#819 Experience & Insight

Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: What influence do sensory perception and experience have on gaining insight? That’s the question we explore in Room #819 of the Deep Talk Club, under our overarching theme of “Insight (and gaining it).” Listen in on the examples that came up and the perspectives that emerged in dialogue…

Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.

So I’m really curious now who’d like to open up this reflection space with me this morning, in dialogue on experience and insight — what influence do sensory perception and experience have on gaining insight? So thinking in the direction of the senses, and then experience itself. We’ve certainly touched on this once or twice before, on the sidelines, so to speak — even though we’re in the same room, for instance, like right now, there can absolutely be a situation where we hear the exact same thing and still perceive, or experience, completely different things. And so the insight we gain from it can turn out very differently too. So I’m really curious what you all have to say about this. I’ll go ahead and mute myself briefly, so to speak, to see who’d like to join in. Right, and just the room rules again for anyone joining for the first time today — a reminder that you need a profile photo in which you’re clearly recognizable, your first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio. And another reminder that a recording is running in the background, which means anyone joining automatically agrees to that. If there’s anyone who doesn’t want that for whatever reason, or maybe can’t speak right now because it’s too loud in the background or something like that, you’re of course also welcome to use the chat, and I’ll happily pick that up along the way too. Good morning, dear Layla.

Good morning, Yasemin, a very warm one. I’d also like to put out the call again — please do come up, I see so many intelligent people in the audience, and I’d be really interested to hear what they have to say. As an opener, you said the topic is experience and insight, and I noticed you approach that differently than I do. I once told you that I sometimes understand the world through myself. And that reminded me of something Marc Gassert said — I think that’s his name, that wonderful author who’s already been on your show twice — I once asked him how it is that some people cross their own boundaries fairly often and don’t even notice those boundaries anymore. And I think that might be because those boundaries kept getting crossed over and over, so they may have simply gotten used to it. And he said, well, then you should go into the physical, not just into thinking. And I thought, right, that’s really in the spirit of mindfulness — I’ve told you before that I had a burnout once, and that’s exactly the kind of thing you do then, you go out into nature. You make contact with a tree, which might sound very strange at first — but you can try it, it’s really not that bad, because you look at it differently, and if you flip it around a bit and say, okay, I’m not going to try to communicate with it like E.T., I just want to really look at it closely — how often do we just walk right past things? I noticed for myself that this was really hard for me at first, because I thought, oh right, this is that mindfulness thing with the flower, where you look at a flower and think, oh look how it’s blooming, isn’t that lovely, and suddenly the suffering of the world doesn’t feel so bad anymore. And internally I thought, well, but sometimes situations really are that bad. And yet it’s true that this experience, when you really go into things like the physical, or meditation, or just try something different — because, as I always say, from the way to the goods, habits are the only truth. We tend to live these patterns. And I think insight also comes hand in hand with consciously noticing things, or maybe consciously doing them differently. And it’s things like this — you can all try this out this afternoon — if the weather’s nice where you are, take off your shoes, and if you have a lawn, walk across it, and ideally close your eyes while you do it. And, well, only if it’s not dangerous, please. And you’ll have a completely different experience. And the funny thing is, you get different insights out of it too. What do you think about that, Yasemin?

Thank you so much. I think that’s great. Fundamentally it’s really about experiencing yourself too, in a way. And you used several different terms there, like conscious awareness, mindfulness. I’d actually like to bring in the term watchfulness here too — not just mindfulness, but also watchfulness, in the sense of consciously noticing different things. On one hand you have the observation of nature, which you just described, and at the same time you also mentioned the physical and meditation and things like that, to activate the mind, for instance. And really, quite consciously, perceiving certain things on one hand, things that are external, and at the same time directing your focus onto yourself, noticing your own feelings and so on. So in that sense, experience becomes, in a way, one facet defined as experiencing yourself, and through that moving into the realm of insight, or gaining insight. Maybe you’d like to build the bridge a bit further, to what extent that actually leads to that insight, or that gaining of insight. You said at the start, I understand myself through myself, so to speak — maybe you’d like to add a bit more to that.

