Witnessing life with curiosity and kindness

A master photographer known for her personal and intimate photos, Annie Leibovitz once shared a story about feeling heartbroken to witness her daughter smiling for her camera. The act of smiling for the camera felt “canned and forced” as if putting on an emotion that one isn’t feeling inside. If photos are a witness to life, then in a world that seems to glamorise the concept of positivity, one wonders if these two words “canned and forced” reflect much more than just the desire for a perfect picture. 

Our response towards discomfort

People love looking at a happy photo as much as listening to a piece of good news. In fact, bad situations make people feel uneasy. There is an awkwardness when things aren’t perfect, almost as if there is an inability to be around anything remotely discomforting, whether it is with people, the situations we face or even the media we consume. Rather than confronting the things that make us uncomfortable, we’d rather avoid; often going to great lengths to ease and soothe negative experiences.

But as we know, life is seldom perfect. Among the happier things, it is also filled with pain and suffering; both the good and the bad stuff, forming the bigger picture that is our life. The pain, while difficult, brings us a depth and gives us an opportunity to access parts of ourselves that we may otherwise not be able to. Yet our penchant for avoiding pain is not only ingrained in our DNA, it is also ingrained in our psyche. 

It is not uncommon to medicate our struggles with avoidance behaviours such as workaholism, materialism and consumerism. Overly micromanaging our daily lives, displaying OCD compulsive behaviour are all part of the facet of exerting control. By turning our attention outwards to the external environment—consuming material goods and media content—we avoid looking within ourselves.  

When we seek to control life in an attempt to feel safe, we interrupt the natural flow of life’s growth and learning process. 

Getting curious about what’s inside us

One wonders if our inability to sit with discomfort reflects none other than our personal struggle to witness our own suffering, that sometimes looking outside is prettier than looking inside ourselves. It can be a confronting experience, especially if we don’t have the habit of doing so. There may also be feelings of resistance, sometimes unconsciously.

Our thoughts, emotions, beliefs and values make us who we are as individuals. We may have struggled through bad experiences and carry wounds and scars from the past. Our inner dialogue may have also been shaped by them, and not always for the better. Yet they occupy a very real part of the space in our hearts and are often swept under the rug with a range of avoidance behaviours like workaholism or consumerism.

Sometimes, we may not even realise we are indulging in avoidance behaviours. Even something as simple as putting the phone away during bedtime, can be a huge mental struggle. Asking simple questions like, “How am I feeling right this very moment?” or “Did I enjoy every bite of today’s lunch?” or “How deep is my breath?”, draw us within and guide us to pay attention to the little nuances.

Some feelings of discomfort are a normal reaction when facing things for the first time. It may even feel like we’re opening a can of worms. But no matter what we find inside ourselves, both the good and the bad, it is still a precious part of us. It represents our life’s journey up to this very moment and makes us who we are.

Witnessing ourselves with kindness

For this reason itself, it deserves a hug; one that acknowledges its presence with kindness. With this act, we begin on a compassionate journey to open an inner dialogue with ourselves and explore who we truly are. We become our own best friend on the difficult and challenging passage of life itself, witnessing our own struggles; the pain and sorrow, the happiness and joy and everything else in between. Truly, if we don’t take the first step to get curious about what’s inside us, who will? Or a better way of saying it is, who can? No one can get to know who we are, if we don’t first begin to do so ourselves. 

Loneliness is a clear and present issue in modern society and the key to connection lies within ourselves. We teach people how to relate to us, by first learning how to relate to ourselves.  Taking the time to explore our inner selves can be incredibly beneficial as it allows us to gain a better understanding of our thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. It can lead to greater self-awareness, personal growth, and emotional healing. It can also help us to develop more authentic relationships with others, as we become more in touch with our own feelings and better able to express them. 

Our life of authenticity begins with us, right this very moment.

Being present to life

While the struggle to look inwards is often hardest at the start, it gets easier over time. Becoming present to life’s nuances—the taste of our food, the feelings we feel, the muscle tension in our bodies, and even the beating of our very own heartbeat—will become almost effortless. Step by little step, we create the opportunity to see the layers of truths that are found in between the yet unseen spaces of our hearts, even the ugly ones. 

By witnessing our thoughts and feelings without judgement of right or wrong, we are in effect the ones interrupting our own controlling behaviour. Our indulgence in external stimuli—situations, people and even social media—steadily begins to make way for an inner curiosity of intimacy, connection and meaning. Thus, we become the ones in charge of taking our first tentative steps forwards in a journey of discovery and growth.

The path is uncertain and fraught with stress, but if photos are a witness of time, then perhaps, bit by bit, with every new moment of awareness, our “canned and forced” pictures will begin to tell the story of mankind—and how we found courage to discover the spark of hope and light hidden deep within ourselves.

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Food for thought: What was the last strong feeling you felt and were you able to become friends with it?