Why Insight Isn’t Enough for Change

Episode Transcript

Debra:

Hello everyone, welcome back to JUNG ON PURPOSE. I’m Debra Maldonado.

Dr. Rob:

And I am Dr. Rob. Welcome to the program.

Debra:

We’re with CreativeMind and we’re bringing you all things Jungian in a coaching model. And so today we are talking about change, like what makes people change. We’re starting a new series. And the title of this, the topic we’re talking about today is why insight isn’t enough. And we’ll get into it in just a moment, but I do want to remind you to subscribe to our podcast if you haven’t already. And that helps us out, get more listeners and more people listening to this content. And also, if you are watching us on YouTube, please click the link in the corner and subscribe to our channel. So Rob, why is insight not enough? I have lots of insights.

Dr. Rob:

Yeah, I think it’s the simplest trap to fall into as we are starting personal development. We think that if we figure it out, right, if we solve the problem, if we understand it, we have that clear insight into why we do things the way we do them, that we can change them, right? Or that will be enough to make a transformation. That if I understand, I know I solved, I fixed, I’m good, right? The rest is easy.

Debra:

Like I understand my patterns. I understand I’m shy because my father was critical and my mother was critical. And so that’s why I’m the way I am. Isn’t psychology, I mean, I just remember years ago when I was first studying, there was a lot of talk about that it’s a big thing for people, that many therapists say that it’s really a valuable tool in the therapeutic method is to get that insight, get the client getting the insight.

Dr. Rob:

Yeah. It absolutely is an essential part of personal development, transformation, psychotherapy, coaching, depth coaching, all these things. You definitely need insight. You need to be aware. You need to activate, you know, kind of let the oxygen hit the brain so that you can start to have that understanding, right? But it’s not enough in the sense that people expect for insight to do the heavy lifting for them. But if I have enough understanding and I know what’s wrong, right? And you often hear people that say after they’ve been through some depth coaching like our work, they start to tell all their friends, right? This is amazing. I had great insight and I feel great. It is the beginning of transformation, but it’s not enough because it’s not really getting at the roots which are in the unconscious mind.

Debra:

And I’d like to read a quote from Jung, if you want, that an understanding that remains purely intellectual does not touch the deeper layers of the psyche. Collected works volume.

Dr. Rob:

That’s right. It doesn’t go deep enough. Now there are different models, of course, just to be fair, and some models, they don’t worry too much about the unconscious mind. They say, you know, why let’s just focus on what we know and how we can understand things and make those changes. And if it works for you and you’re saying, yeah, that’s the way I’ve been working and it’s working for me. Of course, continue, do not, you know, do not kind of be discouraged by our, by our talk. We’re simply talking about a Jungian model, which is based on depth psychology would see insight simply as the surface, right? That we’re thinking through things and in our, and the Jungian model, the waking state is governed by the ego. So the ego has a lot to say about our situation. It’s more than happy to tell us where we’re off and where we went wrong and where people failed us and all that. I mean, the ego loves that. Yeah, it’ll say, yeah, let’s talk about that. But it has a lot of defense mechanism.

Debra:

The narratives, right?

Dr. Rob:

One of its defense mechanisms is to project and to kind of put the blame externally away from yourself, away from itself essentially, because it is the center of our conscious life. So it says,

Debra:

Is it like a self-preservation? It’s a self-preservation. So the stories that’ll feed you and the insights will feed you is, you’re like that because that person was bad, but you’re good and you’re the victim of this crazy thing. And, you know, I’m not saying that most people, you know, had had, you know, terrible times in their life, but it tends to want to protect you from that self-examination and taking responsibility in some.

Dr. Rob:

Yeah, yeah, that’s right. It has a very primal, primitive almost mission to defend itself and protect itself. Very, very biological, very primal. That’s why we’re such survivors as human beings. That’s why there’s 8 billion of us on the planet and growing because we’re really good at protecting ourselves, making sure we survive. That’s the ego. So in working, let’s say with self-inquiry, where we’re actually asking questions about our life and the way it played out and really examining those things, if we stop at that ego level, most of the time it will be based on projection that it wasn’t my fault.

