On the importance of inner & outer work

When co-founding collaboratio helvetica in early 2017, I knew I was signing up for a roller coaster. Our vision was magnificent, I set out to do something I had never done, in ways very few people anywhere had ever done. I knew it would be challenging, like any new adventure or meaningful change work may be. I had no idea however just how intense this roller coaster would be. I did not know it would shake up all parts of me and put them together again in a new way. How much inner work it would ask me to do in order to make real progress towards our goals.

Often we tend to focus on the results, the output, the achievements and the awards - and just forget about the difficult bits, the rough patches, and what it took to get there.
Even when looking at start-up incubators or mainstream leadership trainings, the focus is on your skills, your presentation, your public speaking and displays of power or compassion. Whilst these may all be valuable things to develop, if studied and deployed without the inner work, they’re missing the mark.

Theory U and other amazing tools for transformation and introspection have taught me one thing: your interior condition matters. Where you ‘come from’ when you act matters. Your mindset and perspective matter.

“The quality of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor”

Bill O'Brien

In theory it made complete sense to me that we cannot solve our problems with the same mindsets that created them, to paraphrase a quote attributed to Albert Einstein. It seems logical to me that in order to truly reinvent education I need to let go of certain assumptions and conditionings, such as the concept of school as a building, or of a class as a group of students grouped by age. Similarly, I understand that in order to challenge the patriarchy I need to let go of what I was taught I should be as someone who was socialised as a woman. I for example needed to do some conscious work to let go of internalised beliefs around how I should keep quiet, small and pretty, to really own my voice and do the work that I do today and that I love.

That all made sense. But I had completely underestimated to what extent this work would ask me to face my own shadows. Just how crucial this inner condition, where I am ‘coming from’, is. I had to admit to myself that despite all my nice philosophies and optimism about the world, I was still often trying to create change coming from a place of guilt, anger and shame. I had to witness how this limited my potential to contribute to change, how it sometimes even did damage, and how I was in fact my own biggest obstacle. I approached and perhaps overstepped the boundaries of what was healthy numerous times. It was nothing unusual for me to work 12 hour days, constantly running from one thing to the next, and feeling at the end of my rope every three to four months. The third time around of feeling absolutely depleted and needing a month off to recover from the sheer exhaustion, I could no longer deny that something was wrong. I had to admit to myself that the cup I was trying to pour from is not bottomless, and needed some serious replenishing.

Facing yourself

My own trauma, patterns and unhealthy drivers were not only affecting me negatively - they also impacted my team and people around me. It is not easy to face this reality and can be embarrassing, but again, we talk too much about the shiny parts of this work, what is visible and valued in society, and not enough about the shadowy ones. Even though they are just as real. In my opinion, this makes us ill-prepared to do this work, especially to sustain it over time. So as part of my commitment to integrity, I decided I would be open about my own journey, including my mental health struggles and learning edges.

"Although it is embarrassing and painful, it is very healing to stop hiding from yourself"

Pema Chödrön

As I tend to do, I made this decision and acted upon it spontaneously. As it happens, also very publicly. When I was invited to hold a TEDx talk in 2019, I knew I didn’t just want to talk about systems change. I wanted to talk about the messy, shadowy, uncertain parts of this work, and of my own journey. I called my talk ‘the hidden variable of societal transformation’, on the insight that the inner work is the hidden variable of societal transformation. Hidden in the sense of less visible, but also less talked about. So I decided to talk about it. And I did. After writing out a few key words and quotes on the train ride over, but also after the topic was simmering in the back of my mind for weeks, I stepped on that stage and talked about the difficult, darker and elusive aspects of being a changemaker.

The Transformation Loop

Out of my experiences, including the above, this talk and the feedback I received, I created a model to try to express my thinking around this topic. In a way, I wished I had the model when I did the talk, but I guess it was part of the process that led to its emergence. The lessons I learned are captured in this model: the Transformation Loop of inner & outer work.