Yes, very gladly. What I noticed is that, how should I put it, there really is always so, so much going on, just like for all of us. And, well, for me sometimes my head just won’t switch off. And that’s exactly where exercises like going into the physical come in, which anyone who’s ever done sports knows well — if you’ve ever been on a treadmill for two hours, or for anyone who goes jogging, new impulses come to you, you suddenly slip into experiencing. And even if you’re not really in the mood for it, or with meditation, for instance, that was incredibly hard for me at first, because I thought, and what exactly am I supposed to do there? Right, I just sit there. Okay. And then what? And in purely theoretical terms I know it’s really, really good, and I’d recommend it to everyone, but actually putting it into practice was pure hell for me at first, because I thought, well, how am I supposed to think about nothing? I simply can’t do that. But there are actual, deliberate exercises you can do for that. And the funny thing is, I meditate with my students too, with my sixth graders, at the start of the lesson, and last lesson I forgot to do it. And then they came up to me and said, “Ah, Ms. Bellaid.” And I said, “Yes?” “We forgot something.” And I said, “What did we forget?” “We didn’t meditate.” And I said, “Oh, right, we really did forget.” Because they actually miss it now. At the beginning it felt really strange for them. And that’s exactly where I did the same thing, I said, “Hey, you’re allowed to keep your eyes open if you want.” Because you have to factor in a religious context here too — for some religious groups, closing your eyes can actually be difficult, in case it’s seen as somehow devilish or something like that, and you have to be considerate of that too. So I said, okay, how do we do this? Let’s put our hands on our thighs, my dears, just feel your hands resting on your thighs, that’s all you have to do. Simply that feeling, that conscious experience of, so to speak, centering your mind and concentrating on that. And they were allowed to keep their eyes open. And we only did that for one minute. After that minute we reflected on it, and of course there was laughter, it was loud, there were noises and so on. We did that a few times, and of course it’s important, as a teacher, to figure out how to handle that. And I used the example of once being at a sports class where someone farted during yoga, and I asked, well, why did that happen? And everyone laughed and said, well, but that person got really relaxed, should we really be laughing at them? So, no. And then I said, I had that happen once at a hardware store too, where an older gentleman farted, and everyone laughed again, and I pointed out that grown adults had actually put him on the spot by talking about him — no, you’re not allowed to do that, that’s not okay, and when you’re older, maybe you don’t have as much control over your bodily functions anymore either. I found it really funny, at my age, listening to how they argued about that, but also incredibly sweet. And to come back to the experience part — they kept reflecting on this situation at the start of every lesson, and then they arrived at insights. They said things like, this time we were much quieter, sure there were noises, but it was fine, we’re getting better and better. And at the end I explained to them how meditation actually works too, I told them, you know, there was once a monk who said, someone who meditates well, a beginner, needs a quiet room. But a real Zen monk can meditate in the middle of a marketplace. Explain to me why. “Well, they can tune everything out” and so on. And yes, they also find that they’re more focused at work, that they concentrate better. And that was really lovely, because we work by the motto, which isn’t mine, it’s from Vera Birkenbiel, that we want to go from being brain owners to being brain users. And that’s why it’s just wonderful, I learn from children too, Yasemin.

Wonderful, thank you so much. And on that note, Sabine also brought up the point in the chat about listening too, and listening is actually something we’ll definitely look at the day after tomorrow, once that comes around, after we dedicate tomorrow to insight and communication and then, following on from that, look at this aspect of listening, which is already woven into what we’re talking about here today too. And I can share a bit from my own experience here too, without going too deep into it, so we still have things to pick up for the day after tomorrow. Especially that kind of training you just described, and the reflection behind it, to talk about the insights gained, for instance, which is particularly important with children. And the lovely thing is that this shows, as an example, that this is entirely possible with children too, who often have a natural playfulness. So how can you approach this in a playful way too? What we actually do is turn it into a real game, similar to “I spy with my little eye,” but as “I hear something you don’t hear.” And then really looking at what sounds we can hear in the house, or in the bedroom, or whatever, and then maybe making sounds ourselves and changing something, and the other person gets to notice, through this intense listening, what’s actually changed. And then slowly leading over into things like, can I actually hear or feel my own pulse, and so on, gradually leading into these different levels, so to speak. That works wonderfully when the whole thing is approached playfully. I find that really fascinating, and at this point I’d like to put out the call again for people to come up, so we can open up further perspectives and facets. We’ve picked up on one or two approaches now, particularly around experiencing yourself, but experience actually has far more facets than just experiencing yourself, or strengthening your focus on something. And we’re linking experience and insight, or gaining insight, together — that’s what we’re talking about today. You’re warmly invited to join in, to bring more color, so to speak, into these perspectives. And just a quick reminder for anyone who joined later, that a recording is running in the background, meaning anyone who joins agrees to that, and to it being published. Beyond that, we have three small room rules: a profile photo in which you’re clearly recognizable, your first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio. And of course you also have the option to use the chat, so I can pick that up too. And Ismail writes in the chat: is there a difference between experiencing and having an experience, and also between insight and knowledge? I find that you’re always very precise with your terms. Yes, that’s a lovely question, let’s happily pick that up. Layla, if you’d like, would you like to start directly with insight and knowledge? I think you’ve actually made that distinction quite often before.

