Inner Work & Why You Need To Do It

In my role as a coach, I spend my time helping people facilitate change to reach their goals and outcomes. In a world primarily focused on striving for physical change, there is a single component of reaching one’s potential that is universally relevant, irrespective of the goal.

Most people don’t believe they are capable of what they want to achieve, nor do they believe they are worthy of such success.
Fear, triggers, limiting beliefs and old stories run the show and ultimately dictate the way we show up, the behaviours we engage in and the decisions we make.

If we aren’t aware of how we are influenced by these thoughts, they can simply be enough to stop us in our tracks, and send us into a spiral of self sabotage, predetermining outcomes and reaffirming the belief that we are destined for failure.

This is where looking inward is invaluable.

So, what is inner work?
The inner self is comprised of feelings, memories, beliefs, thoughts, triggers, shadows and wounds that impact our ability to show up as our highest self.
Inner work is the spiritual and physiological process of awareness, self exploration, healing and transformation we experience by looking inward at the various layers of our mind holding us back from reaching our true potential and creating a life of truth and abundance.
By doing inner work we are able to move past fears, limitations, feelings of unworthiness and incapability that cloud our perception of our world, and the endless possibilities available to us.

‘If you accept a limiting belief, then it will become true for you’ — Louise Hay

What are limiting beliefs?
To put it simply, a limiting belief is a belief about something that you believe to be true, that limits you in one way or another.
Limitations include holding you back from making decisions, remaining narrow minded about the choices available to you everyday and developing a negative perspective on experiences that you encounter.

Limiting beliefs sound like…
‘I can’t afford it’
‘I’m not ___ enough’
‘I don’t have enough time’
‘X will think this about me if…’
‘I don’t trust myself’
‘I won’t be good at it’

Limiting beliefs are most often created in childhood and carried out through experiences in our life that consolidate the story and reinforce the belief as our truth. They are often exhibited through interactions with family members, teachers, coaches, social circles, cultural circles and our community ties.

Example
Situation in childhood: Parents forced you into athletics at a young age when you were overweight, even though you disliked it
Meaning: Enjoying exercise isn’t as important as losing weight
Belief: Being skinnier is more important than anything else when it comes to health
Reality: Crash dieting and endless cardio classes, whilst despising the process

From this example, we can see how what might appear as a minor experience in our childhood, can shape the way we think about various components of our lives. Experiences exactly like this, present themselves across multiple aspects of life, from career and money to health and appearance — it is simply up to us to decide whether we choose to look for them and move through them, or turn a blind eye.

Limiting beliefs are often the product of our ego, and exist to affirm the narrative we to tell ourselves that serves to keep us safe. In fact, it is often easier to believe the limiting belief than to work through healing it, letting it go and moving through change.

Who might benefit from it?
I am a firm believer that absolutely everyone can benefit from this practice.
This work often terrifies people, and it is not uncommon to face significant resistance when coming face to face with shadows that seem unbearable to face. However, it is in the process of challenging yourself to look at things in new ways, taking risks, communicating freely and stepping outside your comfort zone that the real magic happens.

We are all capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit for.
We have , determination, strength, intelligence, creativity, resilience to show, and the sooner we realise we have this, the greater our experience and our outcomes will be.

In particular, should you be feeling helpless, lost, unmotivated, lonely, often self sabotage your results, struggle with self esteem and have chronic critical and negative thoughts, I highly suggest taking the dive inward