Being passive is associated with being aggressive or doing nothing. Although passive can mean “to be indifferent,” it can also mean laid back, quiet, unflappable and receptive.
Becoming aware in a passive way, or passive awareness, is to practice watching, observing and paying attention without judging or trying to figure out what’s right or wrong with another person or situation.
Instead of thinking: “I’m right, so you must be wrong,” the goal of passive observation is to shift our focus from what we think we’re seeing—which involves our own thought processes—to observing the thoughts and how they relate to how we feel.
For example, imagine this situation: You had a great day, get home and you want everyone else to be on that same wavelength. If they’re not, you start wondering “What’s wrong with them? What’s the problem? Why are they raining on my parade?” In other words, we’ve made the others wrong.
Now, if we come home to the same situation but try to practice passive awareness, we put the focus on ourselves and ask: “Why do I feel uncomfortable when others’ energy doesn’t match mine? Why do I need them to respond how I want them to? They actually seem fine but maybe a bit tired.”
With passive awareness, neither party has to be right or wrong. Instead, it’s just about observing that different people act differently in different situations.
Throughout life, we’ve developed coping mechanisms, learning to act in ways we believed would be more pleasing to others. This helped us manage the emotions of those around us while society simultaneously taught us rights and wrongs.
The result? When someone disagrees with how we feel, think or see something, we’ve been conditioned to believe that one of us must be wrong. We think that if we can just explain our position, the other person will understand their wrongness and our rightness. The argument develops because we think the other person cannot possibly be listening to us if they don’t “get” our point or our rightness, or worse, that we haven’t been clear—so we start monologuing ad nauseam or yapping until everyone’s anger starts to elevate.
Passively observing helps us to see different perspectives, allowing all to coexist and all to be OK—whether we agree or not. Being open to passive awareness opens relationships and new life possibilities. Passive awareness is not being passive but rather observing our thoughts before choosing a path of action.
If we can practice watching, observing and paying attention without judging, we can see others. When we only want to be right, we are choosing our rightness over the importance of the other people in our life. In our hearts, we know this is wrong.
Thanks for visiting! I’m Dian Griesel, Ph.D. aka @SilverDisobedience I am a perception analyst & hypnotherapist who works with private clients to help increase their awareness of how perceptions impact everything we do whether personally or professionally. Book an appointment here.
I share inspiring and actionable ideas for free via my podcast, on my website: DianGriesel.com and also on my social media accounts which you might like to follow.
