Inner Work: How to Start When You Feel Stuck

There’s a kind of growth that looks loud from the outside: big announcements, fresh starts, highlight reels. But there’s another kind of growth that doesn’t get much airtime.

The kind that happens in small, unglamorous moments. The kind that doesn’t come with applause, clarity, or a visible transformation. The kind that begins in silence, at your kitchen table, while the kettle boils and your brain tells you, “You’re stuck”. The inner work. The work that begins when life feels uncertain. The work you turn to when the outside world can’t fix what’s happening inside of you.

Maybe you’re tired of telling yourself you should know better, but still watching yourself repeat the same patterns. Maybe you’re not in crisis, but you’re not quite okay either. You’re functioning, keeping it together, but something feels off. It’s hard to explain. A slow kind of burnout. A season of waiting. A quiet sadness.

Maybe you’re in-between things: the job before the dream, the healing before the breakthrough, the chapter that doesn’t have a name yet. Maybe you’ve been doing the mindset work, the journaling, the routines, but they’ve started to feel more like boxes to tick than something that actually touches you.

And maybe, just maybe, you’re longing for something deeper. Something steadier. Not dramatic change, but a return to yourself.

There’s a kind of self-abandonment that happens so subtly, you don’t even notice it. It sounds like “It’s not a big deal,” “I should be over this by now,” “This isn’t worth talking about.” And yet, it builds quietly until your days feel heavy and your inner critic gets louder. That’s when you know: it’s time to stop outsourcing your peace to something external – a new job, a perfect routine, or someone else’s approval.

Inner work is a relationship with your own thoughts, emotions, nervous system, expectations, needs, and stories.

And like any relationship, inner work takes tending to. It asks for honesty, time, and care.

The problem is, inner work isn’t a performance. It’s not something you can post about or track with a habit app. It’s the ongoing, intimate practice of being honest with yourself, showing up for your emotional needs, and tending to your mental and spiritual well-being in a way that’s personal and often invisible.

You don’t get a certificate for learning how to emotionally self-regulate. No one claps for you when you respond instead of react. You don’t get a dopamine hit from pausing a spiraling thought before it takes over. But if you’ve ever done it, you know: that tiny internal shift changes the whole day.

So, what does inner work actually look like? It can look like:

• Catching yourself mid-pattern and choosing a different response.
• Feeling an emotion you don’t want to feel and staying with it instead of fixing or numbing it.
• Saying “I need a break” before you snap at someone.
• Naming what’s true, not what sounds impressive.
• Making one small decision that realigns you with who you said you want to become.

A practical guide to inner work

1. Nervous System Grounding

Start here, always.

Before you try to reframe a thought or make a plan, calm your body. Your nervous system holds the key to whether you’ll react or respond.

Try 360 breathing, square box breathing, or simply take six deep breaths where your exhale is longer than your inhale. Relax your jaw and shoulders. Feel your feet on the floor. Say out loud, "Right now, I am safe."

2. Radical Awareness

Before you can shift a pattern, you have to notice it. Try asking: What am I feeling right now? What story am I telling about it? Say it out loud, write it down, or name it with a friend.

This separates the emotion from the narrative. “I feel anxious” is different from “I’m failing.” “I feel tired” is different from “I’m lazy.” That awareness is enough to interrupt the spiral.

3. Emotional Honesty

Let your real feelings be known. Tell the truth to yourself. Not what you wish you felt. Not what sounds wise. But the messy truth.

“I feel behind.”
“I’m jealous.”
“I’m scared of being irrelevant.”
“I miss someone who hurt me.”

You don’t need to justify or fix it, but you can’t heal what you refuse to name either. The moment you tell the truth, your body stops fighting it. And no, naming a feeling doesn’t make it stronger. It makes it usable.

4. Compassionate reparenting

There are moments when you feel small or overwhelmed, and you don’t know why. Often, it’s not the adult you reacting. It’s a younger version of you who didn’t get what they needed: safety, soothing, validation, presence.

Reparenting means stepping in now, as the adult you are, to give yourself what you didn’t get then. Offering kindness where there used to be criticism, patience instead of pressure, and understanding instead of silence.

So when your inner critic gets loud, pause and ask: What would I say to a friend or child feeling this way? Then say it to yourself out loud.
“I get why this hurts.”
“Of course this is hard, look at how much I’m carrying.”
“This isn’t permanent. It’s just where I am right now.”

You don’t outgrow the need for emotional safety, you learn how to give it to yourself.

5. vision reconnection

When you’re doing deep emotional work, it’s easy to get stuck in the heaviness. To think the whole point is just to fix what's broken and heal the past. But growth also needs direction.

This is where vision comes in. Not necessarily a five-year plan or a Pinterest-perfect mood board. But a felt sense of who you are becoming. A future self who is calmer, more honest, and whole. Inner work becomes meaningful when you remember why you’re doing it.

Ask yourself: What kind of person do I want to be when no one’s watching?

Even a few minutes of vision work – journaling, daydreaming, reconnecting with your values – can re-energize your inner work. It helps you make choices not from fear or habit, but from alignment.

6. micro integrity

You build trust with yourself not through goals, but through kept promises. For example, you drink one glass of water when you said you’d drink it. You actually close the laptop when you said you would. You finally send the message you’ve been avoiding.

Each time you do what you said you would, even in the smallest way, you chip away at doubt. Your actions become your proof.

Think about it like training your body. When you commit to moving, eating well, resting, you stop criticizing your appearance. The action itself quiets the critic, because you know you’re showing up for yourself.

Inner work is the same way. The minute you start doing something for your mind – reflecting, pausing, breathing, healing, staying curious – you feel better because you know: you’re in motion. You’re working on it. That’s integrity in action.

7. autopilot interruption

Pick one moment each day to step out of autopilot to come back to yourself.

Take a 10-minute walk without headphones. Let your thoughts wander.
Eat one meal without your phone – just you, your food, and quiet.
Reflect and journal one simple question before bed: “What felt good today?”

Inner work asks something radical of you: to slow down when everything around you is speeding up. It’s hard to pause for reflection or check in with yourself when the deadline is looming, dinner needs cooking, or you’re caring for someone who needs you, but that’s exactly when the work matters most.

_________

There is no finish line here. Just small shifts. Just showing up.

No one may see it, but you will feel it. And slowly, you’ll notice how your patterns soften, your reactions become more genuine and intentional, and your days feel more grounded. This is what it means to come home to yourself.