Fuck Inner Work.

Fuck Inner Work.

Not really, but it does kinda suck.

Today is my 540th day alcohol free and it’s largely due to the inner work I’ve focused on the last year and a half. I think I always considered myself introspective and was always “working” on myself. I didn’t know what that meant. What I meant back then is that I’ll “work” on the parts I don’t mind changing or that are easy shifts. This is not work. This is me fantasizing the same way I would get jacked up watching a Rocky Movie. I’d think the change without actually embodying anything.

Saying I “work” on myself is also a cop out to staying broken. It’s the, yeah, I’m a fuck up, but I’m workin on it… Real inner work isn’t talked about, it isn’t fun, and by and large it’s a war of attrition. Failure after failure with a continued commitment to staying on the path, regardless. \

By the way, if you want to understand inner work a bit better I love this article by Loner Wolf and how they’ve broken down inner work, what drives people too it, how you can benefit, etc…

How My Inner Work Began:

I fucked my life up with drugs and alcohol. Did a real number on it. It wasn’t until the 3rd ER trip that I decided I really didn’t want to die. It wasn’t about anything else other than wanting to live that got me to raise my hand and say ultimately, “Crack me open and let’s get to real work”.

I had to admit some things my ego really was holding on to. I had to admit that though I didn’t want to say it, I was a fuck up. I had let people down. I let myself down. I lied, cheated, and stole my way to where I was, which, at the time was clinging to a bottle, on my nice soft couch, in a blacked out room, on a Thursday…while the rest of the world lived their lives.

Commitment

This term took on new meaning in sobriety. It was an actual commitment (no flakiness allowed). Guess who we as humans lie to more than anyone else in our world? That’s right, ourselves. We treat ourselves like pieces of shit with all kinds of nifty tactics too like, negative self talk, self fulfilling prophecies, drugs, alcohol, guilt, shame, inability to deal with life and heal, shoving emotions under the rug, turning a blind eye to unresolved tension, the list goes on.

This isn’t just this section of people we relegate to “the broken”. This is everybody. And, this is just my opinion but, the difference between the bum I thumb my nose at on the street and me is in reality…not much. It’s not a far cry between where I sit today and how bad it could be. I experimented with that, so I know.

That humility was brought to me through desperation and it was only through desperation that I was able to fully channel and absorb it into a discipline. I needed to be brought to my knees to commit to something as large as reshaping who I am in this world and solving my own problems.

Stay On The Path

I wrote today not because I have anything prolific to say. Most of my posts are just online babble of my own thoughts but they really help compliment my own inner work. It’s some of the hardest practices in my life but equally rewarding as they begin to cement as part of my own being.

My awareness to the way I am is this window of revelation I’ve never had access too and unfortunately, once it’s open, you cannot close it. No matter how hard you try. So, whatever you are currently working on know that I agree with you, it sucks. Know that I agree it’s powerful, essential, invited, and part of how we begin to change what’s wrong with the world. The more I learn about myself the more I feel less “all about myself”. I’m part of this larger whole of community, country, world, cosmos, everything. It’s brutal work staying on such a noble path. Happy trails and good fortune along the way.