviewer you can think of. No matter what’s going on, I
can find something in almost anyone’s actions that I can judge to be about me or my failings.
Which is not to imply that I don’t fail. I do. I always have the potential to take the situation and, like a good
critic, make it infinitely worse than it is. No matter that, almost universally, the dire things I am imagining
don’t happen and are clearly imaginary.

I started to come into a fuller understanding of this when I was training to be a therapist, in '81 and '82. I was
quick to help other Interns when I sensed they were in distress, and noticed no one “helped” me. When I
mentioned this to Gloria Taylor, then my supervisor, she said, “People see you as highly competent and not
in need of help. You’ll have to ask.” I was mortified at the thought, and secretly believed no one liked me
enough to care, so they’d never actually help if I did ask. Imagine my surprise when I bucked up my courage
and asked – and got what I asked for.
Another example (I’ve got a million of them, naturally.) Last month Dar and I decided to make a “Chapters
run.” “Chapters” is a Canadian book store chain with comfy chairs and Starbucks coffee. We often head off,
pile up magazines and books, drink coffee, smile at each other and end up spending way too much money.
Dar had a bit of a headache. In the car, she was quiet. (Dar IS quiet.) I raised a topic for conversation, and
got not much response. I reached for her hand and judged that her hand was stiff and not really holding mine.
My immediate reaction was that I’d done something wrong, and had made her sad. Now, I know that I
absolutely believe that no one can make another person sad or anything else, and I almost never jerk my
chain with others, but with Dar, I can go right into over-responsibility mode.
So, I sulked and felt sorry for myself. She asked me about what I’d e-mailed to a friend of ours. I
immediately decided that she was mad at me for taking time to send an e-mail ahead of our date. And on and
on.
I got over myself a couple of hours later, when I was doing Body Work on Dar to help with her headache.
And I’ve just realized that I felt better because I was “doing something to help.” I was then able to stop the
voice which was trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. And, of course, both at Chapters and at home,
Dar and I talked about what I was doing to myself.
And what had I done wrong? Nothing. Dar had a headache, and was feeling achy and didn’t want to talk.
Or, she was saddening herself. Or she was feeling uncommunicative. Whatever Dar was doing was all
about Dar. I KNOW this. But I learned long ago, at my mother’s knee, that the world revolves around me.
It had to be about me, didn’t it? Well, no.
As an adult, I have a choice to recognize how I am setting things up. This is not easy. My tendency is to go
in the direction of blaming myself or feeling unloved. From there, it is a simple step to feeling useless. From
there, to sadness, to despair, to depression. All because my learned-world-view has something to do with
me being a star, being noticed, being praised.
Since the world is not designed to treat any of us this way, I’m bound to be disappointed.
So, I can try to change my world view. But I can’t. That part of me has been there since I was hatched. The
best I can hope for, the best you can hope for, is to understand how you hurt yourself with your beliefs,
played out by “your voices,” and how to find a calm centre in you, (The Watcher,) to counter the words and

to offer yourself a choice of different responses. Again and again, for the rest of your life, offering yourself
a way out of the cycle. To this herculean task, I dedicate the rest of this booklet.

Identifying The Watcher
I’m not sure when I first made friends with my Watcher, but it’s been some decades now. This voice has
been identified in religious writings and in psychological texts, and is best described in the Buddhist texts
as the voice of calm, detached observation. Non attachment is the nature of The Watcher.
I describe The Watcher as that part of me that names things and offers what are called, in the counselling
biz, “meta comments.” Meta comments are about what is happening under the surface, not about the surface
details. So, when I go about sulking and blaming and feeling hard done by, my Watcher might ask, “What
do you really need right now?” Often, my reply has to do with needing a hug - physical contact, as a
reassurance. If my Watcher doesn’t ask me, I am content to blindly wander around, thinking and acting out
“Everybody uses me, nobody loves me.”
A simple exercise will familiarize you with the voice of your Watcher. Most people initially find meditation
to be difficult, and the difficulty is in how easily we distract ourselves. The voices start into, “This is silly.
What a waste of time. You should be thinking about . . .” And off we go, fidgeting around, thinking, then
giving ourselves grief for not being able to “just sit.”
Try this: sit down, comfortably. Have a deep breath or two. Now, let your eyes roam the room in a random
way, and as you see something, internally, to yourself, name what you see. “Chair. Picture. Window. Dar.
Ben, Jerry. Floor. Jazz.” Do this for 5 minutes or so.
That was The Watcher doing the naming. Notice that The Watcher simply names - it doesn’t attach
“meaning.” That would be what the other voices do, and meaning making leads to other distractions. I can
see Dar or Ben & Jerry (you’ll have to ask Dar . . . ;-) ) and from there lead myself down all kinds of fun and
interesting paths about our life and our loving. Or I can just let The Watcher see Dar and name her. And then
move on.
Learning to hear the voice of The Watcher is the first step. You’ll begin to recognize that this voice has been
with you since the beginning. The Watcher is the voice of identification (naming) and of curiosity (“I
wonder what’s really going on for you right now,” or “I wonder if you can be even more depressed.”) The
curiosity part fits in with the meta comment idea presented at the beginning of this chapter.
Where we normally head down a strange path is when the critical voice(s) kick in. We hear the voice and
follow in the direction the voice suggests. Now, as the voice comes either in a time of high emotion, or
creates a state of high emotion, as soon as emotion begins, reason flies out the window.
Having said that, you might wonder why we don’t change our ways. The answer is disconcertingly simple.
In the midst of a situation with a charge - an emotion - we have a strong pull to do what we’ve always done.
If we, for example, judge that someone is being critical of us, we begin almost immediately to do what we
have always done in such situations. The voice starts into urging us to do whatever we do.

