Photo courtesy of Chuck Coker and flickr
“What you’re looking for is a realisation, and the realisation is something you’ve never thought of before, and you go ‘oh’, and it comes as an insight. And it comes like a thought, and you think it’s an ordinary thought, but it’s not, because a realisation doesn’t come from anything you’ve ever learned in your life, it comes from inside.”
Sydney Banks
Author, philosopher
I’ve had a wonderful weekend with a great group of people on the Coaching Package Power Summit. There were insights a-plenty, and we also explored where insights come from; your innate capacity for insight. Certified Clarity Coach Scott James hails from Australia, and wrote an insightful article about the capacity for insight which I’d like to share with you this week. Over to you, Scott…
A Deeper Understanding – How Insight Leads to Lasting Change
How is it that other people who understand the principles behind clarity are able to be resilient in the face of adversity?
You’ve been learning about these principles for some time now.
You’ve read the books, listened to the audios watched the videos.
You understand what the principles are pointing to.
But when the pressure is on your intellect fails you.
Someone says the wrong thing to you and your confidence takes a hit.
The bills pile up it seems as though your security is reliant on your job, the balance in your bank account or your future prospects.
What makes others different?
If an intellectual understanding of the principles of Mind, Thought and Consciousness isn’t enough, what is?
Ingredients for Lasting Change
An insight is the difference that makes the difference.
The difference between having an intellectual understanding and knowing something to be true.
Insight – sight from within – is a new understanding of how something works. An insight updates your neurology and changes how you see the world.
Miram-Webster's online dictionary defines an insight as "an understanding of the true nature of something".
Insights are not limited to the principles behind clarity. They can range from an inspired new idea to solve a problem to seeing the nature of how we create our experience.
No Recipe for Insight
Insights are personal. No two people will see something the same way.
You can’t ‘do’ an insight. There is no technique. It’s not possible to mix a little of this and a dash of that, put it in the oven and create a magic insight.
What you can do is create the environment and allow it to emerge.
The one common theme for insights is a quiet mind. Mulling over a problem trying to solve it with what you already know is a recipe for getting stuck.
An insight is a catalyst for old outdated thinking to fall away and replaced by fresh new thinking.
It changes how you see the world in a given context.
For me, the insight that has had the biggest impact was seeing that nothing outside of me can make me feel anything.
I’d been working long hours on a project. Putting in extra hours, morning and night, as well as a full work day to meet deadlines.
As was my habit, I was checking emails early one morning and read one asking for an update on a particular aspect of the project. What it was I can’t even remember.
My immediate reaction was to launch into an indignant internal dialogue.
I worked myself into a frenzy of frustration.
“Could they not see how hard I was working?”
“Why would you even ask me that if you understood how much I was doing?”
In that moment the world looked like a frustrating place.
Cooking Up a More Productive Life
So what happened with the email that was causing all my angst?
I spent an hour and a half thinking about the injustice of it all.
It was later when driving to work my internal dialogue was interrupted by the thought “I bet you think your feelings are coming from that email”.
In that moment I knew it couldn’t be that way, even if it looked that way.
I create my experience, and my reaction inside me.
How could an email get inside my head unless I was the one generating the reaction via the principle of THOUGHT?
The implications of this insight have been profound.
I’m no longer at the mercy of events. I don’t feel victimised. I know that I’m the one creating the feelings I feel through the principle of THOUGHT.
This insight has stayed with me to this day.
And what were the benefits?
Reducing my stress levels on the job. I no longer see events or the amount of work I’ve got as a source of stress, rather it’s me doing it to me.
Having the freedom to explore, create and do more in work and play because I’ve got less on my mind.
My insight have been a journey, creating more psychological freedom each time I have one.
I don’t always see things clearly. Sometimes I still get caught up in my thoughts, and at times and my thinking snowballs. But I have the benefit of noticing when this happens and I return to clarity.
This is the power of insight.
Thanks Scott! I’ll be back with an article from me next week
To your increasing clarity
Big love
Jamie