When Insight Is Not Enough

When anxiety hits the body, when stress grips the stomach — it is not that you are unaware of it. You might even understand where it comes from, what triggered it, and how you “should” think and do in order to change it.

In many cases, changing your thoughts or behaviour works.
But as mentioned in earlier articles, for many it hits a wall. The change doesn’t occur.

Even though the story in your mind has shifted, the physiological pattern remains. Your nervous system continues to react as if a threat is still standing right in front of you.

The mind may have updated.
The body has not.

Compassion Focused Therapy: A Different Strategy with Direct Influence

When your threat system is triggered, your body coordinates around protection and defense long before your conscious mind can intervene. Trying to change through reasoning alone is like telling someone in the middle of a “fight or flight” response to stop and solve a math problem — the system is simply not configured for logic at that moment.

Changing this requires a completely different approach. This was what a group of therapists began to recognize. They called their framework Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT). Instead of working only with thoughts, they explored how to influence the body’s underlying organization directly.

They observed how the body responded to compassionate exercises in which imagination played a central role.

Why Imagination?

They found that imagination has the power to bypass the critical mind and activate the parts of the nervous system responsible for safety and soothing.

Vivid inner imagery engages many of the same neural networks involved in real relational experience (Kosslyn et al., 2001).
This includes:

• The amygdala, which detects threat.

• The insula, which tracks bodily states.

• The medial prefrontal cortex, which integrates self and social meaning.

• Parasympathetic pathways associated with vagal regulation (Porges, 2011).

Because the brain responds to emotionally meaningful images as if they were relationally real, imagination can directly influence the balance between the threat system and the soothing system.

And Why Compassionate Imagination?

When we imagine a steady, protective, and compassionate presence, the body responds in ways that reflect affiliation, safety, and connection.

Compassionate imagery activates the affiliative system — the neurobiological network associated with bonding and care (Gilbert, 2009). This involves:

• Increased parasympathetic activity.

• Greater vagal tone.

• Release of oxytocin and endogenous opioids.

• Reduction in cortisol-driven threat activation.

As a result breathing slows, heart rate becomes more regulated, muscle tension decreases and defensive vigilance softens.

Empathy and warmth are not abstract feelings here — they are physiological states. The nervous system shifts from defensive coordination to integrative coordination.

Compassion does not suppress the threat system by force. It introduces a stronger organizing signal — one that allows activation and safety to coexist.

This raises the deeper question we will explore in this article:

If the mind automatically reorganizes itself under threat, what kind of influence is powerful enough to reorganize it toward safety?

Understand Self-Organization — and Why Imagination Matters

To understand how compassion works, we first need to understand how the mind organizes itself.

The mind does not have a central commander issuing rational orders. It is a self-organizing system.

Think of a flock of birds: there is no leader, yet they move as one. In the same way, bodily sensations, emotions, memories, and thoughts continuously interact until a coherent pattern emerges. That pattern becomes what you experience as “how I feel” or “who I am” in this moment.

Imagination matters because it enters this pattern not as a thought, but as an organizing influence within the pattern itself.

The Defensive Loop

Under conditions of safety, this organization is flexible. You can move from focused effort — such as concentrating on work or solving a problem — to rest and relaxation without difficulty.

But when a threat is perceived — whether external (like criticism, conflict, or pressure) or internal (such as self-critical thoughts or shame) — the organizing principle shifts immediately.

Everything coordinates around protection:

• Muscles tighten.

• Attention narrows.

• Memory scans for past danger.

• Interpretations darken.

The system is no longer “having a thought.”  It has locked into a defensive state. And states cannot be reasoned out of. They must be reorganized from within.

The Gravity of Habit: Attractor States

In systems theory, these recurring patterns are called attractor states. They are like grooves in a record or worn paths in a forest.

When stress appears, the system does not choose freely. It falls into its deepest groove.

This creates circular causality:

A thought triggers tension →
Tension intensifies anxiety →
Anxiety amplifies threat-based thoughts.

The loop sustains itself. The system becomes temporarily closed to new information. This is why logic often fails. The states is embodied.

Changing the Signal — Through Imagination

If the system is organized around threat, it is not waiting for a better argument. It is executing a survival program.

To shift it, we need a signal strong enough to reorganize the pattern. Compassion functions as that signal. But imagination is the access point. Because the brain responds to vivid inner imagery as if it were relationally real, imagination can introduce a regulating influence directly into the active configuration.

It does not argue with the defensive loop. It enters it.

And when compassion is introduced within imagination, the system can reorganize from protection toward integration.

The Three Systems in Self-Organization: Coexisting Forces in Regulation

Despite intense anxiety, exposed feelings, or stress, researchers within Compassion Focused Therapy discovered something important: the three motivational systems can coexist and influence one another.

Even when emotional distress is active, compassion can also be activated at the same time.

That insight changed the approach.

So how does this work?

If the mind reorganizes under threat, what determines how it changes? In Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), we look at three primary motivational systems that evolved to help us survive and thrive.

Think of these as the “emotional settings” of your nervous system. They coexist. Each has its own biology, its own purpose, and its own way of interpreting the world. The system that becomes dominant shapes how the whole mind organizes itself.