A friend of mine, in this situation, does two things:
1) he makes a hard, snap decision not to let anyone know what’s really going on for him, and
2) he starts criticizing himself for not changing him behaviour.
What this gets him, of course, is this:

1) People are unaware of what is happening under the surface for him. He is feeling scared and
lost and alone, thanks to his voice reminding him that no one, ever, has wanted to really
know him. This, in turn, goes back to his parenting, when he was told, when crying or feeling
lost and alone, that “boys don’t cry.” So, he gets defensive and comes up with a list of all the
reasons why he should feel bad about himself.
2) He goes inside and judges that he’s doing something wrong, and has to change his ways, but
the voice reminds him that:
a) you don’t tell people stuff about your hurts, as they’ll hurt you more and
b) if only he’d try harder, he could stop this cycle and never experience it again. (This,
of course, isn’t possible.)
Now, trying to help him see how his past patterns of behaviour lead nowhere is almost impossible while he’s
doing this, as he is quick to discount anything I might say. In other words, once he starts down this path, he
will fight like hell to stay on it, becoming more and more self righteous with each breath, yet more in pain
and more isolated with each breath.
The last time this happened, I kept asking him, “What do you need?” Him immediate response - “I don’t
know what I need! If I knew what I needed, I wouldn’t be in this mess!” I persisted. He replied, “I suppose
I should say that I need to talk.” I indicated that I wasn’t interested in what he thought he should be asking
for. I wanted to know what he needed.
Ultimately, he just wanted to talk and hurt and be sad and not be abandoned. Now, asking for this is
extremely tough, as you open yourself right up to rejection. I was a safe bet. In a sense, I was providing an
experience he has been seeking since his childhood.
That, however, was a ton of work. What is missing for him, and for most of us, and is the real point of this
booklet, is that he has not established a firm plan for dealing with this repeating pattern in his life when he
is not experiencing it.
Notice that one, please. I suspect that most of us, when we stop doing numbers on ourselves, are so relieved
we don’t even want to think about, let along set in place a strategy for “the next time.” A few years ago a
friend and her son moved in with Dar and me prior to her returning to school. We’d talked a lot about the
many failed relationships she’d been in, and Dar and I were attempting, by our presence, interest and
involvement, to teach her another way to relate.

Well, she met a guy in a local park, they started to talk, and she got really interested in him. I concerned
myself the second she told me he had uttered the infamous line, “My wife doesn’t understand me.” I
wondered aloud about what she was setting up, but she kept reminding me that she knew what she was
doing. I shut up.
I then met the guy and had a real, gut reaction that he was “soulless.” Dar had the same reaction. We shared
our reaction with our friend. She dismissed our opinions. About 6 weeks later, she had a date with him and
came to the same conclusion. She dropped him.
She was really proud of herself, having only been taken in for 10 weeks or so. I suggested that maybe we
should talk about how she got hooked at all. She looked at me with horror. “No! I never want to talk about
him again! I know I’ll never do that again. I’ve got it all figured out!” Needless to say, she’s done it again.
I understand her reluctance to dredge the experience up, and to plan, in detail, alternatives. My friend from
the first example has learned, once, to trust going with asking for what he wants. Next, he needs to think
about how to set that in motion when the voices first begin their “work.” If he resists, he will surely end up
stuck in exactly the same place. He may remember, ultimately, what worked this time and implement it. It
would be far better, however, if he had a “plan” in mind, sharing his “internal theatre” space with the critical
voices. The “part” of him that speaks the role of the alternative plan is The Watcher.
The Watcher, for me, is that part of me that asks me, repeatedly, why I am doing what I am doing. It
encourages me to move from judging myself and criticizing myself – being angry with myself for being me.
For instance, if I am depressing myself, I have conditioned my Watcher to ask,
1) how long will you need to do this for?

