INNER WORK of 12 + years, and grieved the passing of her grandfather. The second half of 2014, she spent in the crushing darkness of depression, convinced she would not make it out into the light, struggling to lift her head off her pillow to care for her children.
The humbling convergence of these events propelled her to begin a more intentional relationship with inner work. She realized she had become disconnected from her genuine self, having spent years in an unhealthy marriage, working in a job that was deteriorating her soul, and building walls between her and the rest of the world. Through the journey of that year, she discovered it was only through the darkness that she was able to emerge into the light with renewed understanding of self.
Today, we find ourselves in a time of global darkness, giving us the opportunity to reconnect with our inner selves. This time of disruption can act as a catalyst for the modern person to reconnect to indigenous healing in a way that is relatable. Trauma, the separation from the self- causing dissociation, has been a norm of the human experience for the majority of our existence. This trauma is so much a part of our inherited biology, passed down from generation to generation, and a part of our socialization, that we have lost the ability to recognize much of the trauma we are experiencing. The mind that is separate from the self, from the dimension of the heart, ancestry, and nature, is what we call a colonized mind. In reconnecting with ourselves we reunite with our genuine selves, our ancestry, our communities, and our world.
“ Today, we find ourselves in a time of global darkness, giving us the opportunity to reconnect with our inner selves.”
Defining Inner Work
“ Consciousness precedes being, and not the other way around... For this reason, the salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and in human responsibility.”- Vaclav Havel
In preparing to write this article we were reflecting on the definition of inner workings, the mechanical interior that produces the outward results but remains invisible to the observer. If we translate the definition of inner workings to inner work, then inner work involves a metaphorical“ looking under the hood” to discover what mechanisms are driving our behaviors. If we do this internal tinkering, we can begin to recognize, appreciate, and understand why we are who we are.
Yet this definition seems to fall short of our personal experiences with inward journeys, ones that are much more wrestling with, a reckoning with, and a revisiting of our authentic self. Havel’ s assertion that consciousness precedes being is fundamental to understanding not only why we journey within, but what the journey entails: inner
Continues on page 10
CSEE Connections Fall 2020 Page 9