The Observer’s Distance

A Meditative Practice from Emotion-Focused Therapy

This meditative process involves describing your experiences to yourself in an objective manner, as if you were an outside observer talking to another person. This is not about making a feeling go away. It’s about turning toward the experience with clarity, not urgency. You’re not resolving it. You’re watching it unfold.

This helps you detach from the meaning of your experience and pay attention to its qualities and form. You begin to attend to how the emotional experience is felt in your body.

You are working on gaining the observer’s distance:

Begin by getting quiet. Settle into your body. Let your breath find its own rhythm.

Bring attention to the feeling that’s present. You don’t need to name it. Just locate it.

Where does it live in your body?
Is it dense or diffuse?
Tight or shaky?
Sharp or dull?
Warm? Cold? Numb? Tingling?

Is it still or moving?
Does it have edges or does it spread?

Now notice how it shifts. Without controlling it, just watch.

Does it swell? Does it fade?
Does it come in pulses or waves?
Does it gather in intensity, then drop back?
Does it rise, then pause, then rise again?

Track the changes moment by moment.
Even subtle ones: A flicker, a loosening, a drop, a flickering return.

Notice whether it expands or contracts, whether it begins to lift or settle.
Let the sensation have its own life. You’re just witnessing.

Notice whether the sensation is global or specific. Whether it is expanding or shrinking. Whether it is coming or going.

Pay attention to the swelling and fading of sensation. Observe the rising and passing of your feelings rather than their meaning.

This interrupts the runaway process in which your thoughts and feelings normally interact.

Stay here for a while. Let the feeling breathe.
No need to assign meaning. No need to fix it. Just observe its form.

Do this for anywhere from five to forty minutes; most likely the intensity of the feeling will subside. 

After a while, shift your attention to the thoughts moving through. Do not get immersed in their meaning or content. 

Instead, describe your own thinking process:

Notice how thoughts form and dissolve.
How they crest and fall.
A thought arises, then it drifts.
Another comes in—flickers—vanishes.

Name what the mind is doing:
I’m remembering. I’m bracing. I’m judging. I’m scanning. I’m trying to make sense of it.

Don’t dive in. Just note it.

You are now in direct contact with the process of your own sensing and thinking.

You’ve created a new internal experience: one that provides a perspective on your feelings.

Once you are able to distance yourself from the actual emotion, you will no longer feel overwhelmed by your anger, sadness, fear, or shame. The meanings of your thoughts will no longer absorb you in the same way. This is not detachment. 

You have changed your focus from being a victim of the feeling to being an observer of it. You are describing the emotion rather than trying to avoid it.

Something settles there. Not because the feeling is gone, but because you’ve changed your position. You're not lost in the feeling. You're watching how it moves. And something in you can hold that.

This reframing process shifts your focus from the content of the experience to the process of it.

Feeling moved by this exercise?
This is the kind of inner work that leads to real change—not just insight, but momentum. If you’re exploring personal development or seeking guidance through a transition, I offer one-on-one work that blends deep awareness with actionable clarity.

Awareness is about naming what matters.
Alignment is living in a way that honors it.
Action is choosing again and again to stay in integrity with yourself.

If this exercise stirred something and you’d like support in moving forward, you’re not alone.

Learn more about my approach to life consulting and relationship coaching here or get in touch for your free 30-minute consultation here!