1. The Threat System (Protection)

• Purpose: To detect and respond to danger.
• The Feeling: Anxiety, anger, or disgust.
• Biology: Driven by adrenaline and cortisol; centered around amygdala activation.
• The “Lens”: Everything looks like a risk. Survival takes priority over reflection.

2. The Drive System (Resource Seeking)

• Purpose: To motivate us toward goals, success, and resources.
• The Feeling: Excitement, energy, and the rush of achievement.
• Biology: Driven largely by dopamine.
• The “Lens”: Everything looks like an opportunity—or a competition. When overactive, it can override self-regulation under stress and push the system into constant doing.

3. The Soothing System (Connection & Safety)

• Purpose: To restore balance, regulate stress, and support bonding.
• The Feeling: Contentment, safety, and being “at home” in oneself.
• Biology: Linked to the parasympathetic nervous system, vagal regulation, oxytocin, and endorphins.
• The “Lens”: The world feels manageable. This is the only system that can naturally calm the Threat system.

Compassionate imagination is one way—among others—to activate this soothing system deliberately.

Why Compassion Changes the Organization

If the mind organizes itself based on which system is currently “in charge,” then meaningful change requires more than just a new thought—it requires a shift in leadership.

Compassion is powerful because it activates the Soothing system, which has a unique role in our biology. It doesn’t fight the Threat system, and it doesn’t try to distract us with goals. Instead, it changes the “climate” of the entire mind.

Regulating the Regulators

You can think of compassion as a higher-order regulator. It doesn’t eliminate your fear or your drive; it modulates them. When the Soothing system is active:

• The Threat system doesn’t vanish, but its volume is turned down.

• The Drive system doesn’t disappear, but its frantic urgency softens.

• Your Attention broadens—allowing you to see possibilities instead of just problems.

Holding Pain within Protection

In a threat-state, our inner world becomes polarized. It feels like a battle: a harsh inner critic attacking a vulnerable part of you. The system is organized around conflict.

Compassion introduces a different signal. It allows these different parts of your experience to coexist without escalating the war. From a learning perspective, this is where the real “re-wiring” happens. When you can hold your distress while simultaneously feeling a sense of safety, your brain encounters something new: Pain held within protection.

This “novel configuration” is what allows the system to build a new path—a new “groove” or attractor state—that isn’t based on defense.

It’s a Physiological Shift, Not Just a Feeling

Compassion isn’t just about “being kind” to yourself. It is a deliberate move to change which system is shaping your:

1. Physiology: Deepening your breath and calming your heart.
2. Perception: Changing how you view your struggles.
3. Interpretation: Shifting from “I am a failure” to “I am struggling, and that is okay.”

By changing the signal, you change the entire organization of your mind.

Why Compassion Can Feel Threatening and How Imagination Can Regulate

If compassion is so effective, why is it often so hard to access?

For many, especially those who grew up with criticism, neglect, or trauma, the Soothing system hasn’t been properly “trained.” If vulnerability was once met with rejection, your nervous system learned a hard lesson: Warmth is risky. Softness is dangerous.

When Kindness Triggers an Alarm

In these cases, trying to be self-compassionate doesn’t immediately bring calm. Instead, it can trigger vigilance.

A gentle inner voice might feel unfamiliar, undeserved, or even like a trap. Research by Paul Gilbert and others shows that for people with high levels of shame, kindness can actually increase anxiety. This isn’t a failure—it’s your Threat system doing its job, protecting you from what it perceives as “exposure.”

Pacing the Change

If your mind has stabilized around threat for years, it won’t give up its armor overnight. Sudden warmth can feel destabilizing.

This is why we often need to pace the work. We don’t start by forcing you to love yourself. We might start by:

• Directing compassion toward others.

• Visualizing a protective, imaginary figure.

• Offering kindness to a “younger version” of yourself at a distance.

This allows the nervous system to learn, slowly and safely, that compassion does not equal danger. Resistance isn’t a sign that compassion is weak; it’s a sign that your threat-based organization has been strong for a long time.

From Theory to Practice

The question then becomes practical: How do we bypass this resistance? How can we activate the Soothing system in a way that feels safe enough for the body to accept?

This is where imagination becomes our most vital tool.

From Threat and Resistance: How Imagination Activates Compassion

If compassion is the key, how do we turn the lock? The answer lies in imagination.

In this context, imagination is a biological shortcut. Research shows that our brains process vivid internal images using many of the same neural pathways as real-life events. When you imagine a steady, protective presence, your body can respond as if that safety were physically in the room with you.

The Brain’s Internal Gateway

Neurobiological studies (e.g., Gilbert, 2014; Rockliff et al., 2008) suggest that internal imagery recruits key regions like the amygdala (our alarm center), the insula, and the medial prefrontal cortex.

These networks don’t strictly differentiate between a social signal coming from the outside (a friend’s hug) and one generated from the inside (a compassionate image). If the image is vivid enough, it becomes a direct channel for “safety signals” to enter your nervous system.

