One of my favorite topics of discussion with clients is understanding The Gift of Insight and how it differs from analytical problem solving or brainstorming.

Insights arise as “aha’s” or eureka moments. They come as creative or original ideas. Insights arrive from the unknown, unbidden. They are not memory bound; they are fresh, original thought that shows us something new.

Insight can show up as a simple creative solution to a practical problem, a breakthrough after years of study on a subject, or a profound, life altering realization in which one is transformed.

I have witnessed many insights, big and small, with my clients over the last 20 years. Just recently, a client shared a powerful one. Her daughter was hospitalized for mental health reasons and had refused to sign a release of information for her. My client was unable to contact her daughter or get any information from the staff at the hospital.

She told me that while she worries and gets sad sometimes, she also experiences peace and happiness amid the situation and lack of communication with her daughter.

When she noticed this fact, she had an insight. She saw that her experience of the situation arises with her thinking, moment to moment. Some moments she was thinking worried or concerned thoughts about her daughter and other moments when she was not in worried or concerned thinking, she had a natural sense of peace and happiness.

She concluded that her happiness and peace of mind are always available regardless of circumstance. Seeing this fact fostered her resilience and gave her a renewed sense of hope.

Many years ago, I had a realization that completely changed the trajectory of my life. In a moment I saw that all my emotional angst and suffering was thought created…and only thought created. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t SEEN it before. People had told me countless times I worried too much, or that I was overthinking or that I was undervaluing my ability and so on. And I would say “yeah, I know.” But I didn’t know. I didn’t know that all my feelings derived from my thoughts.

It took an insight, a realization from within to SEE this as fact. The feeling that accompanied that insight was exhilaration and freedom. I changed completely at that moment. Not that my thinking habits fell away instantly, but I jumped a level of understanding and could not take them as seriously nor entertain them as I had before.

Insights are powerful mechanisms for creating lasting change. Brainstorming and analytical problem solving are useful activities, but the moment of seeing something new-a creative solution, a life changing epiphany-lies in the jurisdiction of the unknown emerging through an “aha.”

In the article “Aha! Spark of Insight That Changes Everything,” (Psychology Today April, 2015) Bruce Grierson cites neuroscience research that explains what goes on in the brain just prior to and during an insight. Apparently, “aha’s” occur in an “idle brain,” meaning the processing centers are quiet but there is a lot of activity “behind the scenes.” When people stop deliberately thinking and just “veg out” or get quiet it sets the stage for an insight or realization.

Neuroscience is backing up the findings that people have their most creative ideas or insights while driving, in the shower or on vacation. When the analytical mind is idle a creative intelligence can emerge in an insight.

Other studies tried to generate an insight by ramping up analytical thought to prove that an insight could be engineered and not left to chance or stroke of genius. These experiments failed to produce any original “aha’s.”

Grierson concludes that insight is indeed a special gift and comes with a certain feeling unlike simply arriving at a conclusion. The gift of insight serves a special purpose-to see something new (not already stored in memory) and to create transcendent or transformational experiences that can change one’s life for the better.