“Inner work?” I ask myself, “How should I work on my insides?” I ask myself again. It is all about how you perceive it, and it is not easy to understand the term. The term Inner Work means psychologically identifying and dissolving blockages that prevent you from healing, self-awareness, and being transformed. Inner work requires a lot of adventure in your mind and heart. If you are aware of your inner self, you discover a lot of hidden fears, memories, thoughts, beliefs, prejudice, wounds, shadows, and both emotional and mental conditions that influence one’s ability to transform and become whole. Inner work leads to self-love, and both are an ongoing process which leads to rediscovering yourself. Someone told me on my way to work on myself, always be positive and not negative, positive inner- work leads to positive results. I have done a lot of research on this one since I discovered there are a lot of things I have not worked on.
How do you identify inner work? You reflect on your patterns, we all have patterns that we have attained in our life, for example, I find myself overthinking a lot of times, which sometimes leads to a lot of assuming and breaking my own heart. “kuoverthink hukuwa mbaya,” ask an overthinker. Take some time to reflect on the patterns in your life that may be holding you back or causing you to feel stuck. You can reflect your patterns by journaling, when you feel that your thoughts are overwhelming you, you can always write them down. Writing has been proven to be the most efficient way to sort your thoughts. Sikuizi tuko digitally mbele, instead of using papers, simu zimekuwa na apps mingi za notes. If I knew at that time when I am overthinking, I could journal my thoughts, and ask for clarity when I do not feel like I am understanding, I would have eliminated a lot of patterns like overreacting, insecurities and jealousy, and expectations. Did you know expectations lead to overthinking?
Identify your triggers, what are triggers? They are the things that bring out strong emotions in you such as anger, frustration, or anxiety. Nikiongelesha mtu na naona haskizi huwa naboeka sana. But sometimes I find myself doing the same to someone so I wonder why it hurts me but I do it to someone else. But what I have come to learn is, we either do things unconsciously or consciously, but most of the time it is unconsciously. So instead of getting frustrated because someone is not listening, I sit back and keep quiet for a minute, if they will notice I have kept quiet, then we can work around why their mind went blank, instead of getting bored, it might be they are going through something. It took a lot of realization, I could say it is something developed as a trauma, because when I told my parents I want to do something and they suggest something they want, it felt like my opinions did not matter, so if it happens another person is doing it, I feel like I don’t matter at that particular moment.
Most of us live life how we see others around us or the older generation, you might not even realize it but unaishi maisha ya mtu mwingine. And for you to realize this you have to be more self-aware of yourself. How do you become more self-aware? Practice meditation or journaling. How do you meditate? Nimejaribu kumeditate my guys, but by brain cells won’t let me, unakaa kaa hivi kidogo unakumbuka meme fulani uliona unacheka, you lose focus, unajaribu kuconcentrate, Kuna Kuna inaanza kucheza kwa kichwa, si rahisi aki. But as the wise men say, practice makes perfect, meditation is watching your breath and emptying your mind from all the thoughts in your mind, you can start with three minutes, five minutes, and longer. Just focus on how you breathe, and let your mind be blank. It takes time but if you don’t get tired of practicing it, eventually you become a pro. When you are aware of yourself, the things that trigger you, your emotions, and your inner work will be an easy task for you.
If you feel there is an area that has you struggling, if you have a trusted inner circle, you can always run to them for feedback on those areas. A therapist too can be helpful if you can afford one. I would not trust so much on friends because I have had my fair share of disappointments when I ran to my friends for advice, some people simply don’t understand you. They want to force their beliefs on you, and you find yourself confused and doing things you did not want to do. There was a time I was stuck, my mind and my heart were at war, my mind wanted peace and my heart wanted to love, so I turned to my friends and asked for help, they helped me yes, but the way they advised me made me feel like I was too much, the fact that I believed I was too much caused me to harbor those feelings to someone else which caused a lot of misunderstandings and finally disappointments and hurt. As I said it all depends on your inner circle, have people who understand you and can see you from where you are coming from.
Finally, be open to change. Be open to the idea that you may need to make some changes in your life so that your journey to inner work will be easy and the work you need to do. You should be ready to step out of your comfort zone and confront your demons. Create changes to your daily routine such as journaling and meditation. Challenge yourself, look inside yourself, ask yourself why you feel the way you do, do not live life on airplane mode, be attuned to the things that happen around you and give yourself time. Inner work is an ongoing process, it goes hand in hand with growth, when you reach a certain age you change and inner work should go hand in hand with growth which eventually leads to self-love. I read somewhere that you love someone to the extent you love yourself. So if you love yourself a little, you are going to give others a little love, if you love yourself a lot, you are going to give out much love. Let us work on ourselves and live life without regrets. We only get one life, so live your life.
- INNER WORK. - July 7, 2023
- SELF-GRATIFICATION. - July 4, 2023
- “TWO SIDES OF A COIN” - July 1, 2023