2) will you allow yourself to feel your pain, yet not judge yourself?
3) will you give yourself permission to do even more of what you are doing?
4) surely you can do more of that, can’t you?
5) what, specifically, have you done in the past to move past this?
6) what do you need right now, that you’re not getting?
7) would you be willing, right now, to ask for what you need?
8) if not, when will you ask?
9) how much deeper can you go into what you need right now?
You’ll notice a pattern to this questioning. Let’s look, in turn, at the meaning behind each question.

The Path of Self - Knowing –
Implementing “Watcher” Questions
As we indicated last chapter, The Watcher needs constant development and encouragement, as this voice
stands firmly on the side of self-knowing. This part of us has as its task a great curiosity about how we see
things, what we’re setting up and how we are conducting ourselves.
Without this form of insight, disaster looms, and things get out of control quite rapidly. As a fresh example,
a young woman just left my office. She has just had a mild suicide attempt, scratching her wrists with a
razor. This in response to her boyfriend and friends giving her a hard time - pointing out, as she put it, “all
the bad stuff I’ve done.” Her response was to go into the bathroom of a restaurant and cut herself.
I asked her how she moved from opening her makeup case, so she could fix her makeup, mussed from
crying, to breaking off the end of a razor and scratching her wrists. She didn’t know. All she knew was that
she was angry and hurt, in the bathroom being both, listening to the voices in her head giving her grief over
her life, and suddenly she’s in the back of an ambulance with tape on her wrists.
My concern is for that lost moment, that “I don’t know” moment when the voices in her head were so loud
that they blocked out reason and perspective. We’ll leave out the fact that she also confirmed that this was
a way to get attention and sympathy from her friends, as opposed to their criticism. Even if that was the
hidden agenda, the point still stands. How did she move from anger and sadness to taking the chance of
killing herself? She wasn’t Watching.
Thus my questions, each designed to be asked, internally or out loud, by me, to me. I have a pre-arranged
agreement with myself to do this as quickly as possible as I notice I’m hurting myself. I practice all the time,
wondering with myself about who I am and what I’m about. I’ve gotten so used to asking myself about my
experiences when nothing is going on, that I’m able to implement this strategy when a real issue arrises.
Here’s a discussion point regarding each question.
1) how long will you need to do this for?
The very first question acknowledges our need to feel our feelings. At Haven and at The HeartPoint -
Phoenix Centre, this is a given. I want to repeat this endlessly – those characteristics of ourselves that we
judge to be “bad” are aspects of ourselves nonetheless. The feelings need expression.
For example, it is not a terrible thing that I know that I am self-critical. The problem arises when I blame
myself and beat up on myself for being self-critical. If I can simply and non-judgmentally be self-critical,
I find that the need passes quickly.

I am usually able to answer this question. I acknowledge to myself, and typically to Dar (it’s great to do this
process out loud, with a witness, as this demystifies the process) what I am doing to myself, and give an
estimate of how long I will need to do it for. I want to acknowledge and breathe into the emotion I’m feeling,
and choose to feel it fully, without looking for whom or what to blame. I have a need, and I’m filling it. I
also want, by answering this question, to remind myself that no feeling I’ve had, to date, has lasted forever.
As a matter of fact, when I allow myself to fully feel a feeling, it passes within minutes.
2) will you allow yourself to feel your pain, yet not judge yourself?
This is a preliminary request that you allow yourself to notice your resistence, notice your avoidance
strategies, listen to all of the voices telling you to “stuff it,” and yet choose to feel and express the pain
anyway.
Most children have been taught to repress the expression of what are judged to be “negative feelings” -
things like anger, rage, sadness, grief. Through subtle and not so subtle means, parents often reinforce the
idea that we should focus upon being socially acceptable as opposed to feeling our feelings and finding
healthy ways to express them. It’s no wonder that we’re so tight physically. We’re bottling ourselves up.
As we give ourselves permission to feel, touch and express our pain, we discover that far from our world
coming to an end, the pain’s expression brings release and relief.
3) will you give yourself permission to do even more of what you are doing?
Most of us fear our emotions and try to dampen them down. We think that if we give, say, crying full reign,
it will go on forever. In truth, nothing goes on forever.
Last week, at the Body Work course I attended at Haven, my friend David Raithby was doing Body Work
with me, and when he pressed my chest over my heart, a mixture of rage and sadness arose in me. I screamed
and cried, and David said, “What’s a word for what’s going on right now?” I replied, “Empty. I feel empty.”
David said, “Wayne, with every breath, breathe in more emptiness. Fill yourself to the brim with emptiness.”
I did.
What happened was that I briefly felt more empty, then very empty, then full of emptiness. And then, with
the next breath, I realized (my Watcher said) “You are much more empty now than a minute ago, and you
didn’t die. There is nothing to fear in emptiness.”
Bingo. I was fearing the empty feeling, shying away from it, and thus magnifying it in size and importance.
By doing more of it, I realized that far from being lethal, it was simply a feeling. In that moment of
realization, I began to let go of the need to let the emptiness scare me, control me, possess me. I could be
empty and whole at the same time.