Well, I think recognizing something and knowing something is actually different from insight, because if I look at the terms themselves — think about how often you’ve already experienced something, and how often you thought you’d had an actual insight, and then you experienced it again. You make experiences, and then you keep repeating them, or you keep experiencing the same situation over and over. I’ve actually looked into this before, and someone once explained the law of attraction to me, where the idea was that you keep attracting the same thing until you actually change it. And I thought, right, I do believe there’s a deeper meaning behind that too — that you keep experiencing the same thing, keep experiencing situations you already know. And you recognize that you know them. And yet the insight, even if it’s already technically registered in your brain, so to speak, where you say, right, I know this, that’s why it’s happening — I think the real change is that insight itself, or at least having that insight for yourself of, okay, and now what do I actually do with it? Because, oh gosh, who was it, I think it was Albert Einstein who said, people who keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result are crazy. I’m a big fan of being gentle with yourself, so I think it’s okay if you keep experiencing the same situations over and over, if they keep coming back. Because personally I think there’s a reason behind that too. If we just say, okay, I’m crazy, well, Einstein was a brilliant person, but if I think to myself, okay, I’m crazy, I keep experiencing this because the law of attraction says I haven’t gotten it yet — but sometimes the insight itself can also simply be, yes, and this isn’t good for me, and this isn’t okay, or, I’m not being understood, or, actually, this is something positive. And actually doing something with that insight, that would be, for me personally, the action itself, and then the repetition. That’s actually what I asked you about yesterday regarding sustainability. We’ve got Sonja on stage now — sorry, Yasemin, so I don’t talk for too long. Hi, Sonja.

Thank you so much, and dear Sonja, a very good morning to you. Would you like to pick this up directly, or do you have another point you brought along?

Well, first of all, a very good morning, and Layla, you can talk for as long as you like, I love listening to you, you really don’t need to cut yourself short. And I find Ismail’s question really fascinating too, that’s actually the reason I wanted to join in a bit, even though I’m quite distracted right now with other things, making breakfast and so on. But I’d like to share the thought with you. Knowledge and insight — if you ask someone to take note of something, I’ve never, ever, ever heard someone say “please insight-note this,” only ever “please note this for your information.” And that gets me thinking that insight is a more intensive engagement with a piece of knowledge — that I’m looking at it much more alertly, that I interact a bit more with that thought or that experience and actually do something with it, what can I draw from it, what further information is hidden in there for me. So it’s a much, much deeper kind of experiencing. And he had a second part to his question too, the difference between experiencing and having an experience, which I actually find much harder to differentiate for myself. For me, “experiencing” is more fundamentally tied to joy, an experience in that sense, whereas “having an experience” covers a much wider range, there’s both the positive and the negative mixed in there, and also a certain lesson, a teaching. It’s instructive when we go through something, and there too, maybe that exact same more intensive, more alert quality of experiencing is hidden in it too. That’s the thought that came to me just now, which I wanted to share with you.

Wonderful, thank you so much. Let me pick that up directly and check it together with you. You just brought in “taking note of something” again, and I personally would actually distinguish “taking note of” from “recognizing,” because “recognizing” in German still has that “er” prefix, while “taking note of” is missing that “er.” And that makes a really essential difference for me. For me, “taking note of” is more like simply acknowledging or observing something, while “recognizing,” through that prefix that comes with it, takes on a different meaning altogether. And from my perspective, that already carries a certain kind of insight within the term itself, simply because I can only ever recognize something if I’ve already stored some information about it, in some form, because I’ve already encountered it before. I can’t recognize something I’ve never encountered before, so to speak. Whether that’s already insight in the sense of recognition — now we’ve got quite a lot of overlapping and repeating terms here, but that’s actually quite deliberate — insight in the sense of a repetition, so to speak, of me recognizing something again. But if there’s no prior experience — and now we get to experience — if there’s no prior experience, meaning I hadn’t already stored it, then I wouldn’t be able to recognize it, in a sense. So here we’re establishing a connection to experience too, whereas with pure “taking note of,” it could be something I’m encountering for the very first time, where I don’t yet recognize it at all. Maybe I’ll recognize it the second time, once I get to take note of the same thing again. Layla, what do you think about that?