This model proposes a frame to think about the inner and outer work needed for impact. It is intended to make explicit what awareness-based systems change takes, and to support in creating as well as maintaining alignment and coherence across different levels levels as we do this Work.

A key component here is that this inner work is not only needed for us as individuals. It also pertains to the work of teams, who need to consider elements such as their principles, shared practices, roles and dynamics - all of which will influence the quality of what this team is able to produce. Similarly, the paradigms and culture of an organisation, as well as its governance structure and processes, will play a key role in the impact this organisation creates. What paradigms we replicate within, are what we carry to the outer world. Usually, this happens unconsciously - hence why part of doing the ‘inner work’ is taking steps to become aware of the patterns and issues, and taking care to shift them wherever possible.

On all levels, the inner work drives the outer work, which drives the impact. Each level contains the previous one, as we expand our sphere of influence and impact we continuously revisit and refine the previous layers in constant practice. Just because I have done the inner work in previous years to make a solid contribution to my team, does not mean I am done. As I evolve, as the challenges I am addressing evolve, I have to be consistent in my practice to reflect, deepen my awareness, and commit to the changes I see are needed.

I believe the inner work and outer work go hand in hand if we seek to create change in the world. Some may dwell only in the inner work, and fear confronting themselves to reality, and actually trying something. People who completely exit the system and focus only on their well-being also fall into this category.

Others may be solely focused on the outer work, launching new project upon project, always in the doing energy - never pausing to reflect and learn. Or perhaps thinking the challenge has ‘nothing to do with me’, and others are the problem.

For me, it is clear that it is a loop. One will never be complete without the other. The inner work always informs the outer work, and vice-versa. No person, team or organisation can ever activate its full potential without consciously practising both.

Before I created this model, I held a TEDx talk trying to put words to this - I called it The Hidden Variable of Societal Transformation. And it took another few years to find out that I had at the time been clinically depressed and burnt-out. Despite having the mental tools and models! I’m sharing this out of sheer humility, to illustrate just how hard doing the inner work can be. It’s not just baths or reading a new book. It’s facing our most entrenched fears and patterns, and anything that stands in the way of us living the life we want and being the changeworker we can be.

Cultivating balance

In the years since, the notion of inner work has gained traction. Notably, under the label ‘Inner Developmental Goals’ (IDGs), which is an easy descriptor for the inner work required if we want to reach the (outer) SDGs.

I would like to add a precision here. It should be obvious from the structure of the model and what I have shared previously. But let me make it explicit once more: in my understanding, inner work cannot be an excuse to not contribute to positive change. It cannot be a new lingo privileged people use to look away from injustices that don’t affect them directly. We see this happening in the ‘neo-spiritual’ space where it’s all about ‘vibes’ and being ‘high vibration’ or ‘frequency’. Where people who face violence or poverty are blamed, where it’s all about ‘mindset’. Speaking out against injustice is not ‘low vibration’, it’s sacred work.

We need to care for ourselves and our mental health, replenish our inner wellspring - in order to contribute to a more just future, not to reinforce our existing privilege. In this field, the inner work can never be seen as a standalone priority, it is always in communication with the real world, and in balance with the outer work. There absolutely can be times where we spend more time doing one or the other, the balance can happen over months or years rather than within each day. Some degree of balance within the week would be advised however, wherever possible. Years of neglecting my own needs and health has led me to be completely out for several months when burn-out knocked on my door, and this was followed by years of recovery and reduced capacity. Now, I’m doing my best to balance out my inner and outer work on a weekly basis.

To conclude, I perceive both the inner and outer work as a sacred duty of active citizens. Some of us may naturally tend to or feel more at home in one over the other, and it is the work of a lifetime to cultivate depth and balance in both fields to fully realise our potential as a changeworker.

So where do you stand on the impact loop? Are you pushing too much on the outer work side? Or spending too much time thinking and pondering, and too little acting? Or do you find both fields to be in balance within your life?

Further literature to the topic

• Tool: The Transformation Loop of inner & outer work
• TEDx talk by Nora Wilhelm