The Oxford Dictionaries defines insight as:

The capacity to gain an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a person or thing. This also applies to a person with mental/emotional impediments, gaining an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of themselves.

How do we develop insight?

Insight can come in many ways, through reading, lectures, meditation, to name a few. With insight comes an understanding of our inner workings, our true motives and intentions, and being able to be aware of our unconscious patterns, to name a few. And, from research and historical accounts from the contemplative traditions, meditation seems to be the greatest help with gaining and maintaining insight.

The American Psychological Association defines resilience as the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress.

To extend the meaning of the word adapting, there are two basic ways to respond to adverse life events: one is to grin and bear it, to keep one’s head down and wait for it to pass.

The other way is to process the events at the time (and afterwards if necessary) and gain new skills and insights in the process.

With this second approach, after the difficulties are over, one returns to a state of balance and richness and wellbeing greater than before.

Resilience is a very good general indicator of psychological wellbeing; it is a positive sign of adapting and flourishing.

When discussing the concept of balance, I like to use the model Hippocrates proposed some 2,500 years ago.

His model of viewing overall health is an equilateral triangle with one point of the base representing the building up of resources, the other point to the utilization of resources.

The apex he called homeostasis or equilibrium. In times of stress, we use more of our resources to cope with the demands of the difficulties. In the building upstate, we nourish, connect, rest, relax, learn, etc.

The ideal, psychologically, is to not only enjoy life but to flourish––growing in functioning, understanding, and wellbeing, the ultimate purpose of psychotherapy.