Attention disarms

When I was in 7th grade, it first became clear to me that something becomes much less scary and threatening when you look at it. At that time, an awkward moment such as telling a joke that nobody laughed at would sometimes haunt me for the rest of the day. It would invade my thoughts unexpectedly over and over again, and each time it would sting. But sometimes when I was lying in bed at night, I purposely recalled the painful moment and really paid attention to it. And whenever I did that, it wasn't nearly as painful and uncomfortable as when it popped into my head unexpectedly.

My friend Chris recently said in an email that "things lose their power when they are observed." The way that I had remembered what she said in the email (I had received it about a month ago) was something like "things really aren't all that scary anymore when you look at them." But then when I dug through my emails to find the exact words, they were "things lose their power when they are observed." The meaning is pretty much the same.

I also have been noticing that sometimes when I am by myself and a crowd of people comes my way, I get a little bit intimidated. But if I look at the people, it's not as uncomfortable. They are really only intimidating when I furtively look the other way. Again, things are less scary when you look at them.

Finally, a quote from the book You Are Psychic:

When I am performing a clairvoyant reading, what I am really doing is looking at energy [...]. This energy comes in the form of images, thoughts, sounds, feelings, etc. As soon as I start to look at the energy or image, it begins to change.

From the context of the surrounding paragraphs, I took that to mean that simply looking at another person's painful energy starts to heal and transform that pain. It is all starting to make sense now.