Tears in the grass; the anatomy of an insight
What makes those moments of revelation or insight so, well, revelatory? I'm curious about these breakthroughs that happen when a combination of things are in place.
I step unsteadily out of the main room, through the bifold doors, over the small sunlit rock garden, and come down to the ground. Initially I am kneeling with my hands spread, palms open onto the lush grass. My body feels weak in this posture so I lower my head to the grass making gentle contact with my forehead on the cool, damp, thick and welcoming grass.
It’s springy and wet, and my face sinks in, not too far to obstruct my breathing, but far enough to totally blot out any light. What has felt like physical overwhelm turns into emotional movement inside of me. In this position my body can pour out the emotion more easily. Tears flow from my wet eyes into the absorbent grass as I find release and deep letting go. I allow myself this moment of emotion and tears.
A few things are happening at the same time; I’m feeling grief and sadness, yet this is closely coupled with relief and joy. Some of my sobbing ends with me smiling and almost laughing or chuckling into the grass, face down. My brain (sort of at a distance) notes how similar crying and laughing are from a raw physiological stance.
I’m aware there may be others close around me, yet I’m trusting they’ll be witnessing and gently ‘holding space’ for me. I’m safe. It’s OK to let go and I allow myself to go fully into this place of vulnerability. I know in this group, and at this moment, there is no chance of a comforting arm around my shoulders, or somebody telling me ‘there there, it’s alright, there’s no need to feel that.’ I want to be feeling what I’m feeling, it’s a relief.
Little would that person know that within these tears there is relief, and contact with a deep well of gratitude that I can go here and feel what I’m feeling. Given the opportunity to remain present with the physical experience there are more tears. When my mind tries to make sense of this, or analyse the situation, or put a story to the tears I’m pulled out of the moment - when I keep my attention on my body and breath there are still yet more tears seeking release into the welcoming soft damp grass.
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What’s happening here? And why am I curious about this kind of experience?
As alluded to in a previous post; I’m curious about the ‘anatomy of an insight’. I think there are four main parts: (1) emotional movement, (2) embodied presence, (3) naming and bringing into awareness, and (4) witnessing a potential shift. Let’s look at these one at a time.
1. Emotional movement
Also known as an emotional release it seems that at least some level of emotion is present in a moment of insight. This can be a larger and more dramatic emotional release, or it can simply be an awareness of an ‘inner knowing’ or a sense of truth that we feel.
As Ken Dychtwald suggests our body and mind are, in fact, one cohesive unit. The emotional landscape of our lives is written on and within our bodies. With large traumatic events or continued habitual ways of being we develop areas of stuck-ness, blocked energy, or stiffness.
Laughing and crying are great ways for the body to release this stuck energy and create some movement and spaciousness within the ‘Bodymind’. - Ken’s term for the unified way of describing ourselves. Here’s a previous article I wrote about this practice of emotional release - the article will be reposted to Substack soon and updated (it’s about 3 years old).
2. Embodied presence
The insight lands within the body. In my ‘embodied relating’ work we use movement practices to gain perspective on our patterns, and we are usually doing these things in relation to another body. In this way our attention is present and ‘in’ our physical body. We are present with the shape, posture, attitude, and feeling state of our bodies.
Insight it seems, needs a physical rooting, a grounding into the form of the body. It’s not something that we can have an abstract notion of, the story and idea is only a part of the experience. What seems to really count is when we have a physical and emphatically bodily oriented experience that affirms the realness and aliveness of our knowing.
This, for me, is why embodiment is having a bit of a heyday. Our world is becoming more and more dis-embodied; work happens through a screen for the vast majority of us (myself included!), our attention is taken by our phones delivering us all kinds of abstract stories and distractions. We are systematically taken ‘out’ of our bodies, or at least our attention is. And this is not good. We are physical and embodied animals and our most foundational level of need is that of our physical comfort and survival.
3. Naming and bringing into awareness
This dimension of our insight arises from my training as a coach with a particular focus on adult development theory. There is a significant piece to giving language to an insight, to describing it, naming it, noticing it.
What we are doing here is giving form and sustenance to a notion, a hunch, and in doing so we are making part of our internal experience something we can hold as object and external to ourselves. This is the infamous ‘subject - object shift’ that I’ve explained more in other posts.
It appears from witnessing Anthony’s work, and my own embodied relating work, that we don’t need to delve into the story and the past here; it’s enough just to name what we are witnessing and move forwards from there. Bringing a pattern into conversation helps create the distance and clarity we need for an insight to occur.
4. Witnessing a potential shift
The fourth part of this curious anatomy of an insight is witnessing a potential shift or the closeness of adopting a new pattern. Naming, presence, psychological distance, emotional movement, these aspects create space, they give an opportunity for something to fill a newly blank space.
The new understanding that another way is possible feels profoundly significant; you don’t have to continue exhibiting the usual behaviour, you are free to try something new. There is acknowledgment here that we don’t immediately need to step into this new state, often that’s not possible for us (or at least it feels that way) and yet the knowing of a new way, the sensing of that possibility for us, is part of what contributes to an insight.
And so there you have it; emotion, embodied presence, naming a pattern, and sensing the potential of a new way - these four parts seem to be, for now, the fundamentals of an insight.
What do you think?
What have I missed out from this model?
I’m attempting to work out what’s needed for profound insight to occur. Once a model is clear of what the component parts are there is the possiblity of constructing, engineering if you like, experiences where insight could occur in a reliable and meaningful way.
This is what I’m working on with the ‘Embodied Relating’ workshop series currently in incubation mode here in Bristol. Last weekend I facilitated the first of these workshops to sold-out group of 28. I’ll share participant feedback in a subsequent post, safe to say the workshop went really well.
Aaaah Chris, I'm just leaving you a comment here, it's your alter-ego (Chris, logging in from a different account). I'm loving your articles, they're great. Keep them coming. This one reminded me of an important experience I once had.