Well, the civil servant in me is really getting into official-speak mode right now, because I loved what Sonja just said, and it made me think, internally, what actually happens when I receive a document that says “for your information”? Then I know — and everyone knows this, when you get a letter that says something is “for your information” — it basically means you don’t actually have to do anything. I’m not obligated to take action. That’s the difference for me. And yet, it can still, well, I always wonder, is the expression “fall on your feet” or “fall at your feet”? But I think it can still come back to bite me, in that if I receive something “for information” and don’t act on it, because, well, it was only for my information, I wasn’t obligated to do anything with it, it can still work against me, because I did receive that document, and I have a duty to be informed, so to speak. So I can’t just stand there afterward and say, oh, I didn’t know that. Someone can just say, we sent you a letter for your information. That’s actually a safeguard, sending something for information purposes, so people know about it — it’s a bit like terms and conditions, I get those too, they’re also “for information,” well, actually I think you have to sign terms and conditions, and consent to privacy terms, so there’s an action involved there too. But when something is purely “for information,” my inner bureaucrat would say, I don’t have to do anything with it — but it can still work against me if I do nothing with that information. So yes, I tried to untangle that a little bit. Please forgive me, but the bureaucratic style really does come naturally to me in this case.

Thank you so much. Now I’d like to pick up the second point too, about the difference between experiencing and having an experience. I found it really fascinating that Sonja said, for herself, that experiencing is more tied to joy for her, whereas having an experience can also involve something painful. That made me ask myself whether that isn’t really more about individual connotations or associations we’ve already attached to these terms, because in and of itself, experiencing can involve either joy or pain. There’s also the expression, I’ve already experienced that, and it was really painful, for instance. So the question comes up again here, is experiencing and having an experience actually the same thing, or is it something different after all? Question mark. Layla, would you like to pick that up?

Yes, I’d say I’m completely with you there, because that’s exactly what I’d been thinking too. When we talk about “having an experience,” we have negative and positive experiences, but we also have negative and positive “experiences” in the other sense. When we talk about the latter kind, it’s usually, at least these days, I’d say, positively connoted — I think of experience gift companies, of weddings, of picnics, of lots of lovely things, those are that kind of experience. And linguistically, I think if I were talking about something negative, I’d probably say I “had” bad experiences, but I don’t think I’d necessarily call it a negative “experience” in that other sense — I think it’s more positively connoted linguistically, because of how we’ve been socialized with language and the terms we use in everyday life, and I do think those have an enormous influence on us. And that actually ties into experiencing and insight too, that’s a point I wanted to bring in earlier. I once saw a test where people were standing around, and it was said, well, a lot of things slip past them. And they asked, what do you mean by that? Well, in terms of mindfulness, a lot of things just don’t register with them. And the people said, no way, definitely not. Then they ran an experiment where the participants were supposed to pay attention to certain specific points, and someone in a costume walked right through the scene, and they didn’t notice it at all. I don’t even know how many participants that happened to. And afterward they got to watch it again on video, and they said, oh no, I really didn’t see that. And I think that’s also part of why mindfulness gets valued so positively, or why people say you should approach things with conscious experience. Because, I don’t know if this is even accurate, Yasemin, but I recently watched something by Vera Birkenbiel, and she said that the iceberg model, with the conscious and unconscious parts, isn’t even accurate anymore in itself. And I thought, wait a minute, Maslow is still somehow in the textbooks, the iceberg theory is in my textbooks too, because she said the conscious part is actually much smaller, and the unconscious part is actually much bigger. And that’s exactly why I do believe that, in reflecting on an experience, and in reflection, conscious reflection in particular, things actually stand out to us. I know this from my own teaching too, because so many things slip past you. And we actually did this quite deliberately once, during my studies we recorded classroom observations, and I noticed things about myself that I did that I hadn’t even realized. That’s why I recommend to every teacher, let other teachers observe your classes, of course ones you get along well with, because criticizing is always easier than doing it yourself. And still, I noticed, partly through the video recording, but also through observing colleagues and having colleagues observe me, that you actually enter into this kind of conscious experiencing, where you really look at it again, you hear the other perspective too, how did you perceive what I was doing there? And the video recording gives you a kind of objective measure, so you can say, okay, that’s actually how it was, that’s the objectivity that gets factored in through that fact. And, well, for example, this is a silly example, but it’s really funny, someone once told me I’m like a rubber bouncy ball in class, because I’m so active. I noticed that about myself, because, I don’t know, when people tell me I’m hectic, I always say, no, I’m just fast. But even that is something you can rein in, do consciously, and use in the right way. And the other thing was really, really funny for anyone who knows the Simpsons — there’s this older gentleman who owns the power plant, and he has this habit of holding his arms out sideways from his body and letting them hang down. And the funny thing was, I apparently did that sometimes too. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen that video recording, and if I hadn’t really liked that colleague. And then you can consciously break yourself of that and generate an insight out of it. I found that really lovely too, for instance.

