10 tips on how to work towards insight

1. Create space for silence: Allow moments of quiet during the session when they naturally occur. Often, insights arise in the gaps between thoughts.

2. Ask open-ended questions: Use inquiries that invite the client to look deeply into their direct experience. For example:

•    “What’s here right now, beneath the thoughts about the situation?”
•    “What sensations are there?”
•    “What happens if you let thoughts and sensations be?”

3. Reflect back without interpretation: Mirror the client’s words or gestures, allowing them to hear themselves more clearly.

4. Invite deeper exploration: When the client touches on something significant, gently encourage them to stay with that experience. “Can we pause here? What else do you notice?”

5. Point to the constant: Draw attention to the awareness that’s always present, regardless of changing thoughts or emotions. “What is aware of all this?”

6. Use metaphors sparingly: Occasionally offer a simple analogy that might illuminate the client’s experience but always bring it back to their direct knowing.

7. Acknowledge insights: When the client has a realization, however small, give space for it to settle. Avoid the temptation to elaborate or explain!

8. Stay curious: Maintain not-knowing, which allows the client’s wisdom to emerge naturally.

9. Trust the process: Remember that insights unfold in their own time. Your role is to create a conducive environment, not to force understanding.

10. Be comfortable with uncertainty: Allow sessions to unfold organically, without an agenda or expectation of specific outcomes.

The key is to walk the fine line between offering enough guidance to keep the inquiry focused, and stepping back to let the client’s own insight blossom. It’s about creating the conditions and then getting out of the way. By mastering this delicate dance, a nondual coach becomes a catalyst for transformative insights that arise from the client’s own direct experience of reality.

This approach teaches clients to trust that they can find their inner wisdom. They learn to recognize that the clarity they seek isn’t something to be gained but inherent and available.

Noticing when insight has occurred

Some ways to notice and ensure that an insight has truly taken place:

1. Noticing an insight:

• Watch for a change in the client’s demeanor, often a relaxation or lightening of their presence.
• Look for subtle changes like a deep breath, shoulders dropping, or a slight smile.
• Often, a moment of quiet follows a real insight as it settles in.
• Notice if the client’s words shift from problem-focused to more open or curious.
• Sometimes, an insight is accompanied by laughter, tears, or a sense of relief.
• Listen for expressions like “Oh, I see now” or “That’s interesting, I never thought of it that way.”

2. Ensuring the insight is genuine:

• Invite the client to describe what they’ve just realized in their own words.
• Inquire about any physical sensations or changes in their body.
• Ask how this new understanding might affect their perspective or behavior going forward.
• In subsequent sessions, see if the insight has stuck or if old patterns have reasserted themselves.
• Look for changes in the client’s life situations or relationships that reflect the insight.
• Gently challenge the insight to see if it holds up under questioning.
• A true insight often feels natural and doesn’t require effort to maintain.
• A genuine insight usually feels deeply true to the client, beyond mere intellectual understanding.

Your role is to create the conditions for insights to emerge and to help the client recognize and integrate them. The most powerful insights often come with a sense of obviousness – as if the client has always known this truth but is just now consciously realizing it.

By attuning yourself to these signs and gently exploring them, you can help ensure that the insights gained in your sessions are genuine and lead to lasting shifts in their understanding and experience of life.