The Observing Eye is Stronger, Part 3 - Mastering the Art of Reading Others

The Pen and Sword Journal - Vol 66

Happy Sunday, everyone! 🌞

As we wrap up another week and prepare for the new one, I wanted to take a moment to connect with you. I hope you’ve had a chance to recharge and find joy in the little moments.

Today's article was initially meant to be the third and final part of the "Observing Eye is Stronger" series. However, given the extensive list of exercises I plan to share, I don't want to overwhelm you. Therefore, I will divide it into two final articles—this one and another to be posted next week.

PS: If you missed the first two parts, I highly recommend giving them a read. You can find the links below:

👉 M. Musashi - The Observing Eye is Stronger than the Seeing Eye

👉 The Observing Eye is Stronger, Part 2 - Overcome Cognitive Biases 🧠

The Gates to the Observing Eye: Unlocking Your Deeper Perception

To cultivate a powerful "Observing Eye"—an ability to go beyond mere seeing and into profound understanding and attunement with yourself and others—you must exercise in what I like to call as “Passing through different gates”. Each gate represents a fundamental aspect of the psyche that requires dedication, presence, and inner work. So, let us explore these gates and offer practical exercises to strengthen each.

👇 The Gates will be the following:

⛩️ Gate 1: Awareness and Presence

⛩️ Gate 2: Focus and Attentional Control

⛩️ Gate 3: Empathy and Emotional Intelligence

⛩️ Gate 4: Intuition and Pattern Recognition

⛩️ Gate 5: Detachment and Objectivity

⛩️ Gate 6: When form reflects essence: Master the art of interpreting body tension, body language, tone of voice, microexpressions, changes in rhythm, and pauses.

Let's continue in this article with the first three:

⛩️ Gate 1: Awareness and Presence

Awareness is the foundation upon which all other gates rest. Without awareness, the deeper levels of perception and understanding are unreachable. It is the act of being fully present and engaged in the moment, rather than passively existing in it. By honing awareness, we prepare ourselves to genuinely see and understand the reality around and within us.

🔻Exercises for Awareness and Presence:

🔹Exercise 1: 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Technique
This is an exercise I have applied often to help others manage anxiety symptoms, however, we must take into consideration that managing anxiety and cultivating a powerful awareness go hand in hand.

The exercise goes like this: Engage your senses by noticing five things you see, four things you can feel, three things you hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you taste. This anchors you in the present moment, strengthening your ability to be aware of your surroundings.

I recommend practicing this several times a day. Setting a timer reminder can help ensure it doesn’t get lost amid the daily hustle.

🔹Exercise 2: Sensory Deprivation and Reintroduction Practice
Now, this exercise takes a somewhat opposite approach compared to the first one. The goal here is to use controlled sensory deprivation to heighten your other senses and achieve a more profound state of presence when your senses are reintroduced.

Instructions:

• Create a Sensory-Free Environment: Use earplugs or noise-canceling headphones, close your eyes, and, if possible, block out external touch sensations (such as wrapping yourself in a light blanket).

• Observe the Void: Stay in this state for five to ten minutes, paying attention to the thoughts, emotions, or bodily sensations that arise in the absence of external sensory stimuli. Do not engage with these sensations—simply observe.

• Reintroduce One Sense at a Time: Gradually uncover or expose yourself to light, sound, and tactile sensations, one by one. Observe how your perception sharpens with each sense’s reintroduction.

• Reflection and Integration: Consider how deprivation altered your perception of reality and how heightened awareness might change your interaction with your environment.

🔹Exercise 3: Body-Scan Meditation with a Twist

Here the objective is to cultivate acute awareness of your internal state and the mind-body connection by taking a "micro journey" through your body's sensations with added focused questioning.

Instructions:

• Lie Down or Sit Comfortably: Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Allow yourself to relax with each exhale.

• Traditional Body-Scan: Begin by directing your attention to your toes, slowly working your way up through each part of your body. Notice any sensations, tension, or lack thereof. Move your focus without judgment or intention to change anything.

• Add Focused Questions: For each body part, ask questions like, "What do I feel here? Is there warmth, cold, tension, or vibration?" and “How does this part feel when I hold a breath versus exhale?”

• Mindful Adjustment: If you notice tension, consciously relax that area. This small act connects awareness with intentionality and heightens present focus.

