Introspection isn’t some mystical shit reserved for monks or therapists. It’s just the art of noticing that you’re having a thought or feeling — and then seeing what happens next.
There’s no need to force it.
Once you have recognized that thought, let it take you on a journey.
Let everything happen,
hear everything it has to say,
feel everything it wants you to feel,
and respond to it.
Firstly, let’s get you to become aware of yourself.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” ― Laozi
Introspection Can Be Integrated Into Your Life Seamlessly
Do you have a hobby?
It could be anything where you do something rhythmic, and allows for the mind to wander:
gardening, knitting, video games, listening to music, etc.
They’re perfect for introspection and reflection.
This is why monks rake sand, why people pace when they think, why writers take long walks, and why someone lost in their craft
suddenly stumbles upon profound insights.
The connection between rhythm, flow, and introspection can be felt intuitively.
I used to play a lot of Path of Exile, which is in essence, a simple loop:
Kill monsters, get loot, get stronger, kill monsters.
Whenever I played I eventually got into a rhythm, an autopilot, allowing my mind to focus on other things and the game became secondary.
Suddenly, hours spent on my hobby also become the time I allocated on introspection at large.
How many hours? Glad I asked!
Check your own Steam hours, Spotify Wrapped, or whatever your thing is. How much of your life have you already spent in a rhythm?
What would happen if you used just a sliver of that time to get real with yourself?
The beauty of this approach is that you will be able to directly see how your life is interacting with feedback loops around you.
You might not even need to dedicate allocated time for daily introspection.
You can “zero-time” it during other activities you are fond of.
There is no need to turn this practice into a chore.
You can create your own ritual, your own path, your own rhythm.
Nothing needs to be set in stone and your practice can grow with you, effortlessly.
What do I mean by “zero-timing” it?
It means you do not have to plan your day around it. For example, taking up gym will need you to plan it into your day,
but your entire day will most likely contain windows for introspection.
In the toilet?
Smoke break?
Bathing, showering?
Commuting?
No problem! All such occasions are excellent for introspecting.
Figuring out why you talk shit about people and taking a shit is one fat double-whammy.
Music: Vibes All Around
I find music to be an incredibly valuable tool.
It stirs emotions within us, helping us lower the defenses of our ego, to be more receptive.
Find your favourite music,
let it ring your soul,
catch the thoughts that emerge and dissolve into them.
I would suggest starting with something without vocals such as classical or electronic music mainly for the reason that it conveys emotion without ever saying anything.
Lyrics could be distracting you from your own thoughts.
However, I’d be lying if I said music with lyrics do not make me introspect.
Find what works for you, maybe you won’t find singing distracting, but inspiring!
In fact, if I consider anything at all to be recommended as a sort of “ritual”, it is this.
Finding those perfect songs, letting them speak to you with resonance as you dissolve into your thoughts and contemplate.
A form of meditation, perhaps? But immersive, dynamic.
Stuff I’d recommend (personal taste, full bias):
Liquid drum and bass,
chillstep (Blackmill especially),
Tool (if you’re into metal),
afro house (futuristic with tribal elements).
Before you say this is old fart music, I am 32.
Frankly, I don’t know what Gen Z listens to.
Have a go, try to get the vibe, find what suits you best.
Don’t like music? Find whatever touches you. Literature, paintings,
sculptures, movies, TV series.
Fuck it, even Naruto can kick off an introspective spiral if you let it.
Find what touches something within you.
But how do you apply it in the not so calm moments?
It is rather simple to just keep thinking when raking sand.
How do I bring the monastery with me to everyday weirdness full of reaction?
The Moment Between Feeling And Reaction
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” — Viktor Frankl
This moment is the key, because that’s when you make a choice: to react, how to react, or not react at all.
And this is where the magic happens, because the choice is yours.
You can not react, but instead, take a moment to reflect.
Or, not do anything at all!
Sure, some moments demand reaction (avoiding accidents, life or death etc.) but unless your everyday is
consistently dodging between accidents and danger, this is the fucking game-changer.
