Insight: The Examined Life
Everyday as a therapist, I get the privilege of helping people cultivate insight into themselves and their relationships with others. I bring to light behavioral patterns for my clients. As a team, my clients and I explore their stories for themes and common threads in order to determine what is useful and what needs to change. We review family dynamics and environmental influences to better understand their emotional triggers and responses. Why do we do this? What is the significance of gaining this personal insight?
The process of self investigation allows a deeper understanding of our behavior and thoughts. We search our mental process to make conscious choices about how we behave and react. Rather than reacting from a subconscious and emotional state, insight helps people react from a reasonable and rational place. Understanding our behavior gives us more control over how we act in each moment. Deciphering personal insight gives us a code to appreciate our thoughts or perhaps change them.
Socrates said, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” This statement is attributed to him at his trial for impiety when he was given the choice of exile or death. He was facing death or to remain alive without permission to investigate life and further his and his students’ knowledge. He choose death. I shed light on this dramatic example as a way to urge others to examine their life. An examined life is one of conscious choice, thought, reason, and not reaction. I mentioned developing personal insight in order to understand our thoughts and actions which allows us to have more control over our reactions. I also encourage you to broaden your awareness from just the personal to a more generalized seeking of insight.
We live in a time where we are inundated with horrifying information and images. Stories of outrageous bigotry and mounting political unrest. Fear is increasing among us without solutions offered and where fear goes unattended it can result in dangerous outcomes. Yoda could not have done a better job explaining this process when he warned, “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” Yoda also said, “Named must your fear be before banish it you can.” He calls to Luke to understand and name his fear, to increase insight into his fear in order to face it. In this example insight is used to understand our fears as a means to work toward a solution.
Solution is one of the many gifts of insight, as is clarity. There is no time like the present to seek clarity, reason and understanding. Personal insight will always be useful in your relationships, your individual mental health, and your daily living. Generalized insight into areas like politics and race relations has the ability to change a growing number of incidences of physical and verbal brutality. Seeking insight and understanding before reacting allows us to remain calm in situations. Together let us choose to examine the shadows of our fears in order to cultivate insights and solutions in ourselves and others.