Creating Capacity By Unpacking What’s Within

You are very interesting. One moment you might feel joy and happiness and the next sadness may overcome you. You may want to give up your job as you have a secret yearning to bake for a living. Your parents may drive you up the wall but you never feel you can say anything about this to them. You might want to walk away from a destructive relationship but something compels you to just stay where you are. 

What’s going on you may ask? 

Our inner world is a hive of activity, constant thoughts, feelings, ambitions, desires, hatred. It’s all there swimming around in our minds; we may feel sometimes that we are going to drown. But what if we became interested and curious about this inner world? What if we started to ask ourselves questions about what might be going on and how we might be affected? 

When we turn inwards, rather than be overly distracted by the outside world, we can learn a great deal about ourselves, and start to piece together why we feel a certain way. It takes courage to do this, what you discover might not be to your liking. What if you find out you’re not a very nice person? Could you cope with this? 

When we begin to unpack what we learn about our inner world we often experience a huge sense of relief, finally we begin to have some sort of understanding about what makes us tick. And along with this understanding comes a sense of space, a clearing in the forest of our minds opens up and we can finally breathe again. 

This process often takes time, patience and a good deal of self-compassion. We must never forget that how we are has got us to this point, so we can be grateful for that, but we have a choice as to whether we want to continue in this way of being or choose to start taking a good, kind, supportive look at ourselves and choose a different way of being in the world.

As you start to work on your self-development, you’ll never believe that you once didn’t listen to your inner world, or maybe you didn’t even know it existed! What’s important is that you’re now aware and awareness itself is the first step to recovery, to recovering your true self. 

So how would we go about doing this? One way is to get a coach, a good coach will help you see what’s going on, as we may have blind spots or simply feel scared to go to certain places fearing that doing so may bring about some sort of suffering. The truth is that you’re probably suffering enough already and by taking a look at what’s there with someone who is a professional, it won’t seem like such a steep mountain to climb anymore.

Or you could choose to begin on your own, and a first key step is building awareness. We would recommend a journal or other place to write down your private thoughts. What you write is important, not just a review of what’s happened in the day but a sensitive look at what moved you, angered you, disappointed you. Then as you review your entries you’ll see patterns emerge, and these patterns will be your key to seeing what behaviours need attention. Your attention may be given in various ways, for example a deeper dive into what you discovered. 

Let’s say you notice that every time someone mentions career or work you get anxious. Ask yourself “I wonder what the anxiety is about?” then write down everything connected to this. You maybe find that the anxiety is around not being good enough, or fear around not making enough money, or that you think you deserve a new promotion and that your bosses are not seeing you for who you are. Be open, be curious and most importantly don’t pass judgement on yourself. See what’s there, explore and be kind. 

Being with your inner world is like discovering a vast universe inside of you that is full of exciting and new adventures. 

If you’re ready, take a deep breath and begin this amazing journey.