Colleague says something uncomfortable?
Take a moment. Reflect.
Feel angry? Take a moment. Reflect.
Notice that it happened.
Save it for later if you cannot work on it right now.
If you catch even one gap a week, you’re already well on your way. It’s practice, not perfection.
OK Dude, How Do I Catch the Moment?
Here’s a practice I would recommend giving a shot.
Take a small ball that bounces.
Be mindful of it.
As you begin to bounce it, let it bounce above your hand and catch it on the way back.
Repeat.
Aim to make it effortless, not too high, not too low.
Focus on the feedback:
the sound it makes,
the force when it lands back in your hand,
and let your mind adrift in the rhythm.
You can do the same with music when you find the beat, hear the melody and let your mind drift into it.
However, the secret sauce of the rubber ball practice is this:
you’ll begin to feel the gap between your feeling and your response and hone into it.
You don’t just catch the ball,
you catch the moment.
You’ll be able to replace the ball with your emotions, the flow of traffic.
Ever had a situation where your paths align with someone walking at you, you try to dodge them, and they dodge in the same direction as you, and then you repeat this ridiculous pattern until you somehow manage to break it?
Never again.
You’ll then navigate conversation.
Your own words.
It’s a gateway to taking off autopilot, through consistency and time.
You stop reacting, and start responding.
You start syncing to your inner rhythm and to the world.
As if slowly starting to take control of your own life, with awareness.
Every interaction, every emotion, every decision becomes an opportunity to step out of the old flow and create a new one.
It’s subtle at first, but over time, it rewires everything.
What I personally do is try to extend that moment.
When I get angry as described earlier, I take a deep breath and exhale it as a sigh.
It’s similar to the idea of counting to ten, the purpose is to extend the moment of choice and allow reflection to take place instead of letting the anger carry me somewhere I most definitely do not wish to go.
I take a mental note that it happened, and I’ll come back to it later to further think about it and ask:
“Man, why did you have to get angry at that?”
I know I focus on anger alot, but that’s because to me that is the hardest one to catch.
This approach works on every single feeling, thought, emotion imaginable.
What about past events that randomly pop into your head, reminding you of what happened?
I recognize them, greet them like an old friend and assure them I have not forgotten, but it’s okay.
I let them stay, give them the attention they seek with care, love, acceptance and compassion.
And then they leave.
As I have been practicing this approach, they visit me less and less.
Resolution is not immediate, it is recursive.
All thanks to the moment between stimulus and response.
I did not have the luxury of some weirdo making a blog tell me about this.
I had to find the moment the hard way.
But because I found it on my own,
and there’s a quote on it,
it seems like something that is in fact very real.
Stare into the Eye of the Duck
How do you train honesty with yourself?
This is something crucial.
Find a rubber duck.
Look into its eyes.
Feel the ridiculousness of what you are doing, staring into the eyes of the rubber duck.
If you want to laugh at it, do it, but keep looking into its eyes until you no longer laugh at it but instead, make a connection.
And then, as you feel crossing that threshold, say the first thing that pops into your mind, let it arrive effortlessly.
It’s hard to bullshit with a toy, because you’re really just left with yourself.
And perhaps you’ll notice how differently aligned thoughts arise, as if they were people commenting on you.
It does not have to be a rubber duck per se, anything will do. Like communing with a Furby, a Pokemon plushie, whatever, really.
You’ll be surprised at what a Pikachu can pull you into.
But it’s not about the plushie, you don’t depend on it.
It’s a gateway.
Eventually you won’t need them.
You’ll be able to stare into nothingness and let your mind wander effortlessly. And if you can connect to a rubber duck or a soft Pikachu, imagine what you’ll be able to do with people.
From honesty to Pikachu to honesty with yourself — that is what will lead you to honesty with others.
Timewalking with Yourself
Introspection will perhaps demand you to redefine everything you have ever known.
In order to understand yourself, truly, you have to go as far back as you remember, and recognize what you have brought with you into this day.
This journey will show you that everything has been because of something.
