Key Mindsets for Exploring Your Inner Depths
Choosing to embark on an inner journey means you likely have a penchant for curiosity, crave depth and meaning, and desire to deeply understand the core essence of who you are and why you are here.
Whether you're just beginning to dabble in self-discovery, starting to move deeper into self-inquiry and shadow work, or simply desire to connect to your inner world, here are some key mindsets that will serve you as your turn inward.
1. inner exploration IS essential FOR WOMEN
The decision to orient inward, to connect with your inner depths, is one of the most powerful choices you can make in reclaiming your agency in a world that often conditions women to look outside themselves for answers.
Prioritizing inner exploration means you value and respect yourself enough to shine a light on what’s going on beneath the surface.
It means you desire to know all parts of yourself, that you would rather self-source wisdom through your inner knowing rather than deferring to outside authorities, that you choose to consciously participate in your own evolution.
“The decision to go within means you are affirming that your inner world, your inner experience, matters.”
This choice is a radical act when women in every part of the world are drowning in patriarchal conditioning, capitalist practices, cultural ideals, family pressures, and religious dogma.
This onslaught of external value systems, influences, and expectations distorts our beliefs and ideas about who we are what is possible for our lives.
Unless we consciously unravel these narratives, we risk getting lost in the noise of what’s expected, of going along without question, of adopting what’s been modeled by the women who’ve come before us who perhaps didn’t have the resources to do something different.
Our whole lives can simply follow a well-trodden path based on others’ expectations, regardless of whether that path is one we would have chosen for ourselves. We can delegate the critical thinking and decision making and instead conform to the prescribed role women are told to play.
But for some of us, this isn’t how we want to live.
We’d rather think for ourselves, make our own decisions, be the sovereign leaders of our lives.
When you decide your inner experience is worthy of exploration, you’re choosing to walk down a different path.
An entirely new world, full of your unvarnished hopes, fears, dreams, past wounding, inner knowing, and innate wisdom, begins to reveal itself, paving the way to build a strong foundation of self-knowledge based on what is authentic to you.
“Self-knowledge is self-liberation.”
Knowing the deepest parts of yourself opens the possibility of living from wholeness, of navigating life from a truly aligned place, and of creating a life that fulfills you and gives you meaning.
And perhaps most important of all, inner exploration allow you to cultivate a deep, nourishing relationship with yourself — the most important relationship you’ll ever have.
2. HOW you Connect With yourself matters
How you connect with yourself matters, beginning with how you speak to and about yourself. If you’re just starting your descent within, you might not yet be aware of how you communicate with yourself or what type of narrative is playing in your mind. Start paying attention and notice the quality of your communication.
How gentle are your interactions?
Is there any judgment present?
Are you speaking to yourself the same way you speak to others you care about?
Are you speaking to yourself the way you want to be spoken to?
Notice how you feel after you talk to yourself.
Do you feel grounded, validated, reassured, and confident?
Or do you feel heavy, attacked, judged, or confused?
What sensations are present in your body?
Determine whether your inner dialogue feels good or whether you’d prefer a change. Having a clear understanding of how you communicate with yourself and the impact it has on you, will help you discern how you want to interact with yourself going forward and affect how deep you can go when it come to exploring your inner world.
Another area for consideration is whether or not you are putting pressure on yourself to force a specific outcome.
Sometimes when we begin inner work, we have ideas about how our journey is going to unfold, when in reality, it’s often a much more organic and unscripted process.
Notice where you might be attached to a specific outcome or process.
To what extent do you have an agenda when connecting with yourself?
In what ways are you putting pressure on the process to look a certain way?
Are you moving forward at a pace that feels natural or rushing to get to a specific destination?
Are you getting caught in perfectionism or letting your inward journey be messy?
Finally, assess how committed you are to exploring your inner depths and truly knowing yourself. Your relationship with yourself is the longest, most intimate relationship you’ll ever have. Just like connecting with another person, committed, dedication, and an open curiosity will serve you well.
How frequently do you prioritize going within?
How do you handle frustrations and setbacks along your inward journey?
What kind of support do you have to deepen your relationship with yourself?
Approaching your inner journey with kindness, an open mind, and dedication are key.
3. You Are Capable of Navigating Your Inner Terrain
One of the key reasons we resist inner work is the fear of what we’ll find once we look beneath the surface.
This fear is so profound that many of us refuse to turn our gaze inward until we reach some sort of breaking point or something cataclysmic occurs in our lives.
“We resist until we have no choice, until something so dramatic or earth-shattering happens that it knocks us out of our every day and we can’t move forward without more deeply understanding what’s going on in our inner world.”
Despite that resistance, most of us intuitively know that we need to go within long before something triggers us to do so.
We know that we need to deepen our understanding of who we are, unpack our past experiences, fully feel our emotions, dismantle our limiting beliefs, excavate our hidden shadows, and integrate all the parts of our inner world if we hope to navigate life from a truly aligned and self-sovereign place.
Yet we resist what feels like a daunting task, reasoning that we can put it off until our lives are more settled or until we feel more emotionally equipped to handle what may be unearthed. We are afraid of feeling uncomfortable, of leaving the bounds of what’s familiar, of entering uncharted territory.
We tell ourselves we don’t have the time, that it’s not a priority, that it might not be worth it if a positive outcome isn’t guaranteed.
We fear uncovering hidden wounds, suppressed fears or repressed memories, of the possibility that we don’t have what it takes to witness and hold what lies deep within, that we won’t know how to cope with what we find, that we’ll fall apart if things feel too intense or overwhelming, or that inner work will catalyze outer change beyond our control.
“Underpinning all of these fears is the belief that if we do begin exploring our inner world and don’t like what we find, we won’t be able to handle it.”
And the truth is, maybe all those things will happen.
Maybe forgotten memories will surface.
Maybe difficult emotions will need to be felt.
Maybe you won’t know how to cope.
Maybe you will fall apart.
Maybe doing the inner work means your outer world will shift in a way you can’t foresee.
All those possibilities might become reality.
But remember this: you have what it takes to navigate your inner terrain.
You are in charge of the methods you use to explore your world within, how often you do so, the level of depth you access, and what you do with the knowledge and wisdom you uproot.
You are the one who sets the pace, who decides when to take breaks, who chooses the most supportive rhythm for your inward journey.
If you feel overwhelmed or need help, trust that you are capable of finding guides and practitioners who are able to hold space, reflect your experience back to you, offer encouragement, and gently support you as your journey unfolds.
Close friends, like-minded community, and those who have already been where you seek to go can also provide inspiration and empathy about the messy realities of cultivating a deep relationship with your inner world.
These allies can help you build up your belief in yourself that you have what it takes to navigate with perseverance and courage.
Inner exploration isn’t always fun and easy. Some days it feels heavy and confronting. But it’s rewarding and it’s worth it.
The more you cultivate self-trust, the more you will internalize that you are more than capable of meeting every edge and weathering any inner storm.
