the daily practice of inner work
why inner work is all there is in life, and the three daily practices to do it with.
I wanted to title this blog post “how to cultivate a spiritual practice,” but that would not be entirely accurate. Because this isn’t about realizing lofty spiritual truths. In my practice of inner work, there are no deities to worship, no venerable teachers to honor, no prescribed “spiritual path” to follow. Ultimately, this is about the world inside of me. Nothing else.
It is about meditating on inner truth, yes. It is about the rigorous work of training your mind, and doing deep dives into the psyche. It is about examining old wounds, finding freedom within, and creating visions for the future. I still remember the moment, in college, when I realized that all my life experiences depend on the filter it passes through: my mind. Therefore, the most important task I have in life is to cultivate my quality of mind.
Put another way: cultivating the world within will create the world we experience outside.
I’ve been doing this cultivation for a long time —everything you see on this website is a result of this inner work — but yesterday, it clicked for me. A more structured, distilled daily approach.
Practice 1: Study and absorb
I heard Joe Dispenza say in an interview, “in the information age, ignorance is a choice.” What if you study the workings of the mind and spirit with the same dedication and intensity that you study for a class you really love? Or the way you train for a sport, or practiced an art form? To study is to devote oneself wholeheartedly to absorbing new knowledge, and integrating new understanding.
All the teachers of inner work have hours of videos, interviews, teachings on Youtube. (Not to mention the infinite books and audiobooks.) Which teacher I listen to depends on the changing needs of my life. Recently, I’ve been listening to Joe Dispenza on the mind-body connection, Eckhart Tolle on embracing the present moment, and Teal Swan on doing shadow work. I also love Krishnamurti. I explore guided audio courses the app, Insight Timer, which I highly recommend.
What works for me is to play a single teacher’s videos as background sound while I work, clean, cook, and eat. If I want to go deeper, I’ll buy their audiobook and listen to it. Sometimes that’s four, five hours of teachings — I often listen to the same thing multiple times. I absorb best through osmosis.
Practice 2: Deep Journaling
To simply absorb wisdom is not enough— the second practice is to constantly integrate new understanding in my life. As a result of a tumultuous year (or three), I’ve been journaling intensely everyday. I don’t mean a log of what I did each day. I mean detailed notes on what’s happening in my inner world. What’s triggered me, what I can learn from, how I can grow. When I get on long flights, while everyone else is watching a movie, I’ll write in my journal for hours and hours. While I go through my day and absorb new teachings, I’ll jot down notes and insights I have (in this app, Draft) to later journal about. Some weeks I won’t absorb any teachings, but my inner wisdom will give me insights on its own to journal about. I become my own teacher.
Journaling is how I face myself on the page without flinching, work through past experiences, articulate my tangled knots of emotions, hopes, fears, and dreams. It is the safest space there is, and a highly fruitful space — full of self-understanding, self-love, and wisdom. I’ve worked myself out of countless black holes through journaling. And the more I journal, the more I gain the confidence in my own strength, power, and resilience.
Practice 3: Meditation
If studying is absorbing wisdom, journaling is integrating wisdom into the mind, then meditation is integrating wisdom into the body, deeper psyche, and subconscious. There are infinite ways to meditate. We each have to find our own path into meditation, but I think the key is to remember what meditation is: a deliberate journey into the wilderness of our beings. It is a journey, as much as going hiking alone in a national park is a journey. Meditation is not any less filled with riches. What we get out of it depends on how we wish to embark, what we wish to see.
For years, I’ve done meditations on the breath, music meditations, guided Buddhist meditations, anti-anxiety meditations, sleep meditations, poetry meditations, etc etc. Recently, inspired by listening to Joe Dispenza, I found a meditation routine that works for me. This is what I’ve been doing:
Practice present-moment consciousness - sudden awareness of life force within me
Visualize this life force healing areas of pain in my body
Visualize experiences to access the emotional frequency of vibrancy, health, joy, safety, and love
Practice the feeling of surrender and letting go of control
Practice the feeling gratitude for all that is within and without me
Out of the three practices, if I could only do one, this is the one I would prioritize. I set the timer on Insight Timer for 30 minutes, 45 minutes, or an hour. I do this as soon as I wake up, and right before I go to sleep.
This is the essence of all the teachings, all the journaling, all the reflection: to change and cultivate the world within me, by daring to go within.
What do you need to do inner work?
Deep motivation. Self-discipline. Daily commitment. Sometimes, experiencing enough suffering is the best motivation there is to push you to the world within. But it doesn’t have to get there. And if you’re there, not to worry. We are all there with you.
If this stirred new thoughts or feelings in you, I’d love to hear about it. Write me anytime.