navel-gazing

[ney-vuhl-gey-zing]

noun

Slang.

1. excessive absorption in self-analysis or focus on a single issue.

navel-gazing

noun

1. informal,  self-absorbed behaviour

Word History and Origins

Origin of navel-gazing¹

First recorded in 1955–60; navel ( def. ) + gaz(e) ( def. ) + -ing ¹ ( def. ); perhaps from Hours With the Mystics (1856) by Robert Alfred Vaughan, English Congregationalist minister and author (1823–57), “...if a man shut himself up… turning his thoughts inward, gazing towards his navel..., he would at length behold a divine glory….”

Example Sentences

“The idealism of the 1960s was yielding to the materialism of the 1980s, a new preoccupation with the navel-gazing, ego-stroking life,” Grynbaum writes.

From Los Angeles Times

The amount of navel-gazing that took place in those years was epic.

From Salon

Throw in the sheer tonnage of think pieces and appreciations and other navel-gazing and you’d be forgiven for asking: Do we also need a book about Lorne Michaels?

From Los Angeles Times

And if there's one thing I was trained to avoid as a female writer in male-dominated MFA workshops, it's the cardinal sin of memoir: excessive navel-gazing.

From Salon

On stage, the star remembered being criticised at the start of her career for writing "navel-gazing" songs about "challenging relationships", often tackling subjects of abuse and violence.

From BBC