Debra:

And rational too, it’s like so rational.

Dr. Rob:

Rational. Yeah, that it wasn’t my fault. It’ll find a way to make it that you were a victim. Somebody did this to you. Somebody played you bad. If things had been different, you would have done great, those kind of things. Which is, again, we see that it might help the individual. Of course, often the, you know, people that get the label and they say, you my therapist or my doctor told me this, had ADHD or something like this. Now they say, now I understand why my life is the way it is. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Those are useful. But if you want to do real work, if you want real transformation, you’re going to have to go beyond that ego defense layer of the psyche.

Debra:

And so for me, like understanding how the child, like most of our patterns were stored before we were nine, very across all disciplines that a lot of people agree, even neuroscience agrees with that. A lot of our, you know, condition patterns, there’s like a, you know, growth spurt in our brain. But when we’re children, when we’re really little, we don’t have like that rational, even intellectual understanding. So we’re purely, Jung says this, we’re purely emotional. And so we’re feeling and being in the space and the environment we’re at. And basically we all know emotional, sorry, irrational. So we’re really irrational beings just trying to survive. And so we start wiring ourselves to survive, but it’s from an emotional state. And Rob always says the emotion really locks you into your patterns. And the emotion is really what’s going to set you free. So if you’re just working on that intellectual level, the cognitive level, you’re not really dealing with the emotional level, which is unconscious. You could feel emotions consciously, but the root of that emotion is unconscious. It’s deeper in the psyche.

Dr. Rob:

Yeah, very much so. Yeah, if we look at early childhood experiences. Let’s simplify it right? If you do something that pleases the parents, you get rewarded by that. You’re a good girl. You’re a good boy. Right? Kind of attitude or just the feeling, right? That that’s what really feeds you. So we can think of the reward as an emotional reward and vice versa. If, if you do something wrong, bad. There’s tension or punishment, or withholding of love and affection. That is an emotional experience as well. But it’s, it’s to reduce the behavior, right to punish you in a way. And so we’re conditioned early on, emotionally, not intellectually, not cognitively.

Debra:

And don’t we can make connections that aren’t really rational connections when we’re kids too.

Dr. Rob:

What do you mean?

Debra:

Well, this is a really great example. I remember when I was little, used to go into my dad’s room and parents’ room. They were in bed together and I was like three or four. And I would just always be like so happy, go lucky and go in. And I teased my father about his nose and I called him big nose. It’s just a memory I remember. And he was just kind of laughing along with me and I’m like, you’re a big nose and they’re just being funny. And then later on that day, I got in trouble for something. And I thought, see, don’t be careful what you say. You teased him, you disappointed him, and now you’re in trouble. And it’s because I called him, I was teasing him and play being playful. And then I started to withdraw. And so the child made this whole up. And then later in life, I asked my mom, I you remember that day? And she said, she said, you were always climbing on stuff and freaking him out. Like I was always climbing at that age. like going on the banister and hanging. And you know, we had like a lot of multi stories. So always putting myself in danger and my father was always like, you know, pulling me down. And so it had nothing to do with each other, but as a child, I connected it to this very close, fun relationship and then something broke. And so I must have done something wrong. And so it’s very irrational. And then throughout my life that I’m sure I have some template around not. hurting people or saying the wrong thing. Well, I know I do. So it’s just really from that innocent day, the memory I remember, but just connecting those two also understanding that connection doesn’t change anything. have to really work with that feeling of what, is that feeling I had of disappointed being a disappointment or breaking the rules or being in trouble? Like, what does that feel like? And I can feel it in my body right now, just talking about it. So we have to like examine that deeper. deeper aspect, the emotional aspect.

