The transformative power of Inner Work

Jan Normanton • March 2, 2025

Our inner work comprises both retrospective work and future focused work to enrich our life, foster wellbeing and gift us a sense of true self and purpose

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If you are stressed, consider somatic massage or somatic coaching and know that your body has a whole set of inbuilt ways to help you manage your inner states.

There are various aspects to our inner work. There’s the retrospective excavational work of unpicking and unpacking our pasts, then who we are at present, working out who wish to be and taking ourselves forwards.


There’s the retrospective work and I call this excavational work because we are in a process of unpicking and unpacking our beliefs, our mindsets. Do they serve us, whose are they anyway… we are the sum total mostly of the introjections from our parents, primary caregivers, from teachers, church people if we’ve grown up in that environment.


So whoever we are now is worth excavating and doing that inner work, to work out who we are. Are the beliefs serving us that we have at the moment, are they our own beliefs or are they a sum total of everybody else’s beliefs who we’ve absorbed from as we grew up in childhood and pertinently are they serving us going forwards. Do we want to hold onto those beliefs and mindsets or do we wish to change our mind. So that’s the excavational work.


Often we have a heavy load of emotions to unburden as well from what may have happened to us in the past and there’s work to do there to make peace with our pasts, to make peace with former versions of ourselves, so that we have that inner peace of mind, body, spirit.


Then there’s the forward future looking work to do, to start to put together a version of ourselves that we wish to be going forwards. To basically put together version 2.2 or 10.2 or whichever version of yourself you’re putting together at the moment, and to enjoy that process going forwards. To decide who you wish to be, what beliefs you wish to maintain, keep. Which you wish to let go of, what mindsets you wish to adopt and nurture and cultivate, where you wish to place your precious time, energy, focus and commitment.


So I do believe that inner work comprises both aspects - the retrospective work and the future focused work, in order to get to a place where we feel that we’re happy with ourselves and contented and can move forwards in life with ease.

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