Insights often arrive with a natural high—an ecstatic “aha” state. But no state lasts forever. When the ecstatic feeling fades, people commonly mistake this for the insight itself having been lost. They then beat themselves up: “I had it and I lost it.”
“The ecstatic state naturally leaves, and when it leaves people mistake the ecstatic state leaving for the actual insight leaving.”
The state is gone, but the learning may still be metabolizing. Additionally, when the same pattern resurfaces at a deeper level, people assume they’ve regressed rather than recognizing they’re seeing the same shape on a new level of the spiral. The antidote is asking: “The state is gone, but what of the learning is still there?”