allow ourselves to become the compassionate observ- er of what we are doing and what we are feeling, we can be removed enough to see what might be really going on. See yourself from the part of you that is unchanging and unaffected by the world. See how things play out without berating yourself. When I am doing this personally, it helps me to think of myself out of my body, looking down on myself and watching. It is like the scene from so many movies I have seen when someone is dying and they are above themselves, watching themselves die from a different perspective. Once I am able to visualize myself outside of my body looking down, I can understand, with much love, why I might want to overeat or be frustrat- ed. I am able to get clarity much faster on what I am feeling and why. I can locate the belief system and notice it without actually believing it; from here I can decide to change it. As the observer, you look at everything that is hap- pening without taking any of it personally. You are able to look at what you do and what happens to you from a perspective of “fascinating” and “interesting” without making judgments that it shouldn’t or should be happening. It is what it is and you are just compas- sionately noticing what it is. It is almost a quiet sense 159 • If IAm So Smart, Why Can’t I Lose Weight?