Blog #17: To Know Yourself is the Beginning of All Wisdom
Quick Breakdown
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First, A Story of Seeking the Satisfaction of Knowing
When I was a kid, I was always intensely fascinated by how things worked. Though I wasn’t the one who would take apart electronics and home appliances, I felt safe knowing the ins and outs of how things function. As I was growing up, my fascination landed me in the study of biology, then entomology, before finding myself in the field of psychotherapy.
In college, I learned about molecular biology, organic chemistry, and chemical physics - all these subjects model our world with ridiculous precision; they speak to the foundations of the very existence of our material world. This is opposed to how people usually think about the mind. I heard myself, my parents, and peers speaking about our minds and emotions with narratives like, “Just get over it”, “you just need to stop being so lazy”, or “just be happy”. These statements were simply not satisfying in explaining a world greatly dictated by our emotions and our behaviors.
I ended up taking an introductory course in psychology at a local community college in the summer. Over years of study, I have gained a better understanding of the mind. Fast forward to the present day, and I work as a psychotherapist, and I was surprised that many folks can benefit from a better understanding of their emotions and minds. A simplistic understanding that does not consider the complexities of our psyche, like what I used to believe in college, can become a barrier to understanding what makes us feel happy and well.
The Physical Psyche
If a precise model of chemistry and physics had been the reason we have sophisticated medicine and technology, a better understanding of the mind might grant us the ability to freely choose how we want to behave and feel.
Turns out, the mind, its thoughts, and its emotions are all tangible. In our body, we have the central nervous system (CNS), which is comprised of:
The Brain: a complex organ that does most of the intricate “computing”. Like a computer, it takes in raw information—signals from the eyes, hearing from the ears, tactile sensations through touch, etc.—and makes sense of the information, processing it to create thoughts and feelings.
The Spinal Cord: a long, cylindrical structure enclosed by our neckbone and down our spine. It is directly connected to the brain and serves two primary functions:
a. Relaying signals between the body and the brain - when our hand touches a hot object, the signal travels from our fingertip, through the spinal cord, up to the brain, which can be interpreted as “heat”.
b. Handling reflex - automatic responses without needing the brain to interpret the signal. e.g., Our leg kicks out when tapped on the knee.
The central nervous system (CNS) is only part of what makes up our tangible psyche. There is also the:
The “Autonomic Nervous System” (ANS) controls “fight or flight” and “rest and digest”, which we will cover in later chapters.
The “Enteric Nervous System”, or the “gut brain”, is embedded in our digestive system and an active participant in emotional regulation.
The Somatic Nervous System handles:
a. interoception (awareness of internal bodily states and sensations), e.g., every time we “feel” hungry through a sensation of weakness in the body, and sensations in the stomach.
b. proprioception (Awareness of body position). Every time we can sense our body posture, or whether we are standing, walking, upside down, etc.
Neuroendocrine interface: the part of our nervous system that interacts with the hormonal system and shapes emotions, moods, etc.
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The Four Aspects of our Psyche
From day to day, we don’t perceive and experience our psyche the same way a neurosurgeon might conceptualize our nervous system. We interact with ourselves and the world experientially; that is, we only know what we see, hear, touch, and feel, as well as whether our experience is enjoyable, neutral, or painful. To understand our psyche from an experiential perspective, we need a different model.
When I first learned about conducting psychotherapy in a clinical setting, I adapted a new model to explain the workings of our psyche. It was inspired by a few different models shown to me by someone who was both a supervisor and a mentor, and it has always been a go-to concept I introduce to people. Although it is not a concept devised by strict empirical discipline, it is a product aimed at summarizing our human experience in an easy-to-understand way.
The model is straightforward - It is based on the premise that we feel, we think, we emote, and we believe.
“We think” refers to the ability to form concepts and narratives. In this context, it is really just referring to how we tell stories, analyze, express verbally, and conceptualize. This is not “cognition” from a wider psychological perspective.** In other words, whatever we can put into words belongs to “we think”.
**According to the APA (2018), the concept of cognition encompasses “all forms of knowing and awareness”.
“We emote” refers to our ability to label emotional experiences. For example, you are likely conscious of your feeling-state in this present moment, reading this book. Similarly, you might be able to recall what emotions you experienced yesterday, a moment in the past month, or even a long time ago. When we emote, it shows us our reaction to our world, and we communicate with others through showing our emotions.
“We feel” refers to our bodily experience of sensations. For example, when I see injustice, I feel a hot rising sensation that rushes through my body; my jaw clenches, and my muscles tense up. I can label that as anger, but whether I choose to put a label on it, I experience the sensation - and that is how “we feel”.
“We believe” describes how our beliefs, meanings, and biases shape our experiences. For example, if I hold a belief that the world is a trustworthy place, I will perceive everything as less threatening, without requiring a thought of “I am safe”. This aspect of our mind can be heavily influenced by our cultural and religious upbringing, and it can also create deep personal preferences for what we want to experience. It can even influence our choices for socializing and community.
Let’s use an example to apply the model of the four aspects:
Sarah woke up in the morning and noticed she was feeling fatigued when her alarm went off. She “feels” fatigue in her body. After drinking her coffee, she felt energized and ready for the rest of her morning routine. She then “thought” about her long day of work ahead, including replaying a recent conversation she had with her coworker. As Sarah got into her car, she felt the “emotion” of irritation before turning on the car. As she let out a sigh, she made a face at herself in the rear-view mirror. She started driving and felt better when she remembered that for all the years in her career, things in general turned out fine - a “belief” she held for most of her life.
