We all have a part within us that analyses and makes sense of things — a part that takes in new perceptions, whether from the outside world or from within, and matches them against what has been experienced before, makes connections, searches for explanations. It wants to understand why things are the way they are, why we experience what we experience, why we feel the way we feel.
This part is enormously important. We need it to navigate a world full of complex technical, natural, and social systems.
And yet there are areas where this analysing, comprehending approach cannot grasp what really matters. One such area is the world of feelings — and also of needs, values, and ideals — whether our own or those of others. Here a different mode of knowing is called for: compassion and loving interest.
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Anyone who sets out on the path of inner work will, sooner or later, encounter the analysing part. In counselling and therapy it shows up as talking about one’s feelings, explaining and analysing them, rather than actually feeling them and allowing them to be integrated. In meditation it manifests as the running commentary — the analysing, narrating mind that comments on everything being experienced, even the silence.
For the path of Individuation, a harmonious relationship with this part is indispensable.
The path often begins with being so merged with the analysing part that one doesn’t notice it as a separate part at all. It is so central to everyday life that no gap is felt between the “I” and this part. And this is not entirely wrong: the analysing part belongs to what one might call the everyday self, which in the process of Individuation is transcended and newly integrated.
With time, however, one may begin to see through this part — to notice how it gets in the way of meditating or feeling. The natural reaction is then to want to be rid of it. This reveals yet another part — though typically one doesn’t notice this either, and instead simply merges with this new part and feels irritation or frustration toward the thinking part, because one wants to finally be able to feel properly, or to meditate without distraction.
This marks the next stage in the relationship with the mind: a kind of inner battle between two parts. It gets particularly interesting when the analysing part eventually notices and sees through this very dynamic. Now one can swing back and forth between identifying with the understanding part and with the part that is frustrated with it.
The way out of this dilemma is to turn toward both parts with kindness and genuine interest. When you listen to the analysing part, you discover some surprising things. There is the desire — and real pleasure — in understanding. But there are also deeper layers and more fundamental motivations for why this part becomes especially active and “disruptive” during inner work.
You’ll find that this part may be trying to protect consciousness from difficult, seemingly overwhelming feelings. The mind reveals itself as a kind of Guardian — one for whom it feels much safer to analyse and explain feelings than to actually allow them, so that they can be integrated.
Even deeper is the fear of going mad. If we were suddenly able to perceive, in an entirely uncontrolled way, all the contents of our unconscious — everything sub- and superconscious — we would either be instantly enlightened, or, more likely, lose our minds. This fear is usually not conscious, but it leads the mind to frequently prevent pure, loving-curious perception from even getting started, or to cut it short after a moment and return to its explaining, analysing activity.
This is meant to show that the analysing part is, from its own perspective, waging a vital defensive battle against the threat of disintegration. Once one has truly “understood” this — and ideally understood it with the heart — it becomes possible to build a different relationship with the mind, and to begin working with it rather than against it. Ultimately, it is about offering the mind the trust that you are capable of handling what appears when it stops working. This is best done “drop by drop” — beginning by having a conversation with the mind and seeing whether it would be willing to be a little less active for a short while.
If that works — and in the beginning it might be only a few seconds — it can become possible, for example, to make empathic contact with another inner part and to understand that part with the heart.
When you have arrived at entirely new experiences this way, and perhaps gained genuinely new insights into your inner world, the mind will soon switch back on and try to integrate what was experienced into the existing framework. Sometimes it does this because the emotional intensity became too great. Sometimes it does it because it can’t bear any more “new” without first anchoring it in what it already knows.
In both cases, in my experience, the best approach is simply to let it do its work briefly, and to know that it now needs this integration. Often the process you were engaged in can then continue directly. The trap would be to get entirely lost in the mind, or to be annoyed that you’re thinking again instead of feeling — both of which are forms of merging with opposite poles.
An image I hold for inner work — my own and with clients — is that of a dolphin. A dolphin dives deep and can hold its breath for a long time, but eventually it must come back to the surface for air. The same can happen to us in inner work, in diving into the soul: every now and then the mind needs to “come up for air” before it becomes too much.
Over time the mind will begin to trust that you can handle what reveals itself when it grows quiet. And you can take ever more pleasure in it when it contributes the understanding you need for what you’ve experienced.