4) surely you can do more of that, can’t you?
This question applies to the actual physical thing being done. If I am crying, I obviously can cry harder or
louder. Same with yelling, or kicking or other expressions of anger. With depression, I’m whiny and
hopeless, and I have infinite depths of this that I can drag out. Why do just a little, when doing it big gets
so much out?
The key is in the permission giving. To adequately experience what’s going on, it’s essential to be willing
to dive as deeply as possible into the expression of the feeling. Often, there is great resistance to doing this.
So, we’ll cry “a bit,” or scream “a little,” or whine and moan “a bit,” all based upon our fear
• of what others will think, and

• that we’ll never be able to stop.
Now, of course, no one has ever cried or shouted themselves to death - we all wind down, and usually within
5 or 10 minutes. And the “what will people think” bit is actually a “thing” parents said to us - “Stop fussing.
You’ll make a scene. What will people think?” It’s a way of getting us to behave, and as kids, being
compliant, we want to make mom and dad happy, so we learn to stuff the expression of feelings.
Which is why it’s so important to have people in our lives who contract with us to be with us as we
experience our emotions – the drippy parts, the ecstatic parts, the loud parts. They can suggest, and our
Watcher can re-enforce, the need we all have to dig deep and feel – then express – our feelings.
5) what, specifically, have you done in the past to move past this?
This question is one The Watcher needs to ask religiously. As you move through this process, you will
remember instances when you tried something different. You may have gotten helpful results, or you may
have made matters worse. This question causes us to search our data banks for alternatives.
If I discover that talking through my issues, while allowing myself to have a good cry, has led to peace of
mind and a better solution to my issues, I want to remember that when I’m in the midst of stress and pain.
This question sets the remembering process in motion – something that we can forget to do in the midst of
feeling old patterns re-emerging.
6) what do you need right now, that you’re not getting?
The Watcher is a “depth” voice, in that the whole point of its existence is to push us deeper into ourselves.
Again, as I’ve said, the norm is to hear the nattering of the critical voices, to go into some form of defensive
posture and to wait out the eventual wind-down of whatever’s up. I’ve indicated that this approach solves

exactly nothing. As a matter of fact, the process is designed to keep us firmly in our egos, trapped in narrow
definitions of ourselves, miserable in our knowledge that “nothing can be done.”
Beneath this surface, knee-jerk response to life are a host of things buried at the depths. It’s like peeling
layers off onions. It’s all “onion,” but each layer is closer to the core of the thing.
A client was having a repeating moment not too long ago. A situation had arisen which caused her to go into
her normal pattern of self-righteousness, self-blame, self-loathing and anger. Then, to top it off, she moved
away from the root issue, which had to do with how she relates to others when she’s hurting. She locked into
wanting to shut down, to hide and if pressed, to complain. Her mind fixated on criticizing herself for always
hurting herself this way, and that led to her wanting to “never do it again.” Which, as I’ve said, is not
possible.
My approach with her was a lot like this book. The teacher part of me described what she was doing, and
advised that she make contact, both with me and with her peers. I then began to ask her what she needed.
She ran through a list (the layers) of diversions, including:
1. No one is ever going to understand me.

2. I can’t let people see my negative side.
3. I’m sick of always doing this. I have to learn to stop.
4. I’m a bad person for not stopping.
5. I suppose I should ask for a hug, but that won’t help.
6. No matter how hard I try, nothing works.
7. This is very familiar.
8. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid.
9. I always got told to “get over it” - no one wanted to see me in pain.
10. I need to be in pain.
11. I need to be in pain with a witness.
12. Will you please hold me and let me cry on your shoulder?
13. If only someone loved me when I’m sad or hurting.
14. I am loved when I’m sad or hurting, by you, and by extension, by others.
15. I could love myself when I’m hurting.
16. I will love myself, and will ask to be witnessed, cuddled, held, supported.
Now, I could comment on all of these, but let me summarize:
1 - 4 is the range of her normal responses. She stops here, hurts herself, blames others, blames herself, gets
indignant and loses contact. Her norm is to be stuck there and wait until something external changes.
5. First indicator that she actually does need something, but she’s an “independent adult” and will be
damned if she’ll ask or play that game.

