The Inner Work: An Invitation to True Freedom and Lasting Happiness

by Mathew Micheletti

There is a reason why specific issues continue to resurface no matter how many times we feel we have resolved them. These energetic imprints, or patterns of similar situations, people, challenges, circumstances, thoughts, and feelings, are all clues to an underlying theme of consciousness, which our soul is begging us to break free from. In a sense, no matter where we go or what we do, we always bring our problems with us, like a shadow. This is because all struggle with life is intrinsically rooted in our own consciousness and could never be caused by something or someone outside ourselves.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances…” - Viktor Frankl (Holocaust survivor)

I need to reread a man’s search for meaning tbh

Happiness is not something that can be attained through ideal conditions nor in the escaping of obligations. But rather, happiness is something that we become through the transformation of our consciousness. The desire to get someplace else will only keep us stuck in a perpetual cycle of wanting happiness rather than actualizing it.

But without actually healing the root of our dissatisfaction with life and evolving our consciousness, our problems will only continue to resurface again in new forms, no matter where we go or what we do.

This fragile mentality mistakes happiness, freedom, inner peace, and love as things that can be given or taken away from us in any instant. When someone says something we don’t like, inner peace is replaced with worry or defensiveness. If someone falls short of our expectations, joy is replaced with disappointment. If obligations arise, we are filled with resistance. If someone interrupts us, we are triggered with impatience. The result of this externally focused perspective is that we have allowed circumstances and other people to bestow good or bad emotions upon us, wrongly accrediting them as the givers or thieves of our joy. However, both favorable and unfavorable emotions are neither the result of conditions or other people’s actions; they are the direct result of which theme of consciousness we are living in and our chosen response to our life’s circumstances.

Pay special attention to any of the affirmations that made you cringe or squirm with discomfort or avoidance. Notice what the mind has to say.

This shadow identity doesn’t want to let go of control and the familiarity of playing small because it is afraid of trusting in the goodness of life and losing its happiness. It is unable to truly accept goodness because it thinks that love and happiness are things that can be acquired, lost, or stolen depending on other people and circumstances.

We are the only ones who are in control of how we experience our lives—we are that powerful.

The best way to find compassion is to see that your experiences are impersonal and not actually about you, but just what you are experiencing.

Most minds are actually very suspicious of someone emulating genuine innocence, unconditional love, and inner peace.

When seen from the highest perspective, our struggles are actually our greatest teachers, for they reveal to us personal opportunities for expansion.

We mustn’t run from the discomfort of life’s lows but instead have the courage to lean into them with humility and curiosity. In every painful or challenging experience, we can benefit from asking ourselves, “What can I learn from this? What character quality can I develop from this? What do I need to let go of? What part am I playing in this? Where am I limiting my own joy and peace? Where am I getting stuck? Where can I expand?”

As each individual makes the higher choice to heal the wounded themes of consciousness, humanity as a whole will gradually adapt to new levels of maturity—eventually leading to inner-liberation for all. Therefore, every individual is important, needed, and a necessary part of the greater whole.

Every thought and action of the individual contributes to the collective consciousness and, in fact, all the universe—there is no actual separation.

every time we heal a personal limitation and trauma within ourselves, we are healing it within the collective as well by holding the door open for others to join us by following our example.

Pay attention to the daily moments you embody these energies. Those will be the moments that you are living up to your full potential and living in your purpose.

Unfortunately, most of the time, these fantasies become a grand way of projecting our happiness outside of ourselves as something that we have to “get to,” thus setting us up to suffer in the meantime. Yet, it isn’t the dreams themselves that are the problem. Life is meant to be an adventure of possibility and fun—our visions and inspirations are gifts to explore. The origin of the problem is in the belief that life will only be better when…

By holding onto past trauma, we deny ourselves healing. By feeling self-conscious, we deny our own self-worth. By finding fault in other people's actions, we deny ourselves compassion. By feeling hopeless, we deny ourselves faith.

By collecting excuses, we deny ourselves our own power.

By feeling skeptical, stressed, worried, paranoid, or anxious, we deny ourselves contentment and trust.

By waiting for the weekend to come, we deny ourselves presence and gratitude. By becoming offended or defensive, we deny ourselves peace.

By reacting to situations unconsciously, we deny ourselves discernment. By closing our hearts, we deny ourselves love.

The mindless chatter of our mind which judges everything and everyone. The clinging to the past and obsession with the future. The fear of the unknown. The expectations which cause us to feel entitled and ungrateful.

If it can’t control others or the outside world, it assumes control over us in the form of thoughts and emotions that it believes will keep us safe.

Anytime you are unable to control your circumstances or the people around you, you are reminded of how powerless you seem to be, and so you protect yourself with yet another layer. Because of mineness mentality, your mind innocently collected these experiences as a part of your identity and has worn them all your life. After all, from your ego’s vantage point, all of it is mine, and therefore about me—all my experiences must define me.

This lack of awareness surrounding the absolute gift of life is another symptom of mineness and the entitlement it propagates. Mineness complains of boredom and rejects gratitude. It takes its life for granted becoming a victim—feeling powerless in “my life.” Or it becomes arrogant and judgmental—“Everyone

Ideal conditions are not owed to us. Creation is not owed to us. Our ego did not create all of existence. Our ego does not keep the body alive. Something grander is doing that for us—our ego just takes the credit.

For example, do you ever have impatience in traffic and feel others are in your way? Do you ever feel like family members should clean up better so you don’t have to? How about feeling like people are interrupting you and taking your time? Or that life should be different—according to your opinion?

Whenever we consciously ignore the demands of the ego to either cower in fear and victimization or attack with aggression and force, we prove our liberation.

By challenging our ego’s agenda, we take the focus off the external circumstances which it is resisting and instead focus on the resistance itself.

We credit all of these experiences, good or bad, with the power to control our mood based on what is happening “out there.” This is why we have spent our entire lives trying to control our circumstances.

This limited way of thinking will leave us forever riding a roller coaster of highs and lows, elations and sorrows. And while it is absolutely true that we are all interconnected and affected by each other and our environment, our perspectives and beliefs are not innately controlled by anything outside ourselves. We always have, and always will have, freedom of choice of how to respond.

You probably witnessed that the mind was impossible to control. And that is because it has been the controlling authority within you for far too long without you knowing it.

Although these thoughts are seemingly impossible to stop, you were however, aware that you were thinking, which changes everything. And if you are able to observe your own thoughts, who is actually doing the thinking? And who is it that is listening?

This voice narrates and edits its perception of reality all the time, constantly feeding us its biased perspective. A perspective that we internalize and attribute as coming from me. But go a little deeper. If it is us, then why can’t we just stop it and control it? If we don’t want to hear it, why won’t it stop? Maybe the mind actually has an agenda of its own that is impersonal to us.

From a higher perspective of love, the mind is like an innocent child and simply doesn’t know any better, and it is ultimately doing what it believes will help it survive.

Inherited negative beliefs, perspectives, and thoughts that burrow into our subconscious continue to validate themselