Introspection
Notes
Claim
Introspection is the practice of Self-awareness reveals mental and emotional states enabling intentional action. As Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living. By introspecting, we gain self knowledge about our emotions and their causes, our tendencies, our preferences and beliefs. Those things might sound arbitrary but nowadays due to the constant Distractions from the external world, our knowledge about ourselves is either limited or non existent.
Explanation
Why it matters
How then do we find the answers? It changes from one person to the next, but some common themes are:
- Solitude - Seek Solitude enables introspection and deep cognitive work, a place where we can be completely open with ourselves without any external Judgment adds subjective value to objective events or interruptions.
- Be kind - Asking ourselves the tough questions is hard enough as it is. Ironically, some of us default to blaming themselves, picturing themselves as worthless. In effect, they become their own worst critic and assume the answer instead of seeking the truth. Only healthy Healthy self-talk prevents spiraling and builds resilience can help us reach the truth.
- Remember we are multitude - It is reasonable to find multiple answers for the same question. It is not a sign that we are crazy or that we don't know ourselves, rather we acknowledge our complexly, that we we contain multitude. We can have good qualities and bad ones, we are both wonderful and terrible at times, and that's okay.
Examples
Supporters
Opposers
Introspection is not easy. we might be too tempted to trust first answer we find. Conformation bias makes us accept confirming evidence without scrutiny and Availability bias inflates perceived likelihood of easily recalled events can cause us to come up with false answers, which represents what we want to hear, and not what we need to. For example, if we ask ourselves why we are feeling angry, the first answers would probably be an accusation of someone else, rather than admitting our flaws.
Open questions
Visual
Overview
🔼Topic:: Inner Critic and Self-Perception ◀Origin:: Anne-Laure Le Cunff 🔗Link:: https://nesslabs.com/introspection-trap