In this example, we get a glimpse into one of Sarah’s morning preparations for work; her moment-to-moment experiences show her inner worlds, including her beliefs and the state of her nervous system. This story is not only about her personal routine (ex., waking up, drinking coffee, commuting to work).
When Sarah felt fatigue in her body, it spoke to the state of tiredness of her nervous system. It could be that she was already experiencing burnout, lack of sleep, or other physical causes. Her “thoughts” about challenges at work may be that she was feeling dread and resistance to either her long workday or to her experiences at her workplace. Her emotional description of “irritation” comes with a physical expression of her emotions. Lastly, she became less distressed because her belief altered her perception of the situation from pessimistic to optimistic, a strength that helped her regulate her distress.
The advantage of considering all aspects of our psyche is that any one psychological pattern affects how we feel, think, our emotions, and our beliefs. Using Sarah as an example, we can see how circumstances in her workplace might have affected her happiness and her sense of safety. This subsequently creates distress every time she is reminded of her predicament. In turn, it might even affect her sleep schedule and her ability to relax. Therefore, an effective approach to managing our wellness, happiness, and inner peace requires us to consider all aspects of our psyche.
It’s Not Just Our Psyche: The Bull’s Eye Model
Someone once remarked, “Go to your happy place, they told me, but sometimes it just doesn’t work, no matter how hard I try.” I ended up telling this person that it is a personal failure to not be able to go to a “happy place”. In fact, they are totally reasonable to question that approach.
Imagine you are standing inside a cheese shop on a hot summer day, surrounded by stinky cheeses. It is unpleasant, so you try to imagine a field of flowers, the floral scents permeating the air. You might find some success smelling the flowers for a moment, but it will probably be extremely difficult to maintain the imagery as long as you are still three feet from those stacks of Stilton and brie. The same thing applies to the concept of managing our mental health. There is more to it than “finding a happy place” to calm yourself.
Let’s construct a bigger picture model that encompasses your individual and environmental forces that shape your mental health. From the individual point of view, we always see ourselves as the center of our world. That is a reasonable way to approach the world because we are the only people who have direct experience of our own feelings and emotions. Close to our individual selves are our immediate environments, the people we directly interact with, and all of that impacts our mental health. Further away are bigger systems, such as society and culture, institutions, socioeconomics, and politics. These systems may not have as much of a direct influence compared to our individual selves and the people close to us. However, these systems often influence us by permeating many aspects of our lives, thus affecting our mental health.
We can use this simple diagram, consisting of concentric circles that resemble a “bull’s eye”, to illustrate the relationship between ourselves, our world, and our mental health.
The self is our whole person, including the four aspects of our psyche - our feelings, emotions, thoughts, and beliefs, which include our personal experience and perceptions. The self also includes our lifestyle, such as our physical health, nutrition, sleep, etc.
Our relationships and our surroundings include the people we come into contact with from day to day, e.g., our partners, coworkers, friends, family, restaurant workers, etc., as well as our immediate surroundings (time of the day, the weather), our transportation, home environment, work environment, etc.
The systems include societal and cultural influences, such as the types of education in our community, the beliefs we are told, and the languages our community speaks. Institutions refer to the religious places in our community, government agencies, and other bureaucratic institutions. Climate refers to the environmental climate we live in. Politics includes local, regional, national, and global politics.
On the diagram, we see arrows representing influences between all three layers, from the systems to our surroundings, our surroundings to the self, and from the system directly to the self. While all this might sound like yet another way to say that “everything impacts our mental health,” it shows that in order to address dissatisfaction about how we mentally feel from day to day, we need to take into consideration the many aspects of our lives.
One important note: the different aspects that are challenging to us do not automatically mean that we now have to avoid/conquer/dismiss them. We are going to explore the different philosophies and approaches to facing our personal difficulties and feelings of powerlessness in later chapters.
Stepping Beyond Knowing
As Aristotle once said, “To know yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” Knowing yourself might only be the beginning of your journey. However, I argue that what lies beyond knowing can be infinitely more rewarding. With consistent effort, we can create wellness for ourselves. Our happiness is not trivial, and if you want to be happier, there are tools and resources for you to achieve that.
Next post, we explore how our mind and body work together to survive and thrive in the physical world - The Body and Mind Connection.
A Few Points to Consider
Divide a piece of paper into four sections, and write down the four aspects of your psyche in each section. Think about your experiences today, and write in each section about how you were “thinking”, “emoting”, “feeling”, and “acting on your beliefs.” Take a look at what you have written down. Do they seem to connect? What is your experience writing down your mental processes?
Reflect on the Bull’s Eye model of mental health influence. What do you feel affects you the most? Why?
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Disclaimer: Psychotherapy is a psychological service involving a client interacting with a mental health professional with the aim of assessing or improving the mental health of the client. Neither the contents of this blog, nor our podcast, is psychotherapy, or a substitute for psychotherapy. The contents of this blog may be triggering to some, so reader’s discretion is advised. If you think that any of my suggestions, ideas, or exercises mentioned in this blog are creating further distress, please discontinue reading, and seek a professional’s help.
Therapy Uncomplicated is a podcast that is meant to help people who feel alone and unsupported with their day to day struggles. We want to educate people on mental health and show it isn’t something to be afraid of. We provide the “whys” and the “hows” for a path to wellness. We are here to promote positive change by offering education and new perspectives that destroy stigmas in mental health, and encourage people to go to therapy.
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