Self Remembering and Self Observation- Gurdjieff's Ideas and Working With Sensation in Daily Life

In my line of work, the topic of sensation comes up often. When someone is seeking a higher degree of structural function and order, developing a clearer sense of the body—an overall sense of embodiment—matters. That alone can create change. But when it’s paired with myofascial differentiation and movement education, working with sensation becomes a powerful way to develop a truer sense of self and a newfound freedom in how we sit, stand, move, and live our daily lives.

Rolfing can be helpful even if a person doesn’t engage in much inner work with sensation and movement. But for those who want to awaken self-consciousness—or what some traditions might call the consciousness of Self—there is an opportunity to work with sensation, movement, and the experience of movement at a deeper level. For anyone interested, we can explore a couple key ideas from G. I. Gurdjieff’s system of development, which was highly influential in the last century and directly influenced Ida Rolf, the creator of Rolfing. Two concepts I want to focus on here are **Self-Remembering** and **Self-Observation**.

These ideas take time and study to understand; otherwise, they can easily become just words and concepts. My own work with them—and my connection with Gurdjieff Foundation groups over the years—keeps me engaged with what they actually mean in lived experience. Still, I’m not going to try to define them once and for all in a single blog post. This is an ongoing study for anyone interested.

Remembering Yourself and Working with Sensation

### Self-Remembering

Self-Remembering is the practice of sensing yourself in the midst of life—not as an idea of who you are, not as identity, but as the direct physical sensation of yourself, here and now.

You can practice this while sitting quietly at home, but it’s important to realize that Self-Remembering must also be practiced out in the world: at work, while seated, while moving, and—most importantly, and most difficult—while interacting with other people. Gurdjieff often spoke about the limits of meditative work done only in peaceful, monastic environments: much of what you gain there can be lost the moment you return to ordinary life. So the attention to oneself has to be trained in the middle of everyday conditions—walking to the store, washing dishes, talking to your boss, sitting in traffic. This brings us into the present and strengthens the power of attention.

Being Present in Life, in Traffic.

The attention we cultivate is what can lead us toward fuller consciousness. According to Gurdjieff, we tend to move through life in a state of partial consciousness—almost like sleep. Much of what we do is automatic, the functioning of a “machine” built to meet the basic demands of life, but not necessarily to help us truly live.

When we remember ourselves, even briefly, we touch a different quality of attention—one that includes the sensation of self along with awareness of what’s happening around us. Gurdjieff described the human being as having three main centers: body (moving center), mind (intellectual center), and emotions (emotional center). Ideally, Self-Remembering includes all three at once. But in my experience, it’s best to begin with the body—because it is the most immediate, the most undeniable: the sensation of the body right here, right now, and in action. If awareness of thought and emotion can be included as well, wonderful. But the doorway is often physical. According to Gurdjieff everything is physical, the body, the emotions, even the mind and spirit.

Practiced in whatever we’re doing, Self-Remembering adds an extra dimension to attention and keeps us from being completely swallowed by the task at hand. Whether you’re folding laundry or doing data entry, some portion of attention can be reserved for the Self—directed back toward the Self—while the rest moves forward into the activity.

P. D. Ouspensky, a well-known student of Gurdjieff, described this as a “double-headed arrow”: attention goes outward, and at the same time returns inward. He writes about his early experiences with this in *In Search of the Miraculous* (previously titled *Fragments of an Unknown Teaching*). Over time, I’ve come to think of it as less like a line and more like an expanding circle of attention—one that includes the world, while also holding a point at the center. That point is me, my body from head to toe and all that goes on within it.

And within that point is an entire universe of experience. The more refined and sensitive our attention becomes when directed toward the Self, the more we begin to perceive.

A simple starting place is a light scan of sensation from head to toe. You may notice muscle tension—there is almost always some. You can experiment with letting go of what’s unnecessary, because unnecessary tension wastes energy. As the body relaxes, sensation often becomes richer. What was once just “tight shoulders” may reveal a deeper feeling—sometimes even a subtle vibration. Awareness of the breath may enter the picture.

Try to include the breath without trying to fix it. Even if it seems shallow, even if it seems like you’re not breathing “well,” allow the breath to complete its full cycle—from in-breath to out-breath—and notice what the body naturally wants to do.

Then there is weight: the experience of the body in gravity. You may sense gravity as a downward force, and also sense your own response—an upward, lifting force. When the body relates to gravity well, gravity gives lift rather than simply dragging us down. That, at least, is one of the central principles of Rolfing.

There is no shortage of things—large or small—within us that can become objects of attention. Practiced in daily life, this work brings us more fully into the present. But as attention strengthens and presence grows, something else becomes necessary: a clearer understanding of ourselves and how we function in relationship to the world. This is where Self-Observation comes in.

Work in a Monastery is different than work in Life

### Self-Observation

The term *Self-Observation* can be misleading at first, because we often associate it with modern psychological approaches. We might assume it means reviewing childhood influences, tracing personality traits, and building a coherent story about why we are the way we are. But that kind of story—however useful it may be in certain contexts—still lives mostly in the mind, and often in only one part of the mind. It can’t, by itself, take us beyond the limits of the mind that created it.

To step out of the prison-like structure of ordinary thinking, one essential principle has to be understood: the Self-Observation we’re aiming for is **without analysis**. It is direct, immediate, and free of added commentary, at least as free as we can allow it to be.

Each time we practice it, we get a snapshot of how we are in a given moment. Over time, those snapshots accumulate. But this can’t really happen if we’re analyzing—because when we analyze, we’re usually no longer in the moment. If I’m analyzing, I can be fairly sure I’ve drifted away from direct experience.

Modern psychology has become more open to Eastern ideas, and Eastern psychology has been developing for thousands of years, unlike modern psychology. Still, there is a common trap: trying to interpret the mind with the mind—using memory and thought to explain ourselves in a way that keeps us from seeing the whole picture. The “big picture” can’t be seen through judgment, analysis, or endless interpretation. It can only be seen by observing ourselves in the moment, in action—without diverting attention into commentary.

Anyone who has made a serious attempt to be present knows that thoughts and memories arise. They are simply part of the landscape. We may wish we could shut them off, but usually we can’t—and that’s normal.

The practice is to return, again and again, to the present moment and to the sensation of the body here and now. We don’t have to encourage thoughts and memories, feed them, or react to them. We can let them run their course while interacting with them as little as possible. And when we notice we’ve been hooked by a passing thought, we let go and come back—back to sensation, back to the feeling of oneself, back to the present.

Only then can we begin to *see* ourselves. And that act of seeing—by itself—can be transformative. It can also lead to a deeper, more honest understanding of who we are.

These ideas deserve time and attention. Like many esoteric teachings, they must be experienced to be understood. Gurdjieff would often return to ideas like these, asking students what they meant to them. Many answers were poorly formed—and that’s to be expected. At one point, when asking students whether they had been practicing Self-Observation and how they were doing it, he stated that no one understood one crucial principle:

**While practicing Self-Observation, you must also remember yourself.**

To go deeply into these ideas, a person eventually benefits from a path shared with others—people who can help one another stay honest and awake. But I also believe anyone can begin experimenting with these practices to bring a little more presence and understanding into daily life without committing to a group and a formal practice.

And when someone is going through a physically transformative process like myofascial work—Rolfing in particular—it becomes especially important to experience the body more deeply: sensation, movement, and the way we inhabit our bodies. Bringing attention to bodily sensation can be a tremendous support in that process of change, and it’s available to anyone, right now.

It’s often said in Rolfing that awareness alone can produce change. In a sense, that awareness is part of our birthright as human beings.