Changing Your Biology in Real-Time

When you engage in compassionate imagery, the shift is not just “in your head”—it is physiological:

• Vagal Tone: Parasympathetic pathways activate through the vagus nerve.

• Heart Rate: Your heart rate variability (HRV) rises, a sign of a resilient nervous system.

• Muscle Memory: The “guarding” or tension in your body begins to soften.

The Power of “Co-activation”

The real magic happens through co-activation. We don’t use imagination to distract ourselves from pain. Instead, we bring the pain (the stress, the shame, the tension) and the compassionate image into the mind at the same time.

1. The Distress: You feel the tension or hear the harsh inner critic.
2. The Presence: You intentionally generate a “Compassionate Other”—perhaps a wise figure, a steady adult version of yourself, or even a protective animal.
3. The Meeting: The threat-based pattern is still there, but it is no longer alone.

By holding distress and safety together, your system learns a new way to organize itself. You are teaching your brain that vulnerability does not have to lead to danger.

A New Reality

Imagination is a method of altering the internal signals that shape your life. By engaging the affiliative system from within, you allow your mind to reorganize under conditions of safety rather than threat. You aren’t just imagining a better world—you are building a more flexible nervous system.

How Compassion Is Practiced in Imagination: Stages and Examples

Imagination provides a structured internal space in which emotional states can be activated and reorganized intentionally (Gilbert, 2009; Arntz, 2012). Rather than merely discussing distress, the individual enters into experiential contact with it.

This process often unfolds in stages:

• Activation – A distressing internal state is allowed to come into awareness. It may appear as bodily tension, a self-critical voice, an image, a younger version of oneself, or a diffuse emotional tone. The goal is not analysis, but experiential presence.
• Representation – The activated state takes perceptible form. It may become a figure, a landscape, a bodily sensation, or an inner dialogue. Emotional meaning becomes organized in imagery rather than abstract thought (Greenberg, 2010).
• Introduction of a Regulating Presence – A compassionate stance is intentionally generated within imagination. This presence may take the form of a steady adult self, a caring figure, a protective animal, warmth in the chest, or an atmosphere of safety. Compassionate imagery is designed to activate affiliative and soothing systems within the nervous system (Gilbert, 2009).
• Relational Contact – The regulating presence approaches the activated state. The image is allowed to respond. The interaction unfolds gradually, with attention to bodily shifts, emotional tone, and changes in internal organization.

When distress and compassionate regulation are active at the same time, the internal field can reorganize. The system experiences co-activation of threat and safety, creating conditions under which emotional learning may update (Ecker et al., 2012).

Distress is not suppressed. It is held within a different organizing context.

The Imagination That Holds You

The specific form your compassion takes doesn’t matter as much as its regulatory function. For some, it is the face of a grandmother; for others, it is the steady strength of an oak tree or the vastness of the ocean.

Whatever form it takes, this image becomes a stabilizing node in your internal network. Over time, you no longer just “have” an image of compassion—you become the person who can hold their own intensity with steadiness. The image that once held you in imagination becomes the foundation of how you live in the world.

How Compassionate Imagination Go From Polarization to Integration

Self-organization explains how internal conflict stabilizes; compassion explains how it reorganizes. When a self-critical part attacks a vulnerable part, the system polarizes. When a compassionate stance enters, it does not take sides. It recognizes the protective function of the critic and the pain of the vulnerable part simultaneously.

This integrative capacity allows the system to move from internal war to cooperation. In this sense, imagination becomes more than a technique. It becomes a means of activating the regulatory system that transforms how the self organizes under pressure.

Rewiring Through Co-Activation

The magic happens through co-activation (Ecker et al., 2012). When your brain experiences distress and safety simultaneously, the old prediction of danger begins to update. The system learns a new truth: Fear can be held. Vulnerability can be accompanied.

This is how we move from needing external regulation (someone else to calm us down) to internal safety. We are building a “holding environment” within our own minds (Bowlby, 1988; Schore, 2003).

Moving Forward: Integration in Practice

The shift from threat to safety is the practical goal of many contemporary therapeutic approaches. While they may use different names, they all share a common thread: they use imagination as a bridge to reorganize the nervous system.

If you are interested in exploring how these principles are applied in specific methods, here are some of the most effective paths that utilize compassion and imagination:

• CBT with the third wave and CFT tools: Modern Cognitive Behavioral Therapy often integrates these tools to ensure that “thinking differently” is supported by “feeling safe.”

• Internal Family Systems (IFS): A powerful model for working with “parts” (like the inner critic) to move from internal polarization toward “Self-leadership.”

• Inner Child Work: A method that uses imagination to revisit younger, vulnerable versions of ourselves, providing the protection and warmth that may have been missing.

• Healing Through Imagination: Approaches that focus on “rescripting” painful memories, allowing the brain to experience a new, safe outcome.

• Hypnosis (Ego-strengthening): Using deep states of relaxation and vivid imagery to reinforce internal resources and resilience.

Conclusion

Compassion is a biological signal of safety. By using imagination to activate our affiliative system, we don’t just change our thoughts—we change the very conditions under which our minds organize. We move from a system fragmented by threat to one integrated by care.