6. Pushing past that, here’s the layer of self-realization. As she stops the self-flagellation, she realizes that
this behaviour set doesn’t work.
7 - 8. Once she’s stopped the externalizing, and as she pushes deeper, she realizes that her response to the
issue, far from being a “current response,” is actually as old as the hills. This, in turn, leads to the insight
that this behaviour was set in motion as a child.
8 - 11. Here’s the reframing of the original need. She revealed that, when, as a child, she was in pain, she
was told to get over it. What she wanted was to be allowed to be in pain (allowed, in the sense that parents
have to power, when we’re kids to “stop us” or “send us to our room,” if they choose not to “let” us have
our emotions. We learn from this to stuff our emotions, lest we piss off mom and dad.) She now begins to
own her right to hurt, to be sad, to cry, to be angry, AND she musters courage to ask someone for what her
parents failed to provide.
12. The request for the missing behaviour. Here, the healing begins. By being wise about whom she asks,
she can “hedge her bets” and almost completely assure herself of getting her need met. (Obviously, as a
counter idea, she might not want to go, initially, to her mom and dad with the same request.)
13 - 15. While being cradled, the question repeats, and by digging even deeper, she begins to realize that she
felt rejected for whom she was, i.e., unloved. She expresses the wish to be loved, and immediately realizes
that she is being cradled and cared about. This leads, in rapid succession, to the sense that she is both worthy
of love and is loved. From there it is a short step to loving herself and choosing to look after herself.
16. She makes a covenant with herself to repeat asking for support the next time this pattern begins. And
it will begin again. If she listens to her Watcher, however, she will, in the midst of her “normal” reaction
of distancing, move towards other people or towards re-parenting herself by being gentle with herself.
7) would you be willing, right now, to ask for what you need?
After you’ve “walked through” The Watcher, the first time, you’ve begun to put a pattern in place. The
question, after the first time, then, is not “how am I trapping myself into old stuff?” but rather, “will I return
to the old way of dealing with things, or will I implement The Watcher, push deep, and ask, directly, for
what I need.?”
Our tendency is, first of all, to annoy ourselves over the old pattern repeating. Often, we learn, once we
figure out how to deal with something more elegantly, the situations we confront get more difficult. It’s
almost as if the cosmos wants to test us to see if we really got the lesson. So, in the midst of the pain, and
the frustration, there is always a choice – will I go back to doing things the way I’ve always done them, or
will I implement the new strategy? How badly do I want to be sucked down the tube of old patterns, there
to crash and burn? How committed am I to the discipline of gently turning my attention from avoidance
behaviours into the depth of me - there to really feel what’s going on?

8) if not, when will you ask?
Sometimes, you’ll actually feel yourself wanting to re-visit the old way – to make yourself miserable – to
make noise and feel sorry for yourself. This question is there to remind you that this is OK. It’s OK because
you’re choosing to go into your pain, as opposed to ending up there as a knee jerk reaction. This question
implies that you do have choice, and one choice is to wait a bit before implementing another strategy. Also
implicit here is the concept that you will ask, will implement the new behaviour. You are no longer willing
to just do it the old way.
“I need to be miserable and feel sorry for myself, and I think I’ll take a hour to do that, then ask for what I
need and begin the process or coming out of the pit I just dug for myself.”
9) how much deeper can you go into what you need right now?
Again, as the patterns repeat, there is always more depth to explore. It’s an onion, remember? And a big one
at that. Each time through, you have the opportunity to dig a bit deeper into the origins and depth of the
issue, or to allow the feelings even deeper expression. This happens as we connect Body Work to our life
focus work. Sessions of Body Work strip away bodily armouring and out pops material that has been
trapped, perhaps forever, in the depths of us.
The point of The Watcher is always to push us deeper into ourselves, away from the shallow response, into
the depth of the feeling, the thought, the direction. We tend to touch and freeze, tighten, compact. The
Watcher is all about expansion.