Thank you so much. And on the question of whether this is really the iceberg phenomenon or something else — there are so many myths that genuinely keep spreading further in everyday life, and it’s really hard to stop, even though a lot of work keeps going into education and correction. I actually put together a free downloadable document about this on my website too, if that interests any of you, with three examples where you can really see it broken down, why one claim or another simply can’t be left standing. And there are so many more beyond that. It’s often difficult to make blanket statements, saying it’s this way or that way, because there’s usually massive complexity hiding behind it. A lot of things also get misinterpreted, or passed along incorrectly, not with any bad intention, just genuine mistakes happening in how something gets passed on or communicated, and once something has spread, it’s really hard to undo it again, in a manner of speaking. And that’s how we end up with false information in so many books, there’s really no other way to put it, it’s simply, definitively wrong information. This happens in many contexts, whether it’s mirror neurons, or routines, and so on. And the alarming thing about it is that many trainers and coaches essentially pick up on these things without any real critical questioning, and then keep fueling it further in their own trainings and seminars, even though the claims themselves simply aren’t defensible. And that’s actually going to be one of the topics this afternoon too, we’ll be picking up more myths there, beyond the ones in that downloadable document. I’m really, really looking forward to that, to actually dive deep into it and show what the original claims were, how they developed further, what drove that development, and what misunderstandings or misinterpretations happened along the way that led to them living on as myths, even though they’re simply not defensible, and we have to be very, very careful in how we phrase things. And, well, one more impulse that came to me, and then I’d love to see if Sonja might want to pick this up too, is a thought that occurred to me regarding experiencing and having experience. I’d ask you all to check this too — even though “experiencing” can happen multiple times, in everyday usage we often use it in a one-time context, as in, I experienced something — you gave that lovely example earlier with adventure stories, for instance. Whereas when we talk about “experience” in the other sense, it can also be a one-time thing, but we often use it in a context like, I have experience in field XY. Which means it’s usually tied to repetition. That doesn’t mean I can’t also have a one-time experience, just like an “experience” in the first sense — but I think it gets used differently, even in everyday language use. What do you two think about that? Sonja, would you like to go first, so you can tie into both of these?

Yes, I’ll try. There’s really been a lot of different information here. Let me first pick up what was on my mind. You mentioned the prefix “er” earlier, and I found myself wondering, what does that “er” actually stand for? So I looked for other terms with that same prefix, and at first nothing came to mind for a long while, and then the word “erkunden” — to explore — came to me. And you brought in this idea of establishing a connection in that context too, and I wondered, does that idea of establishing a connection fit with the concept of exploring too? And I concluded, yes, it does fit there too. So, just as a hypothesis, since I honestly don’t have enough examples to derive a real pattern here, maybe this “er” also has something to do with us putting things in relation to each other, which presupposes that something must have already been there beforehand, so that we have something to relate the new information to. That was the one thought I wanted to share with you and pick up on, from your impulse. And the second thing is a completely new thought. “Experience” and “having an experience” might also, or in my assessment do, differ in their impact, meaning how long the effect of that experience actually lasts. And when we talk about “an experience” in the first sense, it’s usually a fairly short impact, it works relatively briefly, whereas “having an experience” carries a very long-term impact — we remember it for a very long time, and whatever lesson or deep emotional content is contained in it gets internalized much more deeply. I’d be really curious whether you two agree with that, or whether you might even find a counterexample, where an “experience” ends up being something long-lasting and “having an experience” ends up being something short. I honestly couldn’t think of an example for that myself.

