Dr. Pedram Shojai
Episode Description:
Dr. Pedram Shojai guides listeners through the transformative practice of developing witness consciousness – the ability to observe your thoughts, emotions, and sensations without being consumed by them. He explains how most people spend their entire lives completely identified with their experiences, believing they ARE their anxious thoughts, their pain, or their emotions, rather than recognizing they are the awareness in which these experiences arise. Through practical examples and a guided meditation, Dr. Shojai demonstrates how cultivating this observer perspective creates the essential space needed for healing, behavior change, and breaking automatic reactive patterns. This isn’t spiritual bypassing or dissociation – it’s developing the meta-awareness that separates pain from suffering, allows emotions to move through rather than get stuck, and gives you the freedom to respond consciously rather than react automatically.
Listen to the episode on Spotify here or on your favorite podcast platform and check out the Urban Monk Academy here.
Podcast show notes:
[00:00:00] Introduction & Holiday Reflection
- Approaching winter solstice: the true energetic turn of the year
- Taking time to reconcile the past year and plan for the next
- Announcement: New 52-week course launching in January with weekly modules
[00:02:00] Understanding the Witness
- Three simultaneous experiences: hearing words, thinking about them, and the awareness of both
- The witness is that third element – awareness itself
- Most people never develop a relationship with this part of themselves
[00:03:00] The Cost of Living Without Witness Consciousness
- Complete identification with thoughts, emotions, and body sensations
- Every anxious thought becomes a crisis
- Every difficult feeling threatens to overwhelm
- When you believe you ARE your pain or diagnosis, healing becomes impossible
[00:05:00] Life Without a Developed Witness
- Scenario 1 – The Thought Storm: waking at 3am anxious, becoming the anxiety itself
- Scenario 2 – The Pain Spiral: back pain leading to catastrophizing and intensified suffering
- Personal example: pulling Christmas decorations and fearing becoming like his father with chronic back pain
[00:07:00] The Emotional Hijack
- How criticism triggers instant shame and fused emotional reactions
- Acting from that fused state creates regret and more suffering
- With witness consciousness: feel the emotion, watch it move, then choose your response
[00:08:00] The Tremendous Costs of Missing the Witness
- Personal level: every thought becomes truth, every emotion becomes identity
- Practice level: can’t work with discomfort in meditation, hormetic practices become traumatic
- Healing level: pain and suffering become synonymous, can’t separate symptom from story
[00:10:00] What Exactly Is the Witness?
- The observer position that watches thoughts without thinking them
- Awareness that notices sensation without being the sensation
- Not detached – it’s being spaciously present
[00:11:00] The Space Between
- The gap between stimulus and response
- The pause before reaction
- The stillness beneath mental noise
- The field in which experience happens
[00:12:00] Meta-Awareness: Consciousness Aware of Itself
- Awareness being aware of itself
- Capacity to hold multiple perceptual streams simultaneously
- Reference to Ramana Maharshi and Vedic teachings
[00:13:00] What the Witness Is NOT
- Not dissociation (you’re more present, not less)
- Not spiritual bypassing (you remain with the experience)
- Not cold detachment (warmly aware)
- Not positive thinking override (changing relationship, not content)
- Not a separate entity (it’s your natural awareness)
[00:14:00] The Witness in Action
- Instead of “I am angry” → “I notice anger is present”
- Instead of “My back is killing me” → “I’m aware of sharp sensation in my lower back”
- Instead of “I’m a failure” → “I noticed the thought ‘I’m a failure’ just arose”
[00:15:00] Why This Matters for Physical Healing
- Separates pain (sensation) from suffering (story)
- Creates space to discern true danger signals from discomfort
- Allows investigation of symptoms without panicking
- Working with data points rather than dramatic narratives
[00:16:00] Emotional Benefits
- Process emotions without being overwhelmed
- Breaks the cycle of emotional reactivity
- Allows feelings to move through rather than get stuck
- Builds genuine emotional resilience
[00:17:00] Expanding Consciousness Safely
- Deepens meditation and contemplative practices
- Opens access to non-ordinary states safely
- Critique of “music festival spirituality” – people accessing altered states without emotional management skills
[00:18:00] The Foundation of Behavior Change
- Creates the pause where choice lives
- Breaks automatic patterns
- Allows you to respond rather than react
- Helps sustain practice through difficulty (like 100-day gongs)
[00:19:00] Guided Practice: Layer 1 – Breath as Anchor
- 4-2-6-2 breathing pattern (in for 4, hold for 2, out for 6, hold for 2)
- Key instruction: “Who’s breathing? Who is noticing that your body is breathing?”
- That noticing awareness is the witness
[00:21:00] Layer 2 – Watching Thoughts
- Thoughts like clouds passing through the sky
- You’re not the clouds, you’re the sky
- When you get pulled into thought and realize it, that realization IS the witness
- Practice isn’t stopping thoughts, it’s noticing you’re having them
[00:23:00] Layer 3 – Body Sensations
- Pick a sensation and describe it with extreme specificity
- Use third person observation, not first person identification
- Example: “There’s tightness in my right shoulder, two inches in diameter, pulling downward”
- Increasing interoceptive precision while creating observer distance
[00:24:00] Layer 4 – Working with Emotion
- Think of something mildly frustrating (not traumatic)
- Where do you feel it in your body?
- What’s the quality? (tight, hot, heavy, sharp)
- What thoughts accompany it?
- What’s the intensity on a scale of 1-10?
[00:25:00] Defusing from Emotions
- When you witness emotion, it loses charge
- Not suppression – defusion
- Learning: “I’m not this emotion, I am the space in which this emotion is arising”
[00:26:00] Layer 5 – Bringing It All Together
- Hold awareness of breath, thoughts, body sensations, emotions, sounds, and being present
- All experiences are changing, coming and going
- The witness remains constant
- This is your true nature: not the content of experience, but the awareness within which experience arises
[00:27:00] Integration & Closing
- Practice maintaining witnessing awareness with eyes open
- Bringing the witness into daily life
- Announcement: No call next week (Christmas break), returning December 30th
- New 52-week course launches in January
Key Takeaway: The witness isn’t about detaching from your experience – it’s about being spaciously present with it. This creates the freedom to respond consciously rather than react automatically, and it’s the foundation for all healing and transformation.
This episode is for educational purposes only and not intended as medical advice. Consult with qualified healthcare practitioners for personalized guidance.
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