Knowing Is Not Enough
- Dana B. Fernandes
- Jul 31
- 5 min read
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Some time ago, a client told me, in a hurting notion, "I've done so much — how is it that I'm still struggling? How is it that I still feel stuck?" I want to honour that question, because it holds so much hurt, shame even, frustration — but also the willingness to be in radical honesty with oneself. This person had done a lot. Not just that — like most of my clients, they are professionals, holding space for others themselves. Which makes that question even less comfortable to ask.
But I think it's so important that we keep asking questions, that we keep refining our instrument, our craft. Even when we are professionals holding space for others, we are first ourselves. And without that self — within the craft, within the medicine, within the profession, within the role — none of it would exist. That individual, that curiosity, that passion, those questions from that individual — that's what led to and manifested into this craft, this medicine, these roles.
I feel we are in unique times, in that sense. There is more knowledge available now, and things are getting closer together — on their way to being connected, integrated. For many years I've advocated, talked about the gaps and disconnection that exist in our system, where we separate body and mind, soul and feeling, body — and even within the body, different organs get treated as different departments, which makes sense when we want to reach expertise. But we also have to remember to hold the whole system as a unique ecosystem. The different systems within it manifest as different things, in different ways. But there has to be someone who holds the bridges — who holds these connections and points of integration. Out of my own individual experience and story, I was pushed, thrown into being that, doing that, even before I realised I was doing it — even before I was a professional who does that.
So in today's episode, I want to talk about part of these gaps, and part of what leads to the feeling that there is so much we do, and nothing works — so much we do, and we still feel stuck. Because our focus remains in one arena, and doesn't expand to include the different aspects of being human. There are a few misconceptions I want to name, so we can see them, grasp them, and grow from them into greater integration, greater coherence and support — for ourselves, and for the people we serve.
The first is that insight alone doesn't create change. It's not enough to know. We live in an age where the internet is flooded with information — which is great, and has real gifts. It means clients come to us with a lot of education, a lot of therapeutic language. They often already know their attachment style, their nervous system state, their patterns, their childhood experiences. They've probably already talked about it many times. And that's good, to a certain extent — it means there's a little more consciousness in it. But it's not enough to actually change. Not just that — I've seen people re-traumatised by the number of times they've had to sit with professionals and retell what happened to them. So there are two parts to this. Knowing is not enough. And endlessly talking about it is not enough either — it can even cause harm. From a brain perspective, what are we actually doing when we do that? We reinforce the same patterns, the same connections, again and again and again. The place we actually need to bridge into, to change, to restructure, is the body — because that will also slowly shift the proximity in the brain. I've witnessed this happen many times.
Second, we need to reconsider another phenomenon — a big umbrella, and I don't want to put down any modality, because I believe all of it came from good intention. But any work created with the intention to process in a chaotic way — a catharsis way — without paying attention to building resources, without paying attention to integrating the experience into greater coherence, into a higher level, has its limits.
Third, I've seen people jump from one experience to the next. I say this with a hand on my heart, because I think many people recognise it. Whenever we prioritise cathartic processing, altered states of consciousness, out-of-body experiences, without an inner anchor, we don't change anything in the person's day-to-day life. We don't build anything. We're only deconstructing — almost violently processing, pushing into processing. There are many different practices under this kind of modality, and we need to keep asking ourselves: what is it that we are creating? In the long run, what does the individual gain? Do they have greater coherence in themselves? Greater capacity within themselves? Greater coherence and capacity within their relationships? What are we creating, beyond the momentary high I know these experiences produce?
One thing I've seen, again and again, is that people who come from these kinds of practices — and often these are repeated practices, not something done once, but returned to in many forms — often struggle to contain, to be in their body, to manage the energy within their body without these explosions. So just as insight alone, knowing alone, is not enough, exploding into constant altered states outside of the body, without inner containment, has its own issue too.
What's fascinating is that each of us comes into this with a specific constitution, a specific organisation, before any therapeutic experience. So often the people drawn to one extreme or the other are the people who most need the bridge — people who tend to dissociate will often end up in these experiences, because they push out of the body. So we want to strengthen what needs strengthening in each person. We want to build the bridge into more ground, more centre, more connection, more containment, more coherence. And from that, very often, comes spiritual connection too, for whoever seeks it.
There's a sentence that has walked with me, that taught me so much, from Lisabeth Marker, the system I've grown into: real spirituality can only happen in a body. Many of her practices — somatic practices — hold that at some point, to grow further in them, we need to go learn from a spiritual master. Over the past six months — not the first time in my life, but in this season of it — I've been blessed to be in close proximity to, and learning from, a spiritual master, growing these capacities into subtle energy work and dimension.
As I said at the start of this episode: I feel our biggest calling is toward greater integration, greater coherence — one that sees the whole person. That includes the body. That includes the mind. That includes the heart, the emotions. That includes the spirit, the soul, the energy — however you want to call it.
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