That’s a lovely question. First, on the prefixes again — while you were talking, I tried thinking of what spontaneously comes to mind. You mentioned “erkunden” (explore), I thought of “erzielen” (achieve), “erfreuen” (delight), “erziehen” (raise/educate), and I’d actually already quickly googled this in parallel earlier, because I remembered that this “er” prefix really does carry a meaning, and I looked it up again — among other things, it’s a prefix that expresses a goal-directed action. So whenever there’s a goal-directed action involved, this “er” prefix tends to be there. And that fits with the examples too — exploring, achieving, delighting, educating, that goal-directed action is present in all of these examples. To really verify this, you’d probably need to check whether there are terms where it doesn’t hold, really keep collecting more examples. Anyone can do that for themselves, but I think it’ll probably hold up reasonably well if you look it up in Wiktionary. And at first glance it fits for me too. And on the impact of “an experience” versus “having an experience,” an impulse actually came to me right away too. On principle I’d agree at first — but at the same time, we always have the option of stepping into conscious steering ourselves, especially once we know how our brain works. I naturally have the ability to steer the whole thing. I can, for instance, make an experience have a lasting effect if I deliberately steer it that way. Let me take an example — if I had an experience during a vacation, took photos, brought them home, and then don’t look at them again for a while, that really is just a snapshot, a brief experience. I can remember it, sure, but over time I’ll forget a lot of it too. But if I take those vacation photos and look at one of them every single day, over a whole year, then after a year I can remember that experience just as vividly as if I’d had it just yesterday. So I can actually play with the impact there too, provided I know how to steer it. I find that quite fascinating. So this isn’t a contradiction to what you said, Sonja, but this thought came to me right away in the context of self-steering — that you can consciously and deliberately unfold the impact differently, depending on how you handle it. And with an “experience” in the first sense, I’d tend to say it does have something of a snapshot quality to it, whereas “having an experience” is something that can also start as a snapshot that led to that experience, but through the connections that get formed when it’s stored, a certain kind of networking happens, in my view, that makes it long-lasting, that maybe even gets transferred onto other contexts and so on. That would be one approach, though this isn’t coming from any scientific perspective, just genuinely my own impulses here, and you’re welcome to check this too and share your own thoughts on it. Layla, would you like to pick that up? Actually, I just saw Sonja raised her hand again, so let’s do Sonja first and then Layla.

I’d love to add something to that. First of all, I really like your explanation, and it makes me think about what actually determines whether something stays in our memory for a long time or not. And your example with the vacation photos made that really clear to me — if I look at it every single day, it gains importance simply through repetition. Whereas if I have an experience through a one-time event that’s so intense that it becomes more than just a brief experience, that it becomes the bigger thing, an actual “experience” in that deeper sense — and by the way, that’s actually something I’d assume too, that a brief “experience” in the first sense is implicitly contained within “having an experience” in the second, though not necessarily the other way around. And there are two things that determine whether we remember something, that support its memorability. One is that something is either very intense and becomes important because of that, or that it becomes very emotional, meaning it has a certain emotional intensity. And when both come together, a single, very brief moment is enough for us to remember it for a lifetime, which is the case, for instance, with isolated traumatic experiences. But if we experience something that’s emotionally rather middling, it’s fine, but it doesn’t carry much significance, and we keep repeating that experience over and over, then we remember it too, and it stays in our memory for a very, very long time. So those are the two aspects, emotional intensity and importance, and that fits perfectly with what you were describing too. It’s not really a contradiction at all, more of a complementary explanation. What do you two think about that?

I think that’s great, wonderful. Thank you so much. Layla, you wanted to add something too.

