Toward Better Introspection

 “We study our­selves to for­get our­selves.” –Zen saying

I

The truth is that when it comes to the most dif­fi­cult life or work chal­lenges, many of us pre­fer accept­able, expert answers, the sim­pler and more straight-for­ward the bet­ter. And yet, that’s not always the case. There are also times when we also want to go deep­er for more per­son­al, cre­ative, orig­i­nal answers, ones that come from ded­i­cat­ed intro­spec­tion, ones that are more like the open­ing of a flower or the paint­ing of a pri­vate mas­ter­piece. As a lead­er­ship coach I am always excit­ed to work with some­one who is fac­ing some major chal­lenge and who gen­uine­ly wants to enter the unknown ter­ri­to­ry of the self, even though that feels a lit­tle scary or crazy. The chal­lenge ahead may be any­thing: leav­ing an orga­ni­za­tion to find a bet­ter place­ment, being caught in the vice-grip of orga­ni­za­tion­al pol­i­tics, han­dling a beast of a con­flict, or find­ing the mean­ing in dif­fi­cult, maybe con­fus­ing or painful feedback. 

James Hol­lis, in his beau­ti­ful, slim vol­ume, Liv­ing Between Worlds, ref­er­ences a fel­low Jun­gian ther­a­pist who finds clients divid­ed into two groups: the Big Kids and the Lit­tle Kids. The Big Kids are will­ing to gen­uine­ly grap­ple with their dif­fi­cul­ties, exam­in­ing their own thoughts and feel­ings, behav­iors and respon­si­bil­i­ty for repeat­ing expe­ri­ences. The Lit­tle Kids still want a par­ent to tell them what to do. I sus­pect we all have a Big Kid and a Lit­tle Kid with­in us and when the threat lev­el gets high enough, it’s the Lit­tle Kid who is like­ly to show up want­i­ng a for­mu­la more than the Big Kid who is will­ing to face an unknown path. But not always. As I say, some us do want a lot more.

Our tool set for the Big Kid’s intro­spec­tive jour­ney pri­mar­i­ly involves ask­ing our­selves chal­leng­ing ques­tions and answer­ing them, using obser­va­tions, expe­ri­ence and intu­ition, see­ing pat­terns in the data with­out becom­ing defen­sive, with­out evolv­ing a world of neg­a­tive assump­tions about the motives of oth­ers, with­out the Lit­tle Kid’s need for an ene­my to defeat. We see the prob­lem as in here, not out there.

II

Sup­pose, for exam­ple, there is no actu­al ana­lyz­able answer to the dilem­ma you might be fac­ing. Yet you sim­ply can’t sus­tain where you are. Then a deci­sion falls to the adult in the room. You have to make your way on your own as that grown up. You have to choose, there being no one to blame for your cir­cum­stances. You have to choose, not know­ing if this is the “right” choice. You have to choose with­out know­ing all of the con­se­quences of that choice. You have to choose in the midst of anx­i­ety and maybe antic­i­pat­ing regrets. But you have to choose. What then do you rely upon?

At that moment you see the entrance to the cave, the noth­ing­ness, the void you’ve been avoid­ing. Some describe it as a kind of “blank wall” or sim­ply as an empti­ness: “I don’t know what to do!” It’s a fall into a pit, a hold­ing zone. A safe but stuck place. Many stop here, and for far too long.

But then you also may see the real task has become a lit­tle clear­er. It’s like clean­ing out a drain pipe that over time has become clogged with leaves and mud. It is a task you’ve put off. Plac­ing rad­i­cal trust in self can be ardu­ous and comes with risk. It goes against the grain of our pri­ma­ry con­di­tion­ing as human beings (our leaves, our mud). 

Or to use anoth­er anal­o­gy, we walk down a hall look­ing into one room after anoth­er. Some con­tain pleas­ant scenes; some not so much. Some doors we pass with­out look­ing in at all. Or maybe not want­i­ng to look we look any­way, again, with only the feel­ing of our hor­rif­ic stuck­ness returning.

“Is this the flower that’s sup­posed to be open­ing?” you might well ask. No, of course not, but maybe this dirt, this clog, this night­mare scene is exact­ly what is need­ed to nour­ish that flower. Wait.

III

Just stay in that place, that dark­ness. It is a place of ges­ta­tion where some­thing can occur, maybe almost or first as a mat­ter of metaphor and sychronic­i­ty. You can’t see it com­ing but maybe there will be a sign, one for you, not against you, a sign that is not a self-decep­tion and in a pos­i­tive way has some­thing to do with your own real agency as a per­son. What is it? A lit­tle spark, a drop of water, a seed, a tip­ping of the bal­ance, tiny at first, and you find your­self see­ing and con­sid­er­ing how some­thing new­ly freed could hap­pen. “I could leave” or just as eas­i­ly, “I could stay,” and that direc­tion appears as both an act of sur­ren­der to what is meant to be part of your path and as a pow­er­ful access to the per­son­al growth you tru­ly want, hon­or­ing some­thing deep­er down in the psy­che. We used to call that “soul” but that term has acquired an unpop­u­lar taste and becomes too eas­i­ly dis­mis­si­ble. And that’s okay. I think we can safe­ly leave it as a mystery.

IV

I’m not here to tell you what to believe. 

Maybe if you look at the whole of a per­son from birth to death it would seem each of us has some kind of under­ly­ing pur­pose for being alive and every once in awhile we touch into it — if sen­si­tive in that way. Maybe human life is sim­ply a prepa­ra­tion for some­thing larg­er that comes lat­er and is some­thing we can learn noth­ing about here beyond rec­og­niz­ing the beats of the script we have choosen. Who knows? 

Maybe the process of humankind’s evo­lu­tion is one of con­tin­u­al tran­scen­dence, as indi­vid­u­als and as a species, for­get­ting old selves along the way. All that could be fun to talk about some­time, while we sit here on dif­fer­ent sides of this same incred­i­bly beau­ti­ful, rush­ing river.

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