⛩️ Gate 2: Focus and Attentional Control

If awareness is like a radar, scanning our inner landscape and external surroundings, then at the other end of the spectrum lies our ability to focus with laser-like precision. To master the Observing Eye and overcome the biases mentioned in the previous article, one must excel at both broad scanning and intense focus. Use these abilities interchangeably as the situation demands.

Sometimes we must understand our environment; other times, we need to read a person's state or a specific gesture. Transition smoothly between these states of mind, like water, adapting flexibly.

That’s why, to move beyond merely being aware, you must learn to control where and how you direct your attention. True attentional control means focusing deeply on what matters and letting distractions fall away.

🔻 Exercises for Focus and Attentional Control:

🔹Exercise 1: Candle-Gazing (Trataka)

You can do this one by focusing on a spot, be it in an app or everywhere in the surrounding environment.

Find a quiet, dimly lit room free of distractions. Place a candle on a stable surface at eye level, about three feet away from you. Sit comfortably with your spine straight, either on a chair or on the floor.

The Practice:

1. Initial Relaxation: Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to center yourself. Relax your body and let go of any tension.

2. Focusing on the Flame: Open your eyes and direct your gaze towards the candle flame. Focus all your attention on the flame, observing its movements and colors.

3. Maintaining Stillness: Keep your body still and maintain a soft, steady gaze on the flame. If your eyes start to water, try to blink as little as possible without straining.

4. Deep Concentration: As you focus, let go of any wandering thoughts. If your mind drifts, gently bring it back to the flame. Allow yourself to become absorbed in the flame's dance.

5. Inner Visualization: After a few minutes, close your eyes and try to visualize the flame in your mind’s eye. Hold this mental image as clearly as you can.

6. Repeating the Cycle: Open your eyes and repeat the process. Alternate between watching the flame with open eyes and visualizing it with closed eyes.

Start with 5-10 minutes per session and gradually increase the duration as your concentration improves.

🔹Exercise 2: The “90-Second Rule” Intense Focus Drill

Objective: Sharpen your focus by training your mind to hold deep concentration for short bursts, with gradual increases in duration over time.

Instructions:

• Choose a Task: Select a mentally demanding activity (e.g., reading a challenging article, solving a puzzle, or creating something complex).

• Set a Timer: Start with 90 seconds on the clock. During this time, give your absolute, undivided attention to the task at hand. No drifting thoughts, no interruptions—just laser focus.

• Brief Reset: When the timer ends, take a short 15-30 second break. Close your eyes, stretch, or take a breath, but do not engage with anything else.

• Repeat with Extension: Gradually increase the focus interval to 2 minutes, 5 minutes, and longer as you improve. The key is intensity and full immersion during each interval.

• Reflect: Notice what distracts you and how long it takes to regain focus. This reflection will deepen your self-awareness and control.

🔹Exercise 3: Spotlight Attention Exercise

This exercise is great for developing a flexible and pinpoint focus by imagining your attention as a spotlight that can be expanded or contracted on command.

Instructions:

• Start Broad: In a quiet space, direct your attention to everything in the room, noticing as many details as possible. Imagine your attention as a wide floodlight.

• Narrow the Beam: Gradually “zoom in” your attention, choosing a smaller area or single object. Pay attention to textures, colors, shadows, and other minute details, as if focusing through a narrow beam of light.

• Expand Again: Gradually widen your attention back out to take in more of your environment.

• Repeat Cycles: Move between “wide” and “narrow” modes, training your brain to shift focus breadth on demand.

⛩️ Gate 3: Empathy and Emotional Intelligence

Building acute emotional awareness and sensitivity by “shadowing” the emotions of those around you in real-time, is a priceless ability. Some might think that this ability makes one weak, weak because it “absorbs” the other’s emotional energy, but in reality is the exact contrary for those who know how to “metabolize” emotions and not repress them.

🔹Exercise 1: “Emotion Shadowing”

Instructions:

• Observe Someone’s Mood: Choose a family member, colleague, or even a stranger in a social setting. Without being intrusive, pay close attention to their body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions.

• Mirror Internally: Imagine yourself feeling what they are feeling. For example, if someone appears stressed, visualize what might cause such stress and notice how it makes you feel.

• Reflect Quietly: Ask yourself questions such as, “Why might they feel this way?” or “What would I want someone to understand if I were in their shoes?”

