How the Practice of Inner Dynamics Can Help Your Career

A journey of self discovery

It’s not always a straight road in the career coaching world. Often, people have mental and emotional blocks that consistently impact their ability to succeed at work. At times, it can be far more beneficial to work on these, than to plan a client’s next career move. 

As a master NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) practitioner, I can offer strategies to help with anxiety, overwhelm, overthinking, problem-solving and more. One of the processes I offer clients helps them to separate the unhelpful parts of themselves - such as the voices telling them they are not good enough - from their true selves. 

Here, Angela, a former client, shares her story of how this inner dynamic work gave her freedom from anxiety and helped her to excel in her career, and the rest of her life.

Angela’s journey

Finding your true self takes commitment

Traditionally when we talk about our inner voices, we often describe just two. The devil on one shoulder, and the angel on the other. One, telling us what’s right and the other telling us what’s wrong. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but we as humans have complex brains that are anything but binary. We have hundreds of narratives, opinions, and problems to solve on a daily basis. 

When we’re faced with challenges, difficult decisions and even our very survival, there’s much more going on than an angel and a devil playing tug of war. What if we looked at what else was going on? What if we gave shape to all of the feelings and emotions that hijack us on a daily basis? What would that look like? 

Recently, I took on this challenge with leadership coach Rachel Hill and did an exercise in ‘inner dynamics’. I’m often hijacked by anxiety, which, rather than a devil, looks more like a monster. It takes me down, destroys my self-esteem, tells me I’m not good enough - and that I never will be - leaving me tired, hopeless, and full of unhelpful thoughts that prevent me from enjoying the rest of my life. 

So, with Rachel’s help, I let go of my inhibitions and let the complexities of my brain take shape. This isn’t an exercise for the faint-hearted, and it’s difficult to do by yourself. To start with, you need a facilitator who can identify your feelings and emotions and encourage you to look at them, describe them, and ask them some really difficult questions. 

Your inner dynamics are complex, listen to them all. Believe you're worthy.

How does inner dynamics work?

I started by taking myself back to a situation where I felt anxiety take over. A moment in time where I questioned my very ability to do a job I was hired to do by someone who sees my ability much clearer than I do. I felt the anxiety first, then I was encouraged by Rachel to identify where it was in my body and what it looked like. Suddenly a whirring, black, gushing whirlpool came to mind. It was sloshing around in my stomach - making me feel sick. Instead of letting it take over, Rachel encouraged me to say hello to the whirlpool, ask it if it knew I was there and if it knew what age I was. The answers were surprising - yes it knew I was there, and it was convinced I was seven years old! 

The next step was to get it out of my body, and that’s the bit that is tricky to do without someone guiding you. Eventually, the swirling whirlpool was out in front of me. Smaller, further back, and taunting me from the other side of the room. I repeated this exercise, with my feelings of frustration, overwhelm, irritation, tiredness, and sadness. I ended up with a room filled with a whirlpool, a beehive, a plank of wood, a fluffy cloud, and a waterfall. 

They were all distinct and all thought I was a different age than I actually was. Rachel helped me to ask each of them to pack up their stuff and move out. The exit is over there, my friends, and it’s time for you to go. In doing this exercise, I was able to identify these parts, separate them from my physical self, and most importantly, tell them I was a 36-year-old woman, who is capable, smart, resilient and good at what I do.

What happens then? What happens when all these thoughts have a physical form and they’re hanging around together completely outside of myself?

Calm. Calmness washes over. It’s a relief, I have control. I can breathe easier and my shoulders seem much further away from my ears. It feels similar to meditation or exercise. You are exhausted but you feel satisfied, relaxed, and much more prepared to take on bigger risks, more complex problems, and to act your damn age! Those thoughts are distant enough that they stop lying to you and you can then tap into something much more powerful. 

Some shapes to represent what I saw and felt - your inner parts can be all shapes and colours!

Your core self

New beginnings

Your core self is your true self. It is your inner wisdom, inner nurturer, your feeling self, and your inner voice. It is your gut instinct, your values, and your personality all bundled up into one. It’s not your thoughts. Your thoughts can be anything else, from a beehive to a plank of wood or a tiny bean. 

A person with a strong core self has resilience. And anyone or anything that tries to break through that resilience (including your own self-sabotaging thoughts) will find it hard. 

By practising inner dynamics with an experienced facilitator like Rachel, you can learn to tap into that core self, and eventually learn to do it by yourself. 

Whenever detrimental thoughts hijack you, whenever you feel ‘not good enough’, think you’re being judged or feel weak, you can identify the thought, ask it the difficult questions, and get it out of your body.   

Watch it, describe it, laugh at it, marvel at its bizarre shape. But never believe it. 

Believe in your core self instead.

Other ways my client’s have found happiness