It will show you that every person is human, including your parents, heroes, inspirations.
They are all trying to do the exact same thing as you: to live.
We all fail. The effects of our successes and failures travel in unexpected ways.
You will see, in order to understand yourself, you must try to understand the world as much as you can, or you will never get even close to a resemblance of a clearer picture of what exactly led you to this very moment, reading these very words.
One of the most profound steps I did was when I was in a mental institution. They asked me to write a free-form essay about my life, as far back as I remember.
I wrote the first sentence, then I read it.
It began to tug on threads I had long forgotten, yet were present in the mind as I began unravelling them.
Sentence by sentence, the most painful moments of my life found their way on paper.
Undeniable.
It turned out I had gone through a lot in life.
2 family fractures, years of bullying, betrayal by those I thought were friends.
It was the first step to realising I was caught in whirlpools made of emotions and actions of others and there was no controlling it.
I had to learn to navigate them if I wanted to survive.
It began to understand how much I had been influenced by others and how I had taken their advice without really second-guessing it.
How I took the principles of my predecessors for granted.
Once we recognize how much we’ve been influenced by external forces,
we can start untangling the knot of inherited beliefs and patterns.
The true power lies in learning to question those automatic assumptions and take ownership of our own narrative, rather than just accepting what has been handed down to us.
I see how regular journaling can help process what’s been going on.
Personally I do not do this, but feel free. I’ve met absolute assholes who journal, so there’s that.
Journaling is a mirror — if you do not look, nothing changes.
Quick Word On Psychedelics
Psychedelics aren’t for everyone, and are illegal or risky in many places.
Introspection is a path that’s always legal and always with you: your own mind.
I’ve dabbled with psychedelics.
Here’s what I think makes them work when it comes to self-discovery:
they will drag down the walls you have built around your vulnerable core without asking you if that’s OK.
They offer euphoria to mitigate the fear they may bring.
But the experience it brings can be life-changing. There’s a reason why they’re being heavily researched as a possible answer to rapidly declining mental health around the world.
Now, I am no medical expert, no psychologist.
I am merely someone who had clinical depression, anxiety, suicidal tendencies and suffered on a daily basis, ran by emotional turmoil.
Introsync — what introspection eventually leads to — is the sober equivalent of a psychedelic trip with none of the high, but all of the inner work.
All the insights I’ve had on LSD, shrooms or MDMA, none have compared to the ones I’ve had sober.
Maybe it just works for me like that.
Maybe it could work for others?
That’s what I’d like to find out and that’s why I am sharing my method.
Having said that:
Psychedelics have often been accompanied by talks of “bad trips.”
A bad trip happens because the stuff you’ve been avoiding and running from are no longer kept in line.
Seek help if you cannot do this alone. Facing yourself is fucking hard. It’s alright to talk to mental health specialists.
Not talking about your mental health is a pattern that must be broken.
How are we supposed to get our shit together globally if we cannot get it together within?
But How Does Introspection Transition To Introsync?
You introspect,
reflect,
recognize the patterns.
But now, it’s no longer just reaction — it’s guided.
Navigated.
Synced.
Most likely not what you would have done initially.
And as you follow this process, it begins to change you.
And as you change, so does the process.
It evolves you — and evolves with you.
At the end of the day, I urge you: find your rhythm.
No rituals set in stone, no mandatory retreats — do as you will.
Daily reflection.
Journaling.
Meditation.
Whatever floats your boat.
Go to Tibet — or the toilet.
Read riddles.
Books.
Listen to music.
Introspect.
I will now start leaving you haikus — for reflection on the go.
Talk to others. That’s how societal change begins:
Like an avalanche — thought becomes conversation,
conversation becomes action.
And though the effects may not be immediate,
the moment you turn insight into form,
you begin a loop.
When you sync with yourself,
you begin syncing with the world.
You take what the world gives,
process it — and offer it back as something new.
The cycle continues.
After all, introspection alone is not enough.
Next up, let’s have a look at what patterns introspection can reveal.
By the dissonance
Where frequency distorts me
I see resonance
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