Yes, actually, how should I put this — why do I read so many books on personal development and growth? Because I like to keep growing, and I want — I’m completely with you there, Sonja — but I think we have to make sure, or we’re able to, we’re invited to make sure that the brief experience doesn’t stay a one-time thing, but actually becomes a real experience, and if things go well, ultimately becomes insight. That’s how I’d see the path there. And then I thought, what have I actually read about this before? And I thought, right, there are methods for this. You had your happiness expert on the show, and you can, for instance, make pictures that you can look at again and again. I’m also a fan of the success journal, which doesn’t mean you have to be some kind of manager, it’s really just small things — things like, today I did this and that, today I did the laundry, I pushed myself to do it. Simple things, and you can do that with lovely experiences too, that you’ve had, just to shift your perspective and become consciously aware of it again. Really having it by your bed in the evening and writing it down again. I’ve also heard of people, a coach recommended this to someone, where he said, do it like this, take a few, I think you can use legumes, whatever you like, and put them in your pocket, and every time you experience something lovely, and I believe you can flip this around too — for instance, I’m bad at saying no, but I know that saying no to someone else is also a yes to myself, and that I can be a good person without abandoning myself in the process, which is something I’ve had to learn. You can tell, that’s where my own insights lie, not everyone has to project that onto themselves, and not every no is a friendly, good no either, so please don’t generalize from that. But you can do the same thing with saying no, really take a legume, put it in the other pocket, and then at the end of the day check, how many times did I actually say yes to myself today? How many times did I actually do that? How many times did I actually stand up for myself? And then, I once used the image of a pendulum, and said that when you’re in a process of change, the pendulum can sometimes swing too far in one direction or the other, before it finds its center. And I think that’s important in this context too. Then you can check in with yourself again, and it’s not always just about the external, that I need the external to reflect my internal state. And now, if I may, on the topic of feelings, I think that’s really important too, because I’ve noticed, in class, whenever there’s laughter, that’s a good lesson — which doesn’t mean laughing at other people, if you laugh at other people, you’re taking pleasure, let’s say you’re delighting in other people’s suffering, and you don’t want to be that person. And yet it’s true that, with emotions, because Sonja mentioned traumatic experiences, and that’s true — but the same applies on the positive side too. If I want to spark a learning process and pair it with positive emotions, it’s probably more lasting, and you also remember things better. I’m a real fan of the olfactory side of things, that’s actually why I love the book “Perfume” so much. Think back to a taste from your childhood, think back to a smell from your childhood — when I think of Tunisia, for me that’s the scent of jasmine, and the warm milk with sugar my aunt used to make me every morning. And then I’m right back in that exact situation. And I think we can, I don’t want to say “program” ourselves, because I’m not a fan of the black-box idea, since I believe our brain is more than just a black box, but I do think we can influence ourselves to some extent, and move from this one-time experience, which for me is very strongly connotated linguistically — I think that’s exactly why we’ve positioned these terms this way — to actually turn it into a real experience, and ultimately, maybe, into insight. You probably have to sprinkle in some feelings too. Would you maybe like to look at this again, to build the bridge back to this aspect of sustainability, since you brought that up yesterday at the end, and you picked it up again today too — how does that connect for you with this aspect of sustainability?

If I saw that correctly, Sonja’s hand lit up again briefly, so I’d like to give her the floor first. Go ahead, Sonja.

Exactly, that was my signal that I wanted to say something on that directly. And luckily, you asked exactly the right question, so this fits perfectly. Because I actually have another thought on how you can approach this to bring in meaningful sustainability. If we look at sustainability, in the example you gave with the desk, in the sense that we’re pursuing a goal, that we have a certain intention to achieve something — and if we approach it with the question, is this feeling okay or not okay, then we’re bringing in an evaluation that doesn’t actually get us any further toward our goal, it really just gives us the feeling that things are fine. But if we ask a different question instead, namely, does this feeling actually help me reach my goal, then we get a much better answer, one that actually helps us genuinely pursue our goal. Because if anger comes up, for instance, and you ask yourself, does this anger help me get my task done, you’ll get a different answer than if you ask, is it okay for me to feel this anger. Because with the question “is it okay,” the answer would be, yes, it’s okay, whereas with the question “does it help me reach my goal,” the answer is, no, it’s actually getting in the way. And that’s why, from my perspective, this is a crucial point — if we want to live sustainably with our feelings and handle them in an insight-rich way, we have to learn to ask ourselves questions that steer us in a direction that actually supports our efforts and our goal, rather than just triggering a feeling of “I’m okay.” That’s definitely the basic prerequisite though, because if we have the impression that we’re not okay, we probably won’t even get to that second question at all, we probably won’t even be in a position to ask ourselves that question. So that really is the first step — being okay first, and then asking goal-oriented questions.

