We hear the term “inner work” a lot, but do we actually understand what that means? I know a lot of people ask me about it! In this episode I strive to illustrate what inner work is both through definitions, what it’s not, scripture, and a story from my own healing journey.
The Definition of Work
In physics, work is defined as force times distance. Work is essentially the transfer of energy on an object that is moved from one place to another. For example, when you lift a weight, you are exerting a force on it and moving it, therefore work is done. The more force or distance displaced, the more work is done.
When we think of work, we think of cooking, cleaning, driving, having careers and relationships. All of it is work.
Some of it, includes inner work.
What is “inner work?”
Through my research for this episode, I learned the term “inner work” comes from Carl Jung, a Swiss psychologist and founder of analytical psychology. He was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, and a huge influence on lots of different fields including psychology, philosophy, and religion.. You can research him on your own, but that’s where the term comes from.
“Inner” in this sense, refers to the inside of us as people or humans. The work that happens internally. But not physically like our blood pumping or food being digested. (Although side note, psychological work affects us physically.) When we talk about inner work we are talking more about thoughts, sensations, emotions, urges, impulses, attitudes, images, dreams, and imagination— our psyche. There are probably more things to add to this list that I am not yet aware of.
Just like the scientific definition of work, inner work involves putting energy into understanding and changing, the stuff that makes up our inner psyches. But because it is less tangible, there is confusion about what “inner work” actually means.
Outer work
We can know the inner work based on the outer work we do. One article I read that I’ll link to here, said, “
Outer work, encompasses the external actions and outcomes that are outwardly visible—achievements, milestones, accolades, and tangible results. In the business context, outer work could include closing deals, launching products, or gaining market share. In our personal life, it might mean achieving career advancement, acquiring material possessions, or earning social recognition. While outer work is critical for demonstrating success, it is ultimately the result of the internal capabilities and strengths that have been cultivated prior to our external achievements. (The Importance of Inner Work vs Outer Work)
God’s Work
I’d love to put a spiritual spin on this discussion of inner and outer work. In Moses 1:39, the Lord says “this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”
The Atonement of Jesus Christ was a lot of “inner work” on Christ’s part, but included outer work which was his ministry and the continuing ministry all of His disciples that we carry on today.
When we act upon the commandment to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, (Matthew 22:37) I believe we are mostly doing inner work. We don’t always love God fully right away. The changes we make, who we become, in order to love God with all our heart, soul and mind is a result of the inner work we do within ourselves.
Acting upon the commandment to love thy neighbor as thyself, (Matthew 22:39) becomes the outer work of the first Great Commandment. When we’ve done the work to love God with all our mind, heart, and soul, it naturally follows that the actions we take- the outer work- look like loving our neighbor.
Can we “love” our neighbor outwardly without doing the inner work fully? Yes. When we do so we are not fully aligned to ourselves and to God, and more work needs to be done. Sometimes the outer work shows us the path to the inner work; they work together as a flow, line upon line. We don’t do one without the other.
Inner work in coaching
It’s my personal opinion that the inner work we do to have our desires align with God is healing work.
As a coach, I can’t and don’t tell my clients what to DO. I don’t tell them what to say. I don’t instruct them on when to take specific action. Instead, I get curious about what they are doing and why. We explore the inner world of thoughts, feelings, emotions, urges, impulses, desires, attitudes, etc, etc. By doing so, we close the gap between who they are currently being and who they want to be.
And let me tell you— this is WORK! It is energetic in nature, and it is difficult (although not all work is difficult). It includes self-reflection, intention setting, processing emotion, meditation in the broadest sense, movement, and many, many other things.
A word about modalities
There are endless possibilities with the modalities that can be used to do this work. I’ve seen mindset be the modality that helped a client. For me, mindset alone wasn’t sufficient. It wasn’t until I moved into the emotion work that things really started to move for me. The emotion work can be done through lots of different modalities itself. Breath work, neurolinguistic programming, meditation, somatic work, the list goes on. And then there are actions. And certain modalities or frameworks address actions. Anything can be valuable, but each individual person isn’t likely to need every modality, only what works for them. Some people need a variety of modalities and others like to focus on one or two.
Above ANY modality, the relationship between practitioner and client is THE most important factor. You must have a baseline of trust and safety to get “best results” for doing inner work that translates to outer work outcomes. Maybe this is why religion or spirituality doesn’t “work” for everyone; because they don’t have a trusting, safe relationship with their God!
I’ve used a lot of words so far to illustrate what inner work is. And of course I am not the end-all-be-all source on this. These are my beliefs, supported by some light research, lol. Let me try to bring it home with a story.
A personal story illustrating inner work
For most of my life I have been stuck in a nervous system flight response. I couldn’t wait to get away from home, so I worked my tail off to get into college. Then it was onto the next, and next and next things for a “successful” life. I got married, I had the babies, we bought a house in the suburbs with a 3 car garage, gasp! I changed my circumstances from the awkward girl who lived a white trash life without running water or electricity, to a proper suburban wife. Seriously living the American DREAM!
When I got all the “outside” stuff and still felt terrible, I knew it was something that had to change on the inside. I prayed to God to help me figure out how to be joyful, because I had all the reasons to, but none of the skills. Joy was something I literally didn’t know how to do. (I even went to a counselor who told me that I was fine because I could get out of bed and take care of my kids.)
A breakthrough coaching session
I don’t remember all the context for a breakthrough session with my coach, but I know I had an image in my mind that my mother was near me, and she needed me to love her, but I didn’t want to love her. There was tightness and tension in my body. My initial reaction was to try to relax, so I was surprised when my coach instructed me to get MORE tight, and to allow myself to shrug away.
The inner work was to notice what I was feeling and to allow myself to follow my body’s needs and signals. Instead, I’m used to freezing and bottling the emotion. In this case I felt stuck between loving my mom and not wanting to love her in the way she needed. After that session, I felt a genuine sense that there was a tension that left my body. A weight was lifted. Right after the session and poem flowed out of me.
Inner work has to be experienced to understand fully
It’s difficult to describe the inner work fully, because it really should be experienced. I had to take a leap of faith when I worked with my first somatic coach; I didn’t fully understand what inner work was. But I’m so glad I did, because it has really changed me and how I feel in my life.
Before I felt miserable even though I seemed to have everything I ever wanted. Now I feel peace and confidence, and true love, and faith despite the circumstances in life. And honestly, I want a lot less than I did before.
If you have any follow up questions about inner work, I would love to hear them.
If this episode was helpful to you, it might be helpful to someone else. Please share with a friend. Otherwise, please leave a rating and a review in your favorite podcast app to help others find the episode. And if you would like my support in doing inner work for yourself, schedule a session.
That’s enough for now and so are you.
xo,
Denita
Recent Comments