Inner Work and Disidentifying From Your Thoughts
These are some of the key principles I’ve learned about inner work and benefited from using in my own life.
Disidentifying from the mind is key for inner work because when you take a step back to observe your thoughts and feelings, this allows you to attend to your experience rather than be consumed by it. The goal is to act as a neutral, compassionate witness to what you are experiencing. From this space, you are able to provide yourself with validation, love, and compassion.
Acting as a neutral observer to your thoughts also gives you the ability to consciously reflect on the experience with objectivity to gain insight and wisdom. Learning from an experience is a key step to healing because it gives you the confidence and peace of mind that the issue won’t continue to repeat.
An analogy would be like sailing through a storm. When you identify with your mind and experiences, this is like losing balance and stumbling away from the steering wheel, becoming disoriented, and having the stormy seas chaotically blow your ship around.
When you connect with presence and remain grounded in your deeper underlying awareness, this is like being composed at the wheel and being able to steer your ship toward your destination even though the storm is swirling around you.
It is a powerful shift to go from identifying with a thought or feeling, to taking a step back and seeing it. This creates space. It’s then possible to be neutral and have the space to bring in understanding and compassion while simultaneously feeling heavier emotions such as anger or sadness, and the neutrality and compassion helps transform and release the heavier emotions.
There is much more to the inner work process but I hope this summary is helpful. ❤️
