INNER WORK
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Many components of white supremacy culture and the colonized mind detract from and degrade the validity of inner work . Also it just so happens , perhaps not surprisingly , that inner work is the critical pathway to disrupt the status quo and address societal oppression . As a result , there are societal messages that devalue the inner journey . White supremacy culture ’ s drive for perfectionism reinforces defensiveness and lack of individual ownership ( Jones & Okun , 2001 ). Its “ right to comfort ” for those who hold privilege discourages leaning into the discomfort of inner work . Its quantity over quality deemphasizes the value of feelings . Its individualism focus discourages communal healing . Colonized thinking also reinforces organizational beliefs that personal and professional are separate and , therefore , any inner work is the responsibility of the individual and should be completed exclusively outside of the workplace .
“... it just so happens , perhaps not surprisingly , that inner work is the critical pathway to disrupt the status quo and address societal oppression .”
Another powerful barrier to inner work is our own discomfort with it . Because inner work can be unpleasant , our subconscious brain utilizes many mechanisms to override our conscious commitment to it . These psychological immunities to change protect us from doing something undesirable when our amygdala perceives a threat ( Kegan & Lahey , 2009 ). A subconscious system of protection will operate to prevent us from changing our behaviors . This provides insight as to why behavior change is so difficult and why the status quo endures .
A symptom of our discomfort with inner work is a tendency to slip into one of two narratives :
1 . I don ’ t need inner work ; other people need to change , not me .
2 . It ’ s all my fault ; I will do what I need to do to quickly make amends .
Neither of these extremes capture the complexity of context , nor the lifelong journey that is inner work , and both create barriers to accurate self-assessment and investment in working on ourselves .
It can also be tempting to resort to coping mechanisms to manage the swell of emotion that comes with this type of activation . Busyness is one such coping mechanism known as displacement . Instead of leaning into the inner work , we busy ourselves with distractions to avoid the pain and discomfort of grief work and self-investigation . We tell ourselves stories that we “ don ’ t have time ” or that “ I ’ ve done my inner work .” In doing so , we rob ourselves of discovery and healing . Prolonging our inner work results in held body trauma , impacting our psychological and physiological health , that
Page 16 Fall 2020 CSEE Connections