Establishing a Watcher - the why and the how
Having said all of this, you’re probably wondering about “Watcher theory” and how to establish one of your
own.
The idea I’m working from here is that far too much of our lives are lived on auto pilot. We get into having
a conditioned response to internal distress. Or several conditioned responses. We do this because of the
human brain’s amazing capacity to filter information.
We hear only a small portion of the sounds around us – we hear what we consider significant. We see only
what we are focusing on. Mentally, we take from situations what we have pre-determined to be aware of.
Last week, for example, we bought a new cover for our spa. Dar suggested I help carry it into the back yard
prior to the arrival of my next client. I agreed, marched out to my truck and started to pull it out. Dar said,
“Do you realize your client is here and you walked right past both her and her car?” I turned, amazed, and
sure enough, had walked within 6 inches of a car containing my client. My filters were firmly in place – I
saw only the spa cover sticking out of my truck. I saw, in other words, only what I had pre-determined I
would see.
If, then, I have a voice in my head (a pre-disposition) to feel hard done by, I will have a filter in place that
is constantly scanning my environment, seeking confirmation that I am, indeed, hard done by. I will listen
to people, but really, I’m only half listening. The other half of me is busily discounting anything they are
saying that isn’t something I can feel hard done by about. If I get bored, and nothing’s coming, I can twist
the person’s words into something not meant, and get my “rush” of hard-done-by-ness. We all do this kind
of thing, continually.
Now, the “cure” such as it is, is not, emphatically, to “get over it.” We will always do what we do. What
I can “get over” is ONLY doing what I’m doing. I can, in other words, systematically create an alternative
set of behaviours, which, initially, I can “make myself” apply when I’m triggering myself with a voice I’m
wishing to counteract. I know I’ll have to come up with a way to make myself do this, because the “other”
voice is habitual – the “new voice” unfamiliar.
I’ve indicated often in my writings that I believe that we are living in an essentially benevolent universe
which continually provides us with experiences and lessons. I further believe that the timing of these events
is “perfect.” This is a prelude to saying that, just as I finished writing the last paragraph, a friend of mine
popped in. He described the following:
“I was down in Toronto and ran a half marathon. I did pretty well, considering I haven’t been
training much, due to my sore leg. I had fun and ran well. Then I decided to go to Runners
World and cash in a gift certificate. As I left the mall, I saw that they had roped off a section
of the parking lot for a wheelchair race. I watched the participants racing, and I thought,
“There, but for the grace of God, go I.” And felt so grateful for the race I’d run, for my

health, for my life. I realized how often I don’t notice things, and especially the things that
matter most. How do I get past only noticing the bad things? How do I remember to be
grateful?”
I told him what I’m now going to tell you (and isn’t it interesting that the wheelchair race happened to be
happening outside the door of the mall, the door he chose to use, precisely at the moment he was ready to
see?)
Mind Discipline
I picked up my copy of The Monk who Sold his Ferrari, by Robin S. Sharma, while eating lunch just now,
and picked up reading where I left off some weeks ago. I read,
“The sages taught me that on an average day the average person runs about sixty thousand
thoughts through his mind. What really amazed me, though, was that ninety-five percent of
those thoughts were the same as the ones you thought the day before!”
Our minds do what they do out of habit. Our minds receive information through our senses, and make
meaning of what we see. Now, in practical terms, this is a good thing. It would be a terrible universe if I
couldn’t, for example, remember what an eight-sided object, painted red, with “STOP” written on it, meant.
The meaning is agreed upon. We assume that the car approaching from the left, facing one of those signs,
will, in fact, know the meaning and stop.
If you came from Mars, however, you’d drive right through. Because nothing, not one thing, has intrinsic
meaning. Every single thing is neutral, until it hits the brain of an observer. This is so – and it is why we can
have the same objective experience as the person next to us, but will have a different interpretation.
Our societal conditioning leads us to respond to stimuli as others have taught us. My father, for example,
tends to walk away from conflict as opposed to getting angry, yelling, fighting back. I tend in that direction,
having learned that from him. On the other hand, I also learned from others not to back down from a threat,
(Buffalo, N.Y., remember) so I’m often torn between backing away and wanting to fight. I’ve had almost
50 years experience living in this contradiction.
Some years ago, I learned another approach - talking the issue through to resolution. As a result, I’m a pretty
god communicator. But, and this is big, when confronted with something to talk through, my instinct is to
walk away, or fight. To choose to communicate happens quickly, but, in an intense situation with someone
I love (and I therefore project more “meaning” on the comment made) I default initially to my “older”
interpretations and responses.
What I have learned to do, first of all, as I feel myself tightening up, in preparation to run or fight, is to
remind myself, using the voice of my Watcher, that my partner was trying to communicate something, and
I don’t know what. The reaction I am feeling to her words is due solely to my interpretation and has
absolutely nothing to do with her intent.

