3 Reasons Why People Are Terrified of Doing Inner Work

The term sounds mystical and all, but the work is not pretty

1. We’re Afraid of Ourselves

Look at the world. What haven’t we explored? We’ve explored every corner of the solar system and faraway galaxies, but we still don’t know everything that’s in the ocean or in the deep of the earth.

Give us an option to choose between going inwards and going outwards and outwards it is for sure.

We stick our noses in other people's problems but we turn a blind eye to our own issues. We point fingers at others and ignore the three that are pointing back at us. We’re ready to attack other people than look within ourselves for the root cause of our suffering. When we don’t get our way, we get angry at God and the universe and we refuse to take a close look at the person in the mirror who was behind all of our actions.

You see?

We check everything outside of us, but what’s deep inside feels sinister because it’s dark there.

The truth is that going deep terrifies us. Looking within is scary to us. When you look within, you find an inner child and that’s strange and poltergeist-ish. So we don’t look. We do anything to avoid facing our inner child.

We watch TV, listen to music, talk to people. We watch porn, drink alcohol, smoke weed, and have sex. Those things all take our attention away from our inner selves. Being with ourselves — our thoughts, emotions, fears, and pain — is uncomfortable.

We are horrified by it on an unconscious level because we fear what will come up. We love to stay on the surface because there’s plenty of light. But the darkness also serves a purpose.

A seed needs darkness to sprout. A caterpillar cannot fly if it's not locked inside the cocoon. We won’t grow if we refuse to go inside to inspect the condition of our inner world. We won’t shine if there are so many shadows on the inside dimming our light. We won’t evolve if we don’t go inwards to see, know, understand, love, and heal ourselves.

Inner work brings strength, and strength brings power. Inner work brings light and healing and there’s no other way.

We can’t be afraid of ourselves. We can’t fear the dark. A seed needs darkness to sprout. A caterpillar cannot fly if it’s not locked inside the cocoon.

2. The Work is Not Pretty

Inner work involves searching for the parts of yourself that have been rejected, forgotten, judged or dismissed by you and integrating them back together so you can be whole again. That may sound spiritual and mystical, but when you get into the heart of it, it is a gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, bone-crushing, mind-paralyzing journey of sweat, vomit, snot, and tears.

It’s not fun at all.

The ego will never agree to such a thing. The ego knows what inner work entails. It knows of the shadows and monsters in there. It knows it must relive every little detail again. It knows it must feel all the pain again. It knows it must feel it all once more.

That’s too much for the ego.

The ego is a scared cat. Inner work sounds terrifying to the poor ego, but the soul is brave. The soul says go inwards. Soul says hug the darkness. It says embrace the shadows and sit with the pain.

Ego knows nothing. Soul is wise. It knows the growth that happens from going inside. When you commit to doing the inner work, you’re turning your pain into power like a true alchemist.

This type of work strengthens the soul.

The soul knows there will be pain and discomfort while doing inner work, but it also knows that pain and discomfort are the only catalysts for change and transformation.

You can’t drive out darkness unless you go inside and turn on the light.

3. It Involves Shadows and Monsters

Shadows and monsters? Plenty of them.

You can’t do inner work without diving deep into the psyche where it’s dark. Monsters and shadows thrive in the darkness.

Your inner self harbors your old hurts, stored pain and memories you’d rather forget. It remembers every tear. The sorrow is there. The unresolved anger, sadness, brokenness all lives on the inside. The inner self also houses beliefs, thoughts, and wounds, all of which affect your outer world.

You might not even know or understand why the outer world sucks.

Inner work involves searching for all that has been hidden: past painful memories, deep hurts and sorrows, painful wounds and ugly scars, dark shadows and the vicious monsters and simply looking at them with love and compassion.

It’s all it requires of you. To just show that you care. That’s all the work is about.

Doing inner work is to shine a light on the unseen and to become aware of the various corners of the mind — the conscious, the unconscious, and the sub-conscious. It involves being familiar with every nook and cranny of your psyche and accepting and approving of its state.

By doing inner work, we’re able to move past fears and limitations, wounds and trauma and the feelings of emptiness that tend to paralyze us.

Inner work doesn’t have to be a terrible thing. Inner work is empowering. It turns pain into power. It turns power into purpose. It’s an important spiritual thing that we must all do to become the best versions of ourselves.

Inner work is simply taking full responsibility for yourself by seeing everything that has happened and knocked you down to the ground and seeing it as the ground from which you rise.

The phoenix will burn, but no matter how terrifying being in the fire sounds, the phoenix will rise out of the ashes.

Fighting inner work is agreeing to provide a home for the scary things. You can’t drive out darkness unless you go inside and turn on the light. The pathway to the switch may be long, but when you keep going, you get there and before you know it, there’s light shining brightly on the inside and the shadows and monsters cease to exist.

Note: This article is only meant to provide spiritual guidance and light-hearted content.

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