Song of the Week

Listen to this song and let it help open you up. Feel It Still by Portugal. The Man

Updates:

The idea of having “insight” has been coming up a lot this week, so I dove into it.

Insight is described as being a sudden, gratifying, easeful, confident, sometimes surprising, experience of processing fluency. Oh the feeling of absolute certainty, in the good kind of way! You can probably remember a time where you felt that right? Feels good to remember it, yes? You can let that feeling expand in your body and enjoy it for a moment, before continuing. I tend to feel it all in my belly, chest, spine, and eyes.

Insight has been differentiated from “intuition” in that insight can be found through sudden AND/OR sometimes slow processes. Think about finding insight from both the whoosh of a lot of connections being made unconsciously in a sudden moment where all the pieces came together, versus the deliberate methodical, analytical process that engages your executive functioning brain area (hello frontal lobes). Whereas intuition, is almost always seen as unconscious, holistic, often accompanied by speed and confidence, but not always. I’ll do a deep dive into intuition next week. All of these distinctions might seem silly, but somatically, they are really fun to think/feel because there actually is a difference.

So, researchers on insight have found this cool nerdy thing when studying functional MRIs (fMRI) of people’s brains before they have an insight. Functional MRIs look at blood flow to regions of the brain to figure out how much activity is going on, so cool. These MRIs found that there is a big positive affect, or pleasure paired with ease, people feel that comes before a judgement or assessment is made about something, making it very different from the sensation of “pride” in the body.

With insight moments, people start to feel good about an assessment being true BEFORE they’ve even thought about the facts or analyzed their solution at all. Insight is about finding the best-ish next step forward when facing a problem and feeling confident about that answer— staying with someone, breaking up with someone, taking that next job opportunity, or leaving it behind.

Fun fact time, this is how in 1951 Astronomer William Morgan figured out that the milky way is a spiral galaxy! Another fun fact, but about me this time, one of my most vulnerable and significant insights of my life came when I realized I was gay after waking up from a dream in 2006. It did feel rewarding to realize where some of my angst and emotions were coming from. Not soon after that rush, I started reckoning with the implications of being gay/queer, or bi-sexual, is how I saw it at the time— which terrified me quite frankly. If I didn’t have time to reflect and remember my dream that morning, I would have been delayed in discovering that about myself. Maybe for years, I’ll never know for sure.

Now, if you’re spatially oriented like I am, you might like this. When we have an insight, there is a lot of activity in our right temporal lobe, just above the right ear. It’s about 20% of our brain. This part of the brain connections with other brain regions that are associated with making connections between concepts that seem unrelated (Kounios et al, 2006). Give your right temporal lobe a little love pat right now, hi there oh-so-connected one.

While using analytical problem solving is awesome, research shows that using executive processing skill can hurt creativity, even if they help with being and feeling strategic. People tend to feel greater anxiety when solving puzzles analytically versus feeling more pleasure from solving a conundrum with insight. This might be because the areas of the brain associated with the easeful type of insight do not work the parts of our brain that are responsible for attention or working memory.

More fun facts about insights are that they are more likely to be correct than analytical solutions we find, they increase risk-tolerance (thought they can also reinforce risk-taking behavior for better or worse), they help us understand/create metaphors, and they improve our ability to recognize when someone is bullshitting us. Since a lot of people who voted for Trump were totally duped and misled by him and Elon, well, cultivating insight would have been really helpful.

How can you foster insight in your life? Relaxation and sleep matter. Anxiety and too much focus on the outcome or reward can shut down your insight centers in the brain. So sleep enough, reduce stress by the means that work for you, expose yourself to different people and environments that expand your consciousness and perspectives, go on walks with fun people. New connections can be sparked that you weren’t thinking of, or could not have known.  

Kounios, J., Frymiare, J. L., Bowden, E. M., Fleck, J. I., Subramaniam, K., Parrish, T. B., & Jung-Beeman, M. (2006). The Prepared Mind: Neural Activity Prior to Problem Presentation Predicts Subsequent Solution by Sudden Insight. Psychological Science, 17(10), 882–890. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40064471

Maya’s Dance Workshop!

I had a blast at this workshop run by Maya Mineoi. They are amazing, I highly recommend them as a therapist, facilitator, amazing human extraordinaire! I am sure that the dancing Maya leads can help with insight because they lead the classes in a way that reduces anxiety, stress, and emphasize making connections with your body and others.

$7-$25 no one turned away for lack of funds.

Schedule With Me

OTR/L, BA, MHP, LMT,
she/they) Integrative Therapies

I offer trauma informed somatic informed therapeutic coaching, craniosacral therapy, Swedish massage, Thai bodywork, myofascial release, group workshops, and healing through art, play, and connecting to nature.

Community Events

Riley Creek Conservation Area: Not an event per se, but a friend told me about this park, it’s 30 minutes from Minneapolis. I loved it and it is surprisingly beautiful considering it is in the middle of a suburb.

Identity, Resilience, and Leadership Summit: Monday, April 21 8:30a-4p

Asian Music Ensemble at Macalester: The Asian Music Ensemble performs under the direction of Chuen-Fung Wong. Friday, April 25, 2025 | 7:30 p.m. – 9 p.m.

Thanks for READING! xoxo Eiko