Nothing? How can this be? What if the person means to hurt me with her words? What if she admits it?
Well, we’ve likely all had the experience of hearing a small child, in his anger, say, “I hate you! Go away!
Forever!” Now, we may not “like” the words, but precious few choose to believe the child means what they
say. They’re just angry and using words to attempt to hurt. (Gee. I wonder whom they learned that game
from . . . ;-) )
In other words, we choose to let intentionally hurtful words go and continue to relate to the child. We
attempt to help the child deal with his anger, not taking the words personally. We eventually end up playing
and cuddling with the child, and the transaction is over.
Nothing changes if the words are spoken by our wife, our husband, our partner – unless we choose to
interpret the words as being threatening or hurtful.
The actual job of the Watcher, as we’ve said, is to produce an instant reaction to what we’re doing to hurt
ourselves, by asking the kinds of questions raised above. The watcher says,
“Woah. You’re really hurting yourself with your interpretation of what’s happening right
now. Remember. You don’t know what the other person means by those words or actions.
You’re inventing it as you go along. What do you want here?”
Now while this is going on, you’ll still feel hurt or angry or powerless or lost and alone. So, the Watcher
helps you to say, out loud,
“Wow. I’m really hurting myself with what I’m interpreting you said, and I’m curious if you
could say more about what’s happening for you. I’m going to listen and try to truly hear
you.”
You may also need to say,
“I need to feel sorry for myself for a minute, but I don’t want to break off contact.”
You might walk across the room and feel your feelings, then return and say,
“OK. Let’s continue.”
I’ve discovered, for example, that if I make space in my heart to really hear what Dar is saying, and if I
own that I can hurt myself with my interpretations of her words and actions, I’m halfway to having the
ability to stay engaged. The rest of the piece is this: in my quiet moments, I’ve continued to ask myself,
“what do I want out of this relationship?”

My answer:
“to be close and warm with Dar, to know as much as I can about her, and to share as much of
myself with her as I am aware of.”
(See my booklet on Compassionate Relationships, at

http://www.phoenixcentre.com/freebies/compassionate.htm) I have that same arrangement with one or
two others I am in relationship with.
Now, if, in a “conflict” situation, I begin to judge that Dar is attacking me, or doesn’t love me, or if I’m
judging that I’m not worthy of being in relationship with her, I’m certainly not going to find myself
warmly drawing closer to her. So I want to train my Watcher to say, for example, as I’m getting ready to
pull back,
“Is this action, or is the speech about how hard done by I am, going to bring us closer or
push us apart? If the latter, can I now choose to do something that will harm the
relationship, or will I stop myself instead?”
And if I were still, somehow, to choose the “pushing away” route, my Watcher would encourage me to say,
“I am now choosing to go with my internal need to feel sorry for me and to attempt to punish
you for my feelings, by saying something really stupid, designed to push you away. Here it
is.”
You can’t imagine actually saying that, right? Well, it was an honest accounting of the process. You resist
saying it because it sounds so childish, silly and counterproductive. Just blurting out the hurtful stuff is
equally as childish, silly and counterproductive. The only “gain” is that you can also add, lamely, “I couldn’t
help myself.” Phooey.
If you ever want to get to the point of having a meaningful, enlightened and deep life, with fulfilling
relationships the cover the gamut of passion and depth, you have to learn discipline. The very first discipline
necessary is to notice the spin you put on neutral data. Second, notice what you are trying to prove. Third,
notice evidence to the contrary. Fourth, choose your response based upon your actual goal of deepening
relationships and more insightful living.
Lets look at these concepts in turn.

Notice the Spin
You’ll begin to get this idea as soon as you give yourself permission to examine your life choices. In a
moment or 10 of reflection each day, preferably before bed, ask yourself,
“What stands out today, for me? What did I come across, whom did I have contact with?
What did I do with that which crossed my path?” If there has been an area of conflict, what
did you make of it - how did I interpret it?”
I once had a client tell me that she had survived two serious auto accidents in a year. After the first, she
thought, “God is trying to kill me, and has lousy aim.” After the second, “Now I’m sure God is out to get
me.” Hmm. Interesting spin, eh?
I know I am engaging in “spinning” if I say to myself, “nothing ever works out for me,” or “I am always
alone.” Any time I universalize an experience to always and never, I’m on auto-pilot, and am assuredly
discounting evidence to the contrary.
What Am I Trying to Prove?

A good question. The woman, above, was trying to prove that God was trying to kill her, and that it was only
a matter of time. Trying to prove I’m a terrible person requires discipline, in order for me to stay in hatred
of myself. Trying to prove I am alone and everyone hates me requires isolating myself and refusing to make
contact. Once I see that I am trying to prove something, I can wisely consider what it is I am trying to prove.
As a sub-set of this, another question is: Do I really want to prove this? Or am I really, fervently, wishing
to have the opposite? Do I really want to be alone, unloved, isolated? Am I making myself prove this
because that’s what I want? Unlikely. I’m proving to myself that I don’t have what I want.
What is the Contrary Evidence?
In other words, what is the opposite of what I’m setting up? If I am choosing to depress myself, and ask
myself this, I realize that what I actually want is to get back to feeling good about me and my life. If I am
feeling isolated, I want contact. If I am angry with myself, I want to love myself. I somehow have confused
myself into thinking that if only I hate myself enough, I’ll then stop and will somehow, through magical
thinking, love myself. Or, my favourite, if I yell at, or blame, or walk away from a person I’m in relationship
with, if I provide criticism of them and beat up on myself and them for the “bad” relationship, somehow this
will change things for the better. Or at least I’ll have evidence for feeling crappy, and lots of reasons to
blame.
Along side of this is the question we’re now asking, another form of which is, “what do I really want?” In
the last example, as I take a breath, I realize that I want a different relationship with my friend. Deeper.

