As human beings, sons and daughters of Mother Earth, we are constantly seeking growth and evolution. It’s in our DNA to desire better. We naturally seek to better ourselves, reach our goals, and live fulfilling lives. Yet, oftentimes we focus solely on external factors such as education, career, and relationships to determine our level of success and advancement, neglecting the importance of doing the inner work. Yet, inner work and energy hygiene are the foundation for a healthy and fulfilling life.

What is Inner Work?

Inner work is a term used to describe the process of self-examination and self-reflection. It involves looking inward, exploring your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and behaviors. At some point in your life you will begin to question your life choices and the patterns of habit and thought that you built those choices upon. It is normal to wonder if you’ve been reaching your full potential or simply checking boxes on a list that someone else gave you. Reaching this space is often uncomfortable and brings up lots of questions about your authenticity as a person, how much time you may or may not have wasted with the “wrong” (for you) person, career, or situation. Going Inside to deal and heal with these emotions requires a willingness to be honest with yourself and take responsibility for your actions.

Inner work can take many forms - you can consult cards to gain deeper insight. Journaling and meditation are other ways to listen deeply and connect with your subconscious where the programming lives. Reiki and energy work can advance you quickly as it can sometimes be difficult to read the label when you are in the bottle - meaning all humans have blind spots and areas they can’t bring themselves to explore on their own. Getting support, guidance and help from and energy practitioner can help clear out deeply rooted toxic and defunct programming and emotions that you struggle to reach on your own.

However you approach inner work, the goal and an energy hygiene practise is to gain self-awareness, learn from your experiences, and ultimately grow as a person.

What is an Energy Hygiene Practise?

Having an Energy Hygiene practise is essential to feeling more like the true you. Just as you take care of your body by washing it and brushing your teeth, you can take care of your energy and keep your systems flushed and healthy by paying attention to your emotions.

Emotions can get stuck in the body especially when they are not processed out consciously. This can cause emotional triggers - we’ve all experienced this. It’s what happens when one moment you feel fine, maybe even happy, and then someone says something and suddenly all you feel is rage, or anger, defensiveness - whatever it might be, you are ready to fight, flight or flee. This is your nervous system responding from the past and causes you to suffer, feel stuck, and often, out of control.

A regular energy hygiene practise helps remove the energetic gook - the plaque of past experiences that are no longer useful or healthy to still be accumulating and storing energy in the cells of the tissues. Releasing this energy with a regular practise of attention and intention, frees the energy, returns soul pieces and has you feeling more like your true self!

To learn more about returning soul pieces, a powerful energetic technique I use with all my clients, check out this video:

The Benefits of Inner Work and Energy Hygiene

Inner work can have a profound impact on your life. It can help you gain self-awareness, improve your relationships, and increase your sense of purpose and fulfillment. It also shifts your vibration from making choices from a wounded place to an empowered position. Here are just a few of the benefits of inner work:

• Improved self-awareness: Inner work allows you to gain a deeper understanding of yourself, your beliefs, and your behaviors. Think of it as learning about what’s under your hood what makes you tick. If there is something you have been trying to accomplish but can’t seem to achieve no matter how hard you try - then chances are good the resistance is coming from a mismatch between your conscious self and your subconscious programming. The self-awareness cultivated in inner work can help you make meaningful changes and improve your life ad move beyond the resistance.

• Increased resilience: By facing your fears and overcoming obstacles, you can develop a greater sense of resilience and strength. When you heal the triggers, the stories, and the programming that limits you, you discover it is a lot easier to focus your energy and attention on things that matter most to you, instead of bleeding energy and getting upset at everything. This resilience (which is another way of saying having more control over where your energy goes) can help you navigate difficult times and bounce back from setbacks. Basically, it can help you get back to Grounded and Centered a lot faster.

• Improved relationships: Inner work can help you identify patterns in your relationships and develop healthier ways of communicating and relating to others. All too often when you are coming from a place of feeling wounded, you unconsciously choose partners and situations that can re-trigger the wound. The reason for this has a lot to do with the Law of Attraction, where like attracts like. Your energy field, in the wounded state will attract more of the wounded state experience. When you do your inner work and heal this your energy changes and with it, your interactions with others.

• Greater sense of purpose: By exploring your values and beliefs, you gain clarity on what is the most important to you. The truth is, life is busy and most of us only have so much time and energy to give things outside of our responsibilities to family and career. Engaging in deep healing inner work helps you see what is the most important to you, which makes it much easier to set boundaries and “stay in your lane” of being focused on your goals and what matters most to you, instead of trying to be all things to all people because you have a people pleasing pattern that causes you to feel bad if you are helping the whole world solve its problems.

The journey of doing inner work is a continuous one, and it requires a lot of courage, dedication, and patience. However, the results of doing so can be profound and life-changing. By doing the inner work, you are creating space for a more fulfilling life, one that is grounded in authenticity, self-awareness, and purpose. And in your every day moments you give the gift of choice - to go from chaos to calm and response from a place of feeling empowered.