Are your subconscious patterns running your life?

What is inner work?

Inner work, Personal Development, Self-Mastery, Healing, Personal Growth… there are so many different names for holistic self-care - see! Another name right there.

What is all this?!

To me, holistic self-care sums it up. We have all these facets of being human; we have our physical well-being, our mental health and mindsets, our relationships, our careers and more.

Personal development can mean any habits, goals or intentions you’re working on in each one of these areas. Maybe you’re trying to enhance your self-esteem and self-confidence or build your sense of discipline and make healthier food choices. There’s a broader scope when it comes to our personal growth.

When we talk about inner work however, we’re moving a bit further inward as the name would suggest. We are zeroing in on what’s inside of us; our thoughts, emotions, memories, patterns of behavior wired into our subconscious and what I call our inner wounds.

This is the less tangible territory of our life and thus it can easily be ignored but it has just as much importance as what we can see on the outside. In fact, what’s going on inside affects what takes place in our outer worlds.

Our thoughts, emotions, patterns and wounds have effects on what we do for work, how we do it, what habits we form or don’t form, how we function in our relationships, resistance we might have towards certain situations that life may present and even our physical health.

So while our inner workings are easier to ignore, if you’re reading this so far, my guess is that you realize how important it is and you no longer want to ignore it.

The thing is, our parents and grandparents were living in eras where their physical safety was of higher priority. (I say this loosely because I can’t help but be aware that there are many people today who have to maintain this same priority due to where they live or circumstances they live in). If your physical safety is at risk, you can’t really spend time or energy undoing old psychological patterns or working on healthier relationships right? You’re in survival mode and that’s all you would have time and energy for.

So, older generations didn’t get the privilege of doing their inner work. They also didn’t have access to the internet like us where everyone is low key doing a life minor in psychology due to all the self-help pages we follow on Instagram.

I bring this in to answer the questions some clients and workshop participants often have; “why is there all this wounding now? Why am I the one that has to go through healing all these old patterns?”

This wounding was always there, the family members that came before us just weren’t taught about it, or didn’t have the capacity to go there. They might have been in survival mode and so most of them “shove it under the rug”. Therefore, we have generations and generations of family members repeating wounded patterns of relating to each other and to the world.

So if you’re here, you are brave, strong and at least have your basic needs met in order to do this inner work.

Many scientific studies show that our ancestor’s traumas are passed down biologically. So our own DNA and biological components of our make-up can unconsciously be influencing how we handle certain situations, decisions we make etc. because our reactions on the outside are shaped by what’s happening on the inside.

Let me give you an example. If an ancestor (up to 14 years back) was physically abused by a family member. From this outer experience they may have formed the internal belief that people are unpredictable and unsafe. So throughout the rest of their life, they form a coping strategy of behavior to stay distanced from others and not to trust anyone openly. When this trauma is passed down, so is the coping strategy. So the great great great grandchild of this ancestor might wonder why she doesn’t have a close network of friends or why her romantic relationships haven’t been working out. The answer lies in her subconscious patterns and programing.

This is where we can do our inner work to heal our own past wounds as well as identify any other patterns that exist within our psyches that don’t serve us.

According to the science, when we do this inner work we’re not only benefiting ourselves but also passing these healed and healthier patterns down to future generations. It also has a positive ripple effect on those all around us whether we choose to have children or not.

Our patterns can be passed down as explained by ancestral trauma or developed by our own experience in this life or even taught to us by our caregivers, teachers or society at large. The point is, regardless of where your patterns came from you can begin to uncover what patterns are subconsciously influencing your life.

We can do this work in a safe and intimate group together so that you don’t have to do it alone. There is so much healing doe in groups when you realize that others may be thinking or feeling in similar ways as you. You aren’t alone in this. Take a look at my 6 week online group program called The Alchemical Passage to see if it’s a good fit for you. Registration is closing soon! Click here to learn more