Inner work

If you’ve got even a cursory knowledge of personal development (and you probably do if you’re receiving this email), you’ve probably heard or seen the term “inner work” before.

“We have to do the work,” people will say.

“I want someone who’s done the inner work,” you’ll see on a dating profile - or maybe it’s even on your own.

What, though, does it really mean? And why is it so difficult for people to actually do and understand?

I’ve been a personal coach for more than a decade, and I can tell you this:

Inner work is the intentional and conscious choosing of your thoughts and feelings whether or not anyone else knows about it.

What is your internal narrative - really? Are you muttering to yourself about how you’ll never really succeed, probably never find love, or just know you’ll drop off of this fitness routine in a matter of days or weeks?

Those are thoughts and stories that nobody else hears…and inner narrative, and working to choose it is the inner work.

You (probably) don’t walk up to someone and proclaim:

“Hey, I just chose to change my mood based on what I focus on! Woohoo!”

But, they can see it. The shift in how you show up is the outward projection of the inner work.

Take also the example of how we represent events in our lives to ourselves.

If you’re a Next Level member, you received the video I sent this week regarding a reframe I worked on with a private client recently.

There are some relationships in her life that are ending, and the first instinct is to classify these things as a “loss.”

A person who was once in your life will no longer be there - you’ve “lost” them.

But, have you, really?

If a person isn’t a positive influence, bringing you joy, or perhaps even actively bringing tension or sadness - then their departure from your life is far from a loss. It may even be a win.

However, it takes conscious inner work to reframe this narrative and choose to see the event in a more positive light.

This type of inner work can be done all day, every day.

When someone cuts you off in traffic, the easy conclusion is that you’ve been wronged. You become annoyed, angered, and frustrated.

To do the inner work would require you to consider other interpretations of the same exact event. Maybe they’re rushing to the hospital. Maybe they’re late to pick up their child. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

The truth is that sometimes an event that happens in our life is neutral in and of itself - it’s the meaning that we assign it which determines the impact it has on us.

We can (and should) apply this same manner of thinking towards our own thoughts, feelings, actions, and value(s).

How do we interpret our own feelings? Is it passive, based on emotion and instinct? Or, are we putting in the conscious thought and effort to choose what, and how, we want to feel?

“But James, some things are inherently negative. Pain, sadness, death, real loss, injury…”

Yes, life comes along with suffering, but that in itself is also part of the human condition, and you cannot (by nature) experience something that isn’t inherently human. All that we feel and experience is a result of how our senses deliver the feelings to us. Pain, sadness, overwhelm - they’re all our body and mind sending us messages that we process as feelings.

While some of these feelings may be inherently negative and outside of our control, our response to them is within our control.

If that sounds difficult to manage - that’s the entire point.

We began this conversation with a question about what inner work is, and why people find it so difficult.

One answer then reveals the next. In understanding what it is, we can easily see why it is so hard for most people.

You, though, are not most people.

You have the strength and fortitude to choose to do this work on a daily basis, and the more you do it - the easier it becomes. The more of a “game” it becomes, as you start jumping around the playground of life, wondering what else you can do, or control, or enjoy that you hadn’t before.

This is why people who “do the work” show up differently - because they are different. Not by chance, though, but because they’ve chosen to be conscious about how they live their life.

Start with something small. A red light that’s too long. A coffee order that’s incorrect. A torn piece of paper in that important report.

These are events of life that happen to all of us…

How will you choose to respond?

-James Michael Sama