What is The Inner Work
Updated: Jul 11, 2022
“Using awareness, personal responsibility, and inner work to review our unskillful or frightened reactions, we become more adept at turning habitual reactions to balanced responses. These moments are very exciting and gratifying.”- Bishop John Earle
Why do Innner Work?
The purpose of The Inner Work is to realign yourself with
love and joy in every new moment and therefore live in an
awakened state as your true Self. The first step to actualizing this is
to simply become aware of any shift away from inner peace and
gratitude. Remember that your true Self is in silent bliss of
existence. Whatever pulls you out of this divine contentment is
what we refer to as a trigger. A trigger reveals a limitation in our
unconscious programming and is our first clue on the path to
freedom.
What Are Triggers?
Each time we are pulled out of peace, we must turn our gaze
away from the scenario and instead look within ourselves with
curious eyes. For some of us dissatisfaction may arise first thing in
the morning with the sounding of the alarm clock. As soon as we
wake up, feelings of stress and frustration regarding our to-do lists
may immediately come to our attention. For others, bitterness or
anger may arise suddenly when our partner says or does something
we deem inconsiderate or annoying. Or perhaps joy leaves us when
an unexpected bill arrives reminding us of a perceived burden.
Whatever the initial fall from peace may have been triggered by,
we must move our attention away from the circumstance and
become more interested as to why we are even bothered to begin
with. What belief is behind the trigger? The purpose of identifying
triggers is to connect them to a root program belief that is not
serving our highest Self. In so doing we reclaim our power and
authority over our responses to life.
Opportunities For Doing Inner Work
In Everyday Moments
For example, let’s say your partner or child does something in a
public setting that draws unwanted attention and you become
embarrassed, therefore falling away from a peaceful state. Without
The Inner Work you might feel tempted to reprimand them or
shame them with guilt. This is a typical auto-response of an
unconscious program of embarrassment and feeling unlovable. The
program seeks to perpetuate itself by blaming other people or
circumstances for its discomfort while avoiding taking ownership
that the program itself is the issue. How we react to triggers is very
telling as to what program we might be running on. If we
reprimand and degrade another, we probably struggle with shame.
If we judge another we most likely tend to harshly judge ourselves
and therefore struggle with guilt. Essentially every time we are
triggered we are being invited to break free of an old program that
is limiting our joy.
Apply The Inner Work, and this exact same scenario can
become a golden opportunity for healing and transformation. With
practice, rather than blaming someone else for embarrassing you,
you will instead inquire as to why you are so easily embarrassed.
This inner analysis may reveal an unconscious part of yourself that
still struggles with self-acceptance and self-love. Which then might
spark curiosity as to where you inherited this self-rejection in the
first place. Consequently revealing a memory of a parent shaming
you as a child for embarrassing them. And thus the moment you
first covered yourself with a blanket is discovered. The color of
that blanket just happens to be shame. With this kind of awareness
you can now decide for yourself to take the layers of shame off,
knowing that this limitation was projected onto you and does not
need to be endorsed any longer. Once separate from it, you can
finally feel freedom in your own skin. With The Inner Work
everyone becomes our teachers and all triggers become
opportunities to transcend.
“Everything that irritates us about others, can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”- Carl Jung
You Have A Choice In Every Moment
With this type of awareness about yourself, there arises an
actual choice actual choice to let the program continue or to choose
something different. Without awareness of themes of consciousness,
programs, or triggers, there is limited freedom and lack of choice
because we remain focused on the external scenario and never look
inside ourselves. Without realizing there is a choice in how we
experience reality, we remain obedient to the voice inside our
heads, forever finding ways to validate the very programs which
keep us trapped.
Inner Freedom
It is with this new, heightened awareness of ourselves that the
gap emerges between each situation and our response to it, thus
allowing for genuine free will and decision. By becoming aware of
our ability to choose our inner perspectives and beliefs in every
moment, we reclaim authority over our lives and exercise our
spiritual will to go beyond the ego’s patterns of behavior and
rewrite the root program. Using the same example as above,
with The Inner Work, you would feel embarrassment arising and
rather than becoming it, you could observe it.
The inner narrative changes from, “This is so embarrassing, I
am so embarrassing,” to “a feeling of embarrassment is coming up,
but I choose peace. I am loved as I am. I can never be embarrassed
and am always doing the best I can. I am perfect, whole, and
complete. I embrace myself and love myself. Anyone's opinion of
me has nothing to actually do with me.”
“When the mind is disturbed by negative thoughts,
one should dwell on their opposites.”
- The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 2:33
After affirming this new narrative, breathe into this new
outlook, notice how much better it feels, how empowering it is,
and how much more loving and true it feels. Settle into this new
person you are becoming. Your transformation in these everyday
moments is real and not to be brushed off as insignificant. True
change is in the simple, small moments of life. There is nothing
grandiose needed. All genuine healing comes from consistent,
small moments that accumulate to make a powerful, lasting shift in
awareness. Every time you consciously choose your new narrative
over your inherited programs, you are literally becoming a new
person biologically, mentally, and spiritually.
By uprooting and replacing old programs, you institute a new
pattern of approach to your life, thereby altering every aspect of
your life such as levels of success, happiness, love, and feelings of
connection and purpose. Gradually the old programs will stop
being triggered because your mind will know they are no longer a
viable option—imagine a program being uninstalled or deleted
from a computer. Thus, with the old program removed and the new
narrative established and reinforced, the new program will take
root and consciousness can move on in its evolution. This is how
all true evolution and lasting change takes place.