navel-gazing

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….”