The Inner Work

The underpinning of my professional work is that in order to elicit change in others, you must first address the behaviors in yourself that you need to change. While I’ve never doubted this, an hour ago was the first time that I realized just how applicable it is outside of my job—in other words, to my personal life.

For the past few months, I’ve been saying that I’ve been focusing on myself—primarily, my physical, emotional, and mental health. An hour ago, I chatted with a friend and told him that I’ve been refocusing the time and effort I’d always given to other people—friends, family members, boyfriends—to myself. And I think that’s what I needed for so long but had for so long given away instead. That isn’t to say that my time and effort weren’t worth giving to those who were/ are important to me. It is to say, however, that I am also important to me. I should have been as important to me as others were. I wasn’t being selfless in giving away my time and effort. I was, in fact, being foolish.

And as I said (most of) that out loud to my friend, I thought of the philosophy of the work I do—the work I have been doing for almost six years and the number of times I have seen that in writing and said that out loud to clients. This whole time, I have been investing in other people, hoping that I could help them do or be something that they or I wanted them to. But I should have been doing the inner work instead, changing things about myself and my own life first, getting to do and be what I wanted to first. Because only when I am doing and being better, only when I am whole, can I truly inspire others to do and be better too, to be whole too.

And the inner work is so hard. I’ve thought it was hard—commendable, even—to help past significant others develop better habits, to help friends make good decisions. But working on myself is all the harder, because I have to not only confront my own inner workings (longstanding flaws, really), but also work hard to change them, to change the things I have done and the way I have been for 28 years.

Add to that my lifelong fear of being alone, which I will write about another time, and I think that explains why I have shied away from the inner work, why I have always chosen to focus on other people. But lately, one section of all pre-flight announcements has been looping in my head: If you are traveling with a child or someone who requires assistance, secure your own mask first, and then assist the other person. You first have to help yourself. Without that oxygen mask on yourself, how are you supposed to be able to help others? To be heroic sometimes means helping yourself first, so that you can help as many others as possible.

I get that it can be a difficult decision to make. When someone close to you is in dire need of help, or is in dire need of you, how are you supposed to ignore that? I suppose you don’t, in the extreme cases. But it’s easy to make a habit of this, and eventually the habit becomes your way of life. And then this way of life means that you go on ignoring the inner work that you need to do to do better and be better, to be whole and complete so that you can be the best you for those you care about and even those you don’t, when needed.

All this is to say that while I said a few years ago that I had finally begun my journey of personal development, I am still learning so much, building on the lessons I’ve already learned and learning new things, seeing new connections between what has been right in front of me this entire time and what I am encountering unexpectedly. While I wish I had started the inner work sooner and have once or twice lamented how much time and effort this would have saved me, I am glad to be on this journey now. The inner work is hard, but it’s better done late than never, and the journey is ongoing.