Inner work

The deeper work needed to change systems

We are born into broken systems

We need to talk about pain, and we need to talk about trauma.

We often talk about system change in terms of the external, of radically changing structures or processes. There seems to be something of a systemic tendency in professional roles to act as though trauma is something that’s out there – other people are traumatised. other people have trauma and they need our help but we’re fine, we're the professionals. But that’s just not true.

Systems are all around us, they influence us in ways we can’t always see. We internalise the structures that have shaped our world - and these structures are often traumatic in ways we may not have fully acknowledged.

In order to create lasting change, to dismantle the structures that no longer serve us, we believe we need to begin with the much messier, much more human, inner work.

“The healing power of relationships is perhaps the single greatest leverage point to fundamentally rewire a system's behaviour and the outcomes it produces.” - Healing Systems by Calderon de la Barca, Milligan & Kania

It's very easy to interpret this notion of ‘doing the inner work’ as something that’s both individual and private, like that which might play out in a counselling session. But what we're talking about here is something that's necessarily collective, not solitary.

The external systems we've all grown up in have imprinted themselves inside all of us and many of those systems are both traumatized and traumatizing. This unconsciously affects how we interact with other people, the choices we make, the things we try to build, our biases, our preferences, our triggers.

If we don't identify, acknowledge, and process these internal imprints we end up accidentally replicating them, even while we’re trying to replace them. Changing systems is something done by messy complex human beings, each with their own complicated relationship and dance with power, their own personal baggage, their own trauma - and this messiness (as scary as it can be) is something we have to engage with together in order to break those cycles of old system behaviours and create meaningful change.

INSIGHTS WE HAVE UNEARTHED (SO FAR) ABOUT INNER WORK:

Inner work requires ‘showing up differently,’ being vulnerable, putting down our ‘professional armour’ and stepping outside the comfort zones of traditional hierarchy, inviting others in to help us uncover what we need to shift in ourselves.
This means that inner work requires us to be brave – because society commonly expects us to ‘armour up’ for work, it’s subversive and courageous to let others in.
In order to do this work, we need to be held in relationships that make us feel safe while also challenging us, helping us to make these things visible to ourselves.
Inner work takes time, persistence and a strong resistance to jumping to actions rather than exploring and uncovering.
Inner work helps provide the tools, support and environment needed for autonomy and devolved decision making to thrive.