When knowing isn’t enough

Why freedom comes through intimacy, not insight alone

I’m leading small group and we are going through the book, The Search for Significance (Robert S. McGee). Read it if you haven’t. Read it again, if you have before. I’m also in the throes of rewriting my book while also navigating some major transitions in my life (more on that to come soon) and of course, this kind of collision course would have me even more reflective than I typically am.

What I’ve been chewing on is the idea that deep wounds do not heal through insight alone.

What do I mean? Well, in the current age with all the information tools at our fingertips and the power, speed and thoroughness of AI has made our information seeking even sharper (hopefully). We are a people who are smart. We know the psychological lingo. We know the diagnosis and even somewhat the diagnostic criteria. We are walking around with more labels than we have organs in our body at this point.

And I think, somewhere we believe that the more we LEARN and glean insight into our experiences, that the more healed we will be. And while I know that there is truth to this, it’s only one part of the equation. Just in case you are new here, I am a trained mental health professional, providing therapy for 2 decades and I FULLY endorse therapy and insight.

However, while knowing doesn’t bring transformation, to be KNOWN does.

And the only way to be known is relationship, through intimacy, through being known.

I always smile (a little sadly) when someone says, “I’m good,” and then, a few layers into the conversation, I realize that their “good” is actually the result of a very refined skill: disconnection. They are good because they don’t have any real or meaningful relationships within which they are engaged.

You see, when we live life alone, there’s no iron sharpening iron. There’s no awakening (triggering) of unhealed places. There’s no mirror. Side note: there’s a section on this in my book and will be further expanded in the revision.

But this peace, it can lure you into believing you are healed. That you are better. That you are GOOD. But peace without engagement is simply containment.

And this came into sharper focus recently in a conversation with someone I’m journeying with as a mentor. As I reflected on our path together one that has shifted many times over the last six years, I became aware of something important, there was a point where I realized I had taken her as far as I could with my therapist hat on. Not because therapy failed, but because the next step required something different. Deeper. More confrontational. It’s funny because as I was writing this, the image I got of what she needed was a collision.

This happens way more than I think she even realizes. But one day she “randomly” shows up in my chat and puts words to the very thing I was chewing on, even better than I ever could. And I want to keep her words exactly as she said them:

“That’s why psychology can only describe the wound, but it can’t fully heal it. Insight alone doesn’t restore identity. Naming pain is powerful, but transformation requires reconnection to the Original source (God).”

She eloquently described what I thought as “a collision with the God who loves her.”

This brings me to Scripture when John says, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32)

Yea, yea…I can already hear your confusion

“But Gia, knowing is still insight, right?”

Not here.

In the Gospel of John, the word translated as know is the Greek word ginōskō. This isn’t intellectual knowing. It has way less to do with conceptual clarity.

Ginōskō means to know by experience.

Put another way, it is to know relationally. One source put it like this… Ginōskō is to know in a way that changes you.

And digging even deeper, I learned that this word is closely connected to the Hebrew word yada. whew. Y’all know where yada was used? Chall, in Genesis. Adam knew his wife. So yada is the kind of knowing Scripture uses to describe intimacy. It’s a depth that is captured in covenant and unity. It most definitely is the kind of knowing that forms (or affirms) identity, not just bringing you in awareness.

So no, the journey you are called into isn’t about accumulating better insight. As was already said, insight gives your language to name the wound.

But only a relationship can restore what the wound disrupted.

And many Strong Ones have become masters of insight while quietly avoiding intimacy. Intimacy has been the source or at least path of pain for too many of us for too many times. Intimacy, by definition, requires vulnerability, dependence, and surrender. Insight, however, lets us stay in control because we “know” and most times can predict based on the knowledge. To heal though, we have to allow insight to be married to our surrender.

Freedom from your pain will never fully come from simply just figuring it out. Clarity can help..actually, it can help a lot, but clarity alone produces change that is fragile and often short-lived. What insight tends to change is behavior, not roots.

If we think about a flowering plant. Insight produces the flower. And flowers can be beautiful and will even bloom for a season. But without deep roots, without the right environment, nourishment, and connection, those flowers will eventually wither as all will, but the key is that the plant may never flower again. Healing that lasts requires more than visible growth; it requires a reordering beneath the surface.

Healthy relationships are what strengthens roots. Intimacy is what stabilizes the tree. And when roots are healthy, growth becomes sustainable.

Let’s commit to being known in the way that actually makes us free. 💖