Closer. Warmer. With good communication. From there, I ask myself, “Can I find any example of any
relationship I’ve ever been in, which has ever demonstrated the depth I’m looking for?” Immediately, the
mind begins to release a flood of other, repressed images.
Dar said, the other day, “No one loves me.” I said, “I love you.” She said, “Of course. I know that. Nobody
else loves me.” In a second, she caught the irony.
Will What You Are About To Do Get You What You Really Want?
This is the crux of the process. The person practising self hate, who realizes she wants to love and care for
herself, now has a choice. Will being angry, sarcastic, cause her to like herself? Will going into her head and
digging up everything she can remember where she judges that she failed cause her to like herself? Will
putting distance between herself and her intimates cause her to like herself?
The realization, the flash of insight that comes from this question, will cause us to say, “No! What I was
about to do always leads me to feel worse about myself, not better. I will choose not to say that, do that, go
there. Instead, I will make contact with someone, and share how I almost repeated a behaviour designed to
get me exactly what I don’t want.”

Establishing a Watcher Mentality
Here’s the only real “rule”: you can’t easily establish a Watcher response and voice from within the depth
of the pain of what you are trying to change. You need to reflect upon your alternate choices when you are
in “neutral.”
This is where therapy helps. In essence, good therapy is about creating alternatives. Run from any therapist
who says he or she can help you to stop “bad” behaviours. Walk from any therapist who only wants you to
understand your “bad” behaviours. Embrace a therapist that teaches you alternative thinking, so that when
you head down the path that you’re looking to have choice about, an alternative is already in place. And if
that therapist also does Body Work Psychotherapy, you just covered all your bases. The Body Work is a
major way of removing the pent up tensions and pains of life-learning not to hold but rather to release life’s
hurts.
This booklet is all about alternatives. In the quiet of your home, and the quiet of your mind, you can begin
to re-educate and discipline your mind. You can develop questions you can ask yourself - questions that will
cause you to examine your process and the choices that are emerging, not in a knee-jerk, I’m stuck sort of
way, but rather from a place of finding ways to choose differently.
Throughout this booklet, we’ve provided suggestions, sample questions and understandings of the process.
Now, it’s up to you.
• You begin by using your mind to think about what you want.
• You develop a mental image of that – an image that stands in opposition to “what always happens.”
• You strengthen your mind daily, by reviewing, as often as possible, what you really want.
• You train yourself to respond to life from this new perspective.
Find the kind of therapist I just described, or go to our “e-mail therapy” web site department, at, and sign
on to work with The HeartPoint - Phoenix Centre.
Extra Resources
If you would like to continue the process through using exercises we've created, , you can order an additional
resource we’ve prepared. There are exercise sheets for identifying areas to work on, and other sheets guide
you through setting up Watcher comments and questions. Additionally, there’s a script you can use for a
visualization for actually implementing your Watcher.
The cost of this supplemental material is $10.00 Canadian, and is available from our web site. Go to:
http://www.phoenixcentre.com/extras.htm

for additional information. By the way, as a “thank you for purchasing the supplemental material,” I’ll
provide you with a code that will get you two “rounds” of e-mail counselling for free, (a $100 dollar value.)
A “round” is one e-mail of questions to me, and one reply from me.
We hope you enjoyed this booklet, and will choose to take advantage of its suggestions. Please, as always,
let us know what you think, and please, share this booklet with those you care about. Let’s take the time to
be disciplined in our work of creating choice, for ourselves.
Warmly, Wayne


The Watcher: A Responsible Discipline For Managing The Voices in Your Head

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A HeartPoint - Phoenix Centre Fas-trax Booklet

The Watcher: A Responsible Discipline for

Wayne C. Allen, M.Th.

The Phoenix Centre Press

For information, contact:

The HeartPoint - Phoenix Centre for Creative Living, Limited

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Well, hang on a minute.

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The Voice of Fear - “I’m Scared!”

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The Voice of Sacrifice – “Don’t Be Selfish”

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The Hyper-Inflated Voice

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The Voice of Sadness and Depression

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What this gets him, of course, is this:

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1) how long will you need to do this for?

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Here’s a discussion point regarding each question.

1) how long will you need to do this for?

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• of what others will think, and

6) what do you need right now, that you’re not getting?

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1. No one is ever going to understand me.

Now, I could comment on all of these, but let me summarize:

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You may also need to say,

“OK. Let’s continue.”

“what do I want out of this relationship?”

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(See my booklet on Compassionate Relationships, at

Lets look at these concepts in turn.

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What Am I Trying to Prove?

What is the Contrary Evidence?

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