Table of Contents
Context
Ross Rosenberg, a popular psychologist, invented Observe, Don’t Absorb technique, as part of his human magnet syndrome(a non-clinical trait in us, due to which we attract wrong people in life). This is a technique that helps one to recover from narcissistic abuse and helps individuals to take control of their life. Over my consultancy period, I have found this technique to be truly helpful in dealing with difficult people, particularly when you can’t just get away from them.
Observe, Don’t Absorb technique has a basic premise. When you are living and dealing with a difficult person, an individual who is consistently giving you the negative vibe, and one who is making you walk on the shell continuously, you need to learn from the person as much as you can, and at the same time defend your emotions from getting affected by the person.
So, you isolate yourself emotionally and spiritually from yourself and observe the behavior and dynamics between yourself and the difficult person(many a time the abuser). You note down the observation and become good at predicting the other person. You understand the insecurities of the difficult person, the defense mechanisms, the triggers, and the tactics. All along, you separate yourself emotionally in such a way that no matter how much the difficult person is trying to trigger you, you don’t get triggered, because you are learning.
Observe, Don’t Absorb, is like a self-phrase that you keep telling yourself. It is like a command to your brain. As you keep on repeating this phrase, in intense interaction with the difficult person, your brain shifts more towards the cognitive brain, bypassing your emotional brain.
You are telling the brain to observe. Hence your awareness is elevated and your senses pick up clues and pointers that they otherwise would have missed. You are also telling your brain not to absorb. Therefore this data is not translated into an information set that can be resolved to any kind of feelings.
So, you remain cool and unaffected by the abuse/behavior or the tactics of the abuser or the toxic person. Remember, the whole success of a toxic person, including a narcissist, depends upon draining you emotionally, to a point where you can’t think beyond them. So, if you can withdraw your emotions, they fail to implant themselves onto you and you are not forced to think about them round the clock. This makes them intensify their effort, which eventually drains them.
Observing, don’t absorbing also gives you better tools to deal with other difficult people in life, and to identify them easily. Let’s learn how a great historical literary character by the name of Anton Chekov used this to deal with his difficult life
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Observe, Don’t Absorb Used By Anton Chekov
Anton Chekov is one of the most celebrated playwriters, one who has explained and defined the human characters and relationships like not many others. Anton was brought up along with his two sisters by a rather helpless mother and an extremely abusive father in a small town in Russia.
His father had a retail store. It was a daily routine for him to come back drunk and beat young Anton. When he would come back from school, he would have to spend time in the shop of his father. Cold shop, abusive father. Young Anton always cursed his fate. He had caught muscle wounds due to severe daily beatings and chest bronchitis due to the cold of the shop.
One day, his father, unable to repay the loan of people, ran away with his entire family to Moscow, leaving young Anton behind at the mercy of the furious crowd. Anton worked hard, ran the store, and repaid the debt of his father.
He completed his study in medicine in Moscow and became a doctor. Then he developed a mental model to separate his mind from his body.
He saw the world from others’ perspectives and felt sympathetic for his father and others.
Anton thought, why not use father and other such negative characters to understand about them, and then to incorporate them into his plays and stories, rather than cursing and hating them?
He continued to observe people and penned them as characters in the play. Forgave family and brought them to his apartment.
In pain? Observe, don’t Absorb
Dr. Anton died in his mid youth due to wounds and chest infections of childhood. But, not before penning down some of the extraordinary plays of modern time.
He sympathized with his father and stated, his father was so lonely and frustrated with life that he needed someone to get that frustration off. He also wanted his son to be strong. Thus he beat him to make him strong. By changing the interpretation of reality, Dr. Anton will convert his pain and frustration to sympathy for people.
He would heal people with stories and plays. All of us have various pain points in life, either we can complain about life, or we can move ahead and use them as our ladder to grow in life.
Conclusion
You can’t always run away from a person or a situation. Even though going away from a difficult person is the most advised and the best solution, life doesn’t always give you that opportunity. You become stuck with a person, with no way to leave the person.
Even when you go away from the person, the complex post-traumatic stress disorder(CPTSD) haunts you. The person still occupies your brain. You hope this person changes one day, or you hope that the person gets the desired punishment. Whatever it is, you feel betrayed, guilt, shame, guilt, and such strong negative emotions because you suffered.
In order to overcome the past and get over your trauma, you need to train your brain to emotionally withdraw from the person and the situation without lowering your guard. When facing the toughness of life, keep telling yourself Observe, don’t absorb, till your brain starts implementing the same.
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