• (If necessary) Journal Your Findings: At the end of the day, reflect on your experiences. Write down what you observed, what you sensed, and how accurately you believe you empathized. This will build your capacity for accurate, deep empathy.

🔹Exercise 2: The “Empathy Pause” Practice

Here, I want you to exercise the skill to “pause” during interactions and create mental space to analyze your emotional reaction versus empathic understanding.

Instructions:

• Catch Your Reaction: During emotionally charged conversations or interactions, take a brief mental pause as soon as you feel a strong reaction, such as anger, defensiveness, or joy.

• Separate Your Emotion from Theirs: Acknowledge and set aside your initial emotion. Then, turn your full attention to understanding the other person's emotional state, without judgment or projection.

• Ask Empathic Questions (Internally): Silently ask yourself questions like, “What might they be going through?” or “Why are they expressing themselves this way?”

• Respond with Empathy: Resume the conversation with a response that shows you understand their feelings, rather than simply reacting from your own.

• Reflect: Note whether your reaction shifted during the pause and how it influenced your response.

🔹Exercise 3: “Empathy Mapping” for Relationships

This one also is a great way ti deepen your understanding of people you interact with regularly by mapping out their thoughts, feelings, and motivations.

Instructions:

• Choose a Subject: Focus on someone you have a relationship with, such as a friend, partner, or colleague.

• Create Four Quadrants: Divide a page into four sections: (1) What They Think, (2) What They Feel, (3) What They Say, and (4) What They Do.

• Populate the Map: Reflect on their recent behaviors, words, and interactions, filling in each quadrant. Try to see what lies beneath their actions and statements—what worries or inspires them?

• Ask and Adjust: If you feel comfortable, check your assumptions by asking them about their feelings or motives. Adjust your map as needed, noting how this new understanding changes your interactions.

Empathy and emotional intelligence are not just skills but powerful gateways to true human social and psychological dynamics. These exercises move you beyond surface-level understanding into a zone of deep emotional resonance and connection.

Hence these quotes, which contain profound wisdom:

"When you reach real ability you will be able to become one with the enemy. Entering his heart you will see that he is not your enemy after all."

— Tsuji (1650-1730), sword master

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

— Sun Tzu

This means that you have to know the enemy - his strengths, his weaknesses, his modus operandi, his traits - everything - to be able to face him. Anyone who has ever engaged in competitive activities like sports, business etc., understands the essence of this quote.

The challenge lies in utilizing your own strengths effectively, avoiding your opponent's strengths, leveraging their weaknesses, and not revealing your own. To defeat your enemy, you must become them, think like them, and act like them—this way, you stay one step ahead and overcome them before they even begin to act.

This concept is so fundamental that it’s almost a truism. I have applied this principle not only in competitive sports but also in tabletop games, negotiations, purchase deals, and human relations.

The rest of the quote emphasizes the importance of self-awareness. "Gnothi seauton" (γνῶθι σεαυτόν) - Know thyself. It involves seeing yourself clearly, beyond biases like the Dunning-Kruger effect and impostor syndrome. Knowing your strengths, weaknesses, preferences, and traits constitutes half the battle.

When you know both yourself and your enemy, there is very little to fear.

Thank you for walking this path with commitment and care. Until next time, where we conclude with the remaining “Gates”, keep growing and connecting. 👊🔥

➡️ PS: If you liked reading this, feel free to click the ❤️ button on this post, so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏

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📌 𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙥𝙖𝙜𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙖 𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣.

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But this cause can do more, and for that we need your support.

Your contribution can help us dedicate more time and resources to do more research, and share more work with people who need to delve more into the Way of the Warrior.

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🔻📕Additional Resources:

If you've found my article helpful and inspiring and want to delve deeper into the subjects of psychology, philosophy, the warrior ethos and zen, I recommend checking out my books:

📕➡️100 thoughts for the Inner Warrior

Whether you're seeking personal growth, to fortify your inner strength and mental resilience, or simply a deeper understanding of the warrior ethos, "100 Thoughts for the Inner Warrior" is a valuable resource that can guide you on your journey.

📕➡️The Secrets of Willpower

This is my latest book, and it’s packed with proven psychological techniques to help you access your mind’s hidden reserves and build the willpower, tenacity and discipline needed to face any challenge. From strategies to quiet the inner voice of self-doubt to exercises that master the art of delayed gratification, each chapter guides you on a path toward mental, physical and emotional mastery.

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Appreciate you for taking your time to read this far! 🤍