Jumping out of your skin: external is the new internal

Ever been so engrossed in yourself internally that it starts feeling ineffective?

Of course, you have.

Like when you’re caught up in all the little mundane thoughts in your mind. Or when you’re obsessively worrying about if you’re really living up to your potential. And when you’re looking deep into yourself to figure out why the hell you can’t seem to motivate yourself to do anything.

And yet, you’re still as confused as ever.

What does it all mean … and does it matter?

We all hear so much (too much, and I contribute to that) that we’re supposed to look at ourselves internally to solve our problems externally. And, really, is there anything wrong with that? After all, our realities are defined by our internal selves. I’ve spent a lot of time pondering this over the past few days. Does it mean anything? Are we doing it the right way? Is there a ‘right’ way?

And finally, is there such a thing as spending too much time trying to find ourselves internally?

The obvious answer is yes. The not-so-obvious answer is no.

You must be thinking: “What… is this chick crazy?!”

Well, I’m not. Not really anyway. Okay, I might be, but that’s beside the point. Because we all have a little crazy inside all of us.

There’s much more to introspection than dissecting thoughts

What does searching internally mean to you? Does it mean dissecting your every thought and emotion? Does it mean trying to find out all the ways your childhood influenced who you are today?

Are we turning ourselves into unlicensed psychotherapists? Do we even need to become psychotherapists – is it really even that complicated?

Help me out here … I’m not a mind-reader. Heck, I can’t even read my own mind with 100% accuracy! And it’s a good day if I can hit 75% … that is, if I could measure that sort of thing.

Another kind of introspection

I don’t think that searching internally always has to mean the same thing. And therein lays the problem. We keep trying to do the same kind of searching. It gets old. It gets tiresome.

So here’s another suggestion: have an out-of-body experience. Jump out of your skin and see yourself as someone else would. Quit dissecting the emotions for today. Quit trying to find out what the past has to do with today and the future. Stop thinking like a psychotherapist. Be an FBI agent, a private investigator, or even just a casual observer.

Instead, look through all your stuff. What does it all mean? How are you projecting yourself to others? What do you look like when you’re doing X? How are you doing X?

If you were to watch yourself for 24 hours as an outsider, what would you see? You wouldn’t see the emotions, the thoughts, and all the internal motivating factors. But you would see their influences. Because let’s face it: as much as our internal thoughts influence our external reality, our external circumstances also play a part in reinforcing our thoughts and actions.

It’s a fresh perspective, another way of trying to figure out your M.O. – and you might realize something you never noticed before.

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