Wonderful, thank you so much. And personally, I think that question isn’t so easy to answer in a blanket way either, because it again depends on different perspectives and so on. There are various options or strategies for how to handle it. One is to reframe things, to work on emotional regulation, for instance. Another is to maybe forgive, or let go, in certain contexts, to reduce stress and take care of staying healthy. So depending on which perspective I’m looking at it from, and what goal I’m pursuing, the strategy can vary, and with it the right or fitting approach. Though the right or fitting approach in this context isn’t a blanket right-or-wrong, but rather something I arrive at individually, based on reflection and weighing things up for myself. And that decision can turn out differently each time, depending on the context. So that’s one perspective. And the other is that it probably also makes sense to look more closely at the term sustainability itself — what does that actually mean for me? Sustainability can mean different things in different contexts too, worth looking at more closely. Values come into play here too. You mentioned, for instance, that it’s about injustice — I don’t remember exactly how you phrased it, but that you have a real issue with injustice, that it’s about fairness. Those are values that reflect back individually in each of us, that ultimately lead to reactions, and it’s worth going into reflection there again and again too. And that’s also an aspect that leads to a particular decision, including the question, what price am I paying for this, and am I willing to pay that price? So all these aspects play a role here, and in the end it’s an individual, context-dependent decision, without applying a blanket right or wrong, but rather looking at what feels most fitting for me in that particular situation. And the best thing I can do in that context is to reflect accordingly and make a decision based on that weighing-up process. With that, I’d like to move into our closing round for today. Tomorrow we continue with insight and communication, I’m really, really looking forward to that too. So please join us again at 8am. And, well, what were your highlights, or is there anything you’d like to underline once more today? Layla, and then Sonja, please.

What I noticed for myself is that people are sometimes a complicated, but above all a complex construct, to use a little alliteration here. I found a lot of the impulses today really important for gaining insight, because we really do keep slipping into evaluation, and we tie that to our own values, I found that really interesting. And what I also noticed for myself is that you really have to look at how you personally deal with feelings, and what they trigger in you. For instance, the feeling of anger is, for me, a feeling that spurs me into action. And that doesn’t mean I go and show the other person exactly what’s what, to put it bluntly, while yelling at them — it’s simply about actually following through and taking action. I already did this back in my school days too, I was angry then too. I was angry at that teacher who told me I wouldn’t pass my Abitur. I was angry at my classmates who called me a swot. And I said, well, yes, I do strive for higher things. And that’s exactly what I went on to do. And honestly, if they hadn’t teased me — because that certainly wasn’t a good experience, those weren’t good experiences — I don’t think I’d be where I am today. So that’s actually a beautiful insight, that even negative experiences can achieve something positive. Thanks for listening.

Absolutely, thank you so much. And maybe one short remark here too, which applies to a lot of other feelings as well — the important thing here, from my perspective, is again to realize that anger, in particular, is often something triggered by something coming at us from outside, that we then react to, so to speak. So it makes sense to always really, really approach this reflectively. Otherwise, in a manner of speaking, it can tip over into me repeatedly slipping into action, so to speak, as a reaction to something coming from outside — from that perspective, seen as being driven by something. And if someone else recognizes that, it can even be used as a strategy to provoke someone into a certain kind of movement, deliberately. So it’s worth keeping that in mind too. That doesn’t mean it’s inherently negative or anything — it can be a wonderful motive that brings certain movements into being too. But it’s worth handling that mindfully too, in a manner of speaking. Sonja?

I’d actually like to pick up on these last remarks as my closing word. I really loved that point about anger, that on one hand it has the power to bring us into action energy, and on the other hand that it’s important not to act it out uncontrolled. I think that’s a really, really wonderful, valuable summary. Because anger is exactly the aspect that comes way, way too short in my own emotional spectrum. I don’t experience it enough, and sometimes I’d wish for a bit more of it, to draw that action energy from it, or otherwise I have to look for other paths to that action energy. Thank you for bringing this into focus for me again, showing in what range anger can be helpful and supportive, and from what point onward it tends to become destructive instead. Thank you.

Wonderful, thank you so much. I think we had some really lovely examples and terms today that we really pulled apart together in this exchange, these thought experiments, and it’s exactly these thought experiments that help us actually notice, and sort through, our own personal thoughts, and through that arrive at real insight. I think that came together beautifully today. Thank you so much also to everyone who joined in through the chat with their contributions, which we were able to pick up on too. That’s really what created such a multifaceted room together today. And, well, we get to just let it sink in and see — look for yourselves where these different impulses land for you personally, and what you want to do with them. And with that, we’ll continue tomorrow with insight and communication, which will be about dialogue itself. We can look at what forms dialogue actually takes, what role communication plays, also in relation to insight and gaining insight, and then the day after tomorrow we’ll build on that and talk about insight and listening, which I’m really, really looking forward to too. So with that, I hope we’ll hear from each other again tomorrow at 8am, and the day after that too, and every day going forward. I wish you all the best, have a wonderful day, whatever you have planned. For us, it’s our training session today at 2pm, I’m really looking forward to that, and to seeing those of you who’ll be joining a bit later. With that, take care, until then. Ciao!