Dr. Rob:

Yeah, that’s a good point that you make because let’s say in working with that, that memory, right. And that experience, it helps to have insight first, but not to stop there, right? Because if you have insight and you think, well, okay, that kind of fixes it because I understand where my predilection to please people comes from. That is not going to change the pleasing pattern.

It’s simply going to change the way you see it, the way you understand it. That’s insight.

Debra:

And you could probably think, well, I’ll just go and act like I don’t care what people think and have that, you know, that people put being unattached and, and again, intellectual operating and changing behavior to break the pattern is not, mean, sometimes it does a little bit, but it doesn’t really get to the root.

Dr. Rob:

Yeah, I see it as distinctly different than learning because learning operates on the similar principles, right? That you can observe somebody being punished, for example, for something and you don’t have to repeat that error yourself. You can learn from observation as a kid that, if somebody leaves the toys out and somebody trips over the toys, you’re going to get punished.

Dr. Rob:

So I won’t do that. You learn it simply by social observation. But the emotional component often, especially in when we’re children, it doesn’t have a kind of a cognitive piece, kind of an intellectual understanding to it. Like you said, we make connections with things that don’t really have a connection. You know, you were climbing up on the banister and you got spanked and And then you use you thought always because I tease my father, something like that, right. And that connection remains in the mind and as that’s the cause that’s the cause of it.

Debra:

Like intimacy is dangerous because you never might say, don’t say, you have to be careful what you say and don’t get too close. Yeah. Like don’t trust, right? That intimacy. And so, yeah, that was my love life in general for so many years. Yeah.

Dr. Rob:

Something like that. So in depth psychology, because the aim is not simply to change the behavior, it’s to integrate the psyche. That’s the ultimate goal in depth psychology. So it’s not merely to have the individual experience a change in the response to a certain situation, let’s say to stop being over pleasing with other people.

Debra:

Yeah.

Dr. Rob:

That’s the aim in some models and that’s all right. Of course, like I said, that helps you get by and change your patterns. Great. But in depth psychology, the aim is to integrate the psyche meaning to where you really have a conscious choice in situations so that you’re not simply trying to fix the over pleasing behavior. Yeah.

Debra:

It was a bad thing.

Dr. Rob:

And say I’m going to substitute it with standing my ground and setting boundaries. Okay, good.

Debra:

You’re saying the learning, I just want to say this is really important, the learning. I never heard you say this before, but I love this concept that many of us and I’ve been doing before I had a coach, I did my own self help, which took me in circles for many years. I was trying to learn a new way to be. And so I think we’re taught this. I mean, think that’s part of our first part of life. We’re taught, I learned from my mistakes and then I’m going to try a different behavior and then I’ll be better. And that means like change my attitude or use different communication styles. Or I remember in, the, when I first got into like looking at dating advice, people, don’t do this on a date and don’t do that. And if you learn to act a certain way, you know, and not go look for the red flags and all those things, you can learn to change your behavior, but it’s not a transformation because it’s just having the ego learn. Like the ego is just learning better ways to cope and manage their life. Like ego management, wouldn’t you say? Yeah.

Dr. Rob:

That’s a good way to see it. Yeah. You’re, you’re adding to the arsenal of ego defenses and acquiring one more and saying, I’m going to change my routine and act more self-assertive or anything like that.

Debra:

I know.

Debra:

Or be careful more of what how much I reveal about myself so people don’t hurt me and protect myself. And yeah, a lot of that egos, it’s seems like insight and rational plan of action is the ego is like, okay, we’re gonna keep her or him in their little comfort zone still.

Dr. Rob:

Yeah, so in a way, you know, in Jung’s work, there’s a period of deconstructing the ego. And we can think of deconstruction as dismantling the defense mechanisms. So that instead of saying, yeah, I’m going to fix myself and act in this other way. We’re saying, no, what is the root cause of that feeling that arises of me

Debra:

I’m learning basically.

