We can stop chasing aha-moments - insight isn't a flash, it's a conversation
And a practice to help you stay in dialogue with the friction of it
There’s something that happens at times, when I trudge through the unknown and I am getting tired and weary. I find myself grasping for something that rationally resembles the end-result. Instead of listening, conversing and allowing myself to follow what is coming to life, I bind myself to a shape. Because ‘this must be what good looks like’.
It’s akin to seeking shelter in a check-list or a format or arbitrary criteria. Anything to grant myself the safety and respite that the process seems to be denying me - indisputable clarity and arrival. The aha-moment where everything just falls into place.
This precision I manufacture, is a lie of course, but I don’t beat myself up about it. There is no shame, really. After all, I am human - an organism made to predict for the sake of my survival. And as if that is not enough, most of the systems we participate in - from school to work and beyond - measure us not on our ability to move through a process, but on how adept we are at conjuring up results with minimal waste of resources.
So I receive this reflex with grace and when I am ready, I help myself to come out of gripping for safety and back into dialogue with the friction that is being served to me.
Extending the aha-moment
Yes, we have been taught to covet the pinnacles of a process - showered with unyielding demands for productivity - but when we listen closely to the rhythm of life and creation there is another lesson. One that fits into the nature of life, much neater than artificial certainty - and is both more human and more demanding.
We love to talk about the breakthroughs and the big shifts. But in reality we accumulate our insight and our growth with grit and honesty. Micro moments - tiny flecks of insight - that turn into macro changes and bold statements and creations. Not flashes of clarity or momentary portals at all, but passages of understanding that grow and settle within over time.
Most of us will have sighed and asked ‘when will I get there?’. That question alone, makes the prospect of stepping out of the narrow search of lightbulbs, and accepting continuity and persistence as ingredients, quite daunting.
But there is also liberty in letting our understanding stretch across the entirety of a process - or even life. It widens the scope of our curiosity, not just in time, but in attributes.
When we stop looking exclusively for magical moments of elated clarity, we can start noticing and interacting with so much more. Yes, it can manifest as integrity and answers or enthusiastic inquiry, yet it can just as easily arrive as resistance, as chafing, as an ask to admit the difficult truths and face what we are avoiding.
It can also allow us to take the burden of coming up with greatness off our own backs - putting us into dialogue with the ideas and the feedback that already exists. Freeing ourselves from the need to be master - turning us into a humble steward.
And the question isn’t anymore if you are making space for strokes of genius, but if you are listening for the persistent nudges that are always there and letting them guide you.
A practice to practice
It can be tempting to make this dialogue about learning, but this is not a practice in sense-making and searching for lessons. The beautiful thing about taking a creative and cyclical approach to life and how we create, is that it does not perceive waste. Nor does it get entangled in efficiency.
Instead we are asked to be with and harness the process - and interact with the sentiments, conflicts and assets that arise and fluctuate within it. Knowing that it is the conversation with change and repeated action that brings us forward - not the absence of it.
Many of us will carry within this expectation to be even and constant. But this is not our nature. Forcing ourselves into rigidity and premature decisions, translates into tension and stagnation in our bodies and in our creations.
When we open ourselves to view each feeling, every friction and each small nudge as essential fuel, rather than distraction - we welcome the opportunity for insight to reveal itself to us, rather than us conceiving of it.
If we want to lead from our essence, rather than our fear - to let our ability to create beyond even our own imagination come to play - there is much to be said for our ability to be gentle and inquisitive rather than harsh and judgemental. And there is equal necessity for our capacity to approach the stickiness and complexities in ourselves and in our relationships, without contracting into defensiveness or hiding.
Starting to practice this doesn’t need to be advanced. You can find opportunities to converse in the dissonance already happening in your life. The places that ruffle your emotions. The emotions that trigger friction. The friction that invites you to ask more questions.
It can be as simple as a conversation you have been procrastinating - or avoiding. A person - or a place within yourself - where you feel a need for more information. Where you want to go from constriction to heart opening, from conflicted to (at least) neutral - from labelling to curious.
Can you allow yourself to lean into a conversation you have been putting off having? Without rush and with intention and self-compassion:
What do you need before having the conversation? Consider what preparation or reassurance you get to give yourself to step into it open.
What can you do to support yourself during the conversation? Frame how you might support yourself to stay curious and explorative, and not resort to judgement. Perhaps prepare go-to questions or statements you can use without needing to revert to habitual retorts in the moment - or consider tools or structures that you can resort to for support.
What do you need after such a conversation? Define how you care for any emotions that may arise - anything on the spectrum from reactive and contracting to relieved and celebratory - how do you make room for them?
Perhaps now, we exhale and rest in knowing - good is not how precise you are, but in how you dare to meet the mess - over and over. Not just in one moment.
Does this resonate? Or awaken something?
As always, I invite you to make this a conversation <3
This creative practice (A practice to practice) was born out of a deeper conversation on the podcast Learning from Trees between:
Michelle Baker - Alongside being a devoted student and practitioner, Michelle is a teacher, guide and mentor known for her grounding presence and steady counsel. Her work is centered around supporting people in navigating personal, spiritual and seasonal evolutions by guiding them back home to the innate wisdom of their body through breathwork, movement, meditation and body focussed inquiry & coaching.
Shani Persson - Shani is a devout student of life and the nuances and complexities of being human. She is an explorer, space-holder and occasional poet, who dedicates herself to the birth of heart-centered ideas and bold visions. In her work she helps humans connect within to access their creativity - and unique essence.
You can listen to the full episode here:
