On Inner Work, Outer Work, and Self-Awareness
“Whether we like it or not, our unwanted thoughts and painful emotions determine so much of our lives—but only because we avoid them.” - Why Composure Fails Under Pressure
Facing our unwanted thoughts and painful emotions isn't simply a matter of doing more and more inner work, because for some of us, inner work is the very thing we use to avoid the anxiety of taking meaningful action.
But facing ourselves also isn't simply a matter of doing more and more outer work, because for some of us, action is the very thing we use to avoid the anxiety of being at rest with ourselves.
COMMENTARY
If we are inclined to taking action—to getting results, finding solutions, optimizing systems—we will likely hear any call to self-awareness as a call to “fix” avoidant patterns, master meditation, tighten discipline, execute better, etc. If we are inclined to inner work—healing, introspection, self-inquiry—we will likely hear the same call as an invitation to go even deeper inward: journal more, process more, etc.
While neither response is inherently unproductive, both are shaped by the instinct to do something in order to secure ourselves against some form of discomfort. In other words, our perceiving—in this case the way we perceive a call to self-awareness—is already organized by the very tendency that self-awareness is asking you to see. The action-oriented person reaches for more action; the introspective person reaches for more introspection. Each mistakes its own habitual reflex for the solution, because each is using its reflex to avoid the very discomfort the other reflex avoids.
For some of us, inner work becomes a sophisticated form of never having to risk anything in the world—the fact that we don’t feel perfectly ready means we can always excavate one more layer/memory/trauma/shadow, etc., before we're ready to act. For others, outer work becomes a sophisticated form of never having to sit still with ourselves—there is always one more project, one more fix, one more optimization that has to happen first (and solve whatever problem ”sitting with myself” could have solved). In both cases, the "work" is real, and it can even look like progress.
As such, the relevant question is not about “inner” or “outer” work. Both inner work and outer work can be organized entirely by the same avoidance. Similarly, once we’ve identified which of inner/outer work we use to avoid ourselves, it’s possible that this addressing this “problem” becomes our next thing to fix/solve. The work of self-awareness begins not by fixing some pattern, but by seeing the part of you that’s trying to fix. It begins not by escaping outward (into more action) or inward (into more inner work), but by seeing the very impulse to escape. This is the birthplace of self-awareness.
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