Dr. Rob:

Having to please others or being compelled to please others when not at the conscious level, I know I don’t want to do that, but yet the situation just kind of pulls it from me. Right. And that’s really our experience. That’s closer to our real experience is that we appear not to have a choice in the situation. Jung says that’s the autonomous complex. This kind of, learning that happened emotionally and intuitively and kind of socially right that just imprinted in our minds so powerfully that now we have to act this way. It compels us to act like forces us to act that way. So it’s a tricky thing to dismantle that. All right, to be able to dismantle not to get rid of it, not to push it away. We’re not denying that, it’s useful to me or, you know, it somehow helped me survive and adapt. But we’re simply saying, now I’m ready to consciously make a choice in these situations that call for human interaction. Now, instead of going towards the automatic response of pleasing others. Now I can, I can hold back, can think it through.

Dr. Rob:

and decide for myself in a conscious way what’s the proper response here. To get to that point then.

Debra:

Well, and the pleasing is just a symptom too, isn’t it? Like you don’t want to just keep changing, working on the symptom level as well. Well, I worked on my pleasing. So it’s really about what if I go deeper to what’s underneath that in the psyche? That’s what Jung talked about, like beneath even the shadow. Like what is the drive that’s, like you say, the complex that’s automatic? I think for me, I did not even know the feeling. that was driving me. Like there’s a feeling that we feel on a conscious level. And maybe when we feel rejected or when we feel like almost for some reason, it feels like a compulsion, like a habit, but it doesn’t have a feeling to it. You just feel this like need to do something like motivation, I guess it would be called. And then like later on, as I got deeper and did Jung’s work, I understood, there’s a feeling here that I wasn’t even aware of that’s been driving. And so that’s what we’re really getting at. is that the deepest driving feeling. Yeah.

Dr. Rob:

In a way, yeah. So we’re looking for structural change, not merely cognitive insight. Because cognitive insight is good. Yeah, we’re understanding the situation better, but often we’re helpless in the face of these powerful ego defense mechanisms because they’re really powerful. They’re meant to be powerful and they’re meant to protect us. Now, why are they protecting us that way? anything that in nature, anything that helps us survive, says, nature says, let’s keep that because it, helped you get through the day. In other words, it helped you adapt, survive. And so it’s very biological, very primal to, to dismantle the defense mechanisms, right? To, break them down in a creative way, let’s say in a transformative way. So we’re there, we can change the structure of the psyche. That requires us to drop the good and bad, temporarily at least, because the good and bad, that judgment that comes from the ego, it operates very simply. Does the ego see this as being good for me, that it’s gonna help me adapt, survive, move forward, or does it see this as being potentially bad for me, that I might not be able to survive, et cetera.

Debra:

That’s hard.

Dr. Rob:

Now think of what it, what we’re doing there. Anything that’s unknown for the ego is bad. Cause it’s unknown, meaning I can’t predict it. can’t control it. So it says, if you can, if you know how to survive and you know how to get to the next day, just follow that. says, you know, why, why mess with uncertainty when you don’t have to, you can just keep on doing your old habit.

Debra:

It’s like putting additions on your house, the broken house with the foundation that’s kind of rotting, but you keep putting on the building up the, you know, like extra wing or, you know, maybe I’ll put a little deck in the back or maybe a new front front steps and a porch in the front. And, you know, that’ll, that’ll solve everything. What Jung’s work says is let’s just knock down the whole house and unlearn everything so we can really be who we are, not everything. And we’re not getting rid of anything. We’re just letting go of our attachment to being a certain way. I think one thing the ego does defend against too, and we talk about shadow work a lot, is that shadow work really makes you face those unsavory parts of yourself. The ego likes to protect you that you’re a good person. not mean. It’s always trying to pat you on the back, even though sometimes it’s critical, but it’s always trying to have you keep that persona up. And we all have parts of ourself, our inner life where we know that we’re not nice. We have judgments and all that. And then there’s parts of us that we don’t know. And the ego doesn’t want us to look at that. And I know remember when I first started doing shadow work, I was appalled at what I was projecting onto other people. And then seeing that that was in me, it was like, Ooh, like it was like yucky feeling, but that’s what gives you freedom. You don’t want to. It’s like being a celebrity and everyone telling me how wonderful you are. Meanwhile, you’re really not that great and no one’s being honest with you. It’s like you’re being honest with yourself and that’s really that true self comes out.

Dr. Rob:

Yeah, so back to kind of the way we’re working is we’re at reverse engineering. We begin with the insight. Yeah, we want to have that insight as to what was the conditioning about? And we can see it. Most of us can clearly see it in our past history. Then the next question, though, because we don’t stop at insight, is what is the core emotion? that’s holding that in place. So it’s a simple question, something like this. What would happen if you don’t please the person?

Debra:

Then you know. Well, for me, I remember one of my first coaches asked me, what would happen if you never got married, never found the love of your life in this lifetime? And I was like, all that energy. No, like I can’t let that happen was all that heaviness and all that fear and anxiety about being alone for the rest of my life and never finding someone. I was moved.

Dr. Rob:

I think we all have that one.

Debra:

Yeah, I know. we were, but I was creating from that place. It was like, wouldn’t even want to look at that part. Like, I don’t even want to look at it. I don’t want to, I’m just going to keep believing and being positive and, you know, forgetting, you know, pushing that away because it’s so fearful. But when I pulled it in front of me and really looked at it and just stopped fighting it, I opened it up and saw what was inside of it. And it was like nothing. But if you keep it unconscious, or you keep suppressing it and not want to look at it. I don’t want to even entertain that as an idea. And it’s going to run our life.

Dr. Rob:

And this is precisely the reason why insight is not enough. Insight will only change our understanding of our behavior, but it will not change the behavior pattern itself for real structural change, meaning that you’re able then to decide how to act in, in adult situations. You have to get at that emotion and then accept it. In other words, instead of trying to fix it, it’s not about fixing the emotion, but about understanding it and accepting that, this has been building me the way I’ve been experiencing the world and has given me a lot, but in a kind of a limited way. Now we’re ready to take the training wheels off the bike and say, I can drive it myself, right? can navigate my life. in a conscious way.

Debra:

I always say that for me, I used to read a lot of self-help books. That’s how I did my personal development by myself without a coach. And I read so many books and I would read through them and I would be like, this makes a lot of sense. I understand, I must be codependent or it’s related to my father and this makes so much sense, but nothing changed. And I always tell people read, if you if you read a book, especially the pop psychology, they water everything down. You read a book and it doesn’t challenge you in any way. And you read it through and you’re like, it confirms everything I believe in. And you want to find things teachings that challenge what you believe. And then you know, you’re on the right track. Because when the ego resists an idea, you know that it’s it’s hitting up against that part. So litmus test. Think about the last book you read. Did it stretch your mind or did it just confirm what you already knew or made everything seem rational and soothe you in a way? Or were you like knocked off your feet and blown away? And that’s what you want. want to be. And then also if you’re mad or angry or resistant to that idea, that is exactly you’re in the right place. But you, it’s just like being around people that disagree with you, help you understand yourself better. being around, people will just lead you to, no growth at all. We always need a little friction for growth. can’t just, wouldn’t it be nice though, Rob, if you could just read a book and magically your life will change. one day we’ll have a magic machine that does that for us. So I think a great, we’re going to talk about.

Dr. Rob:

Be easy.

Debra:

this on the next episode of really get into where change happens. But we talked about emotion. So that’s a great exercise, Rob. Think about what happens if you don’t act out your pattern. Like if you know your pattern, I want you to sit with the feeling of what would happen if you didn’t act out that pattern. would your compulsion, you didn’t give into that compulsion. And then just kind of think about those insights and bring them here next week. for our next episode of where change actually happens.

Debra:

All right, see you next week, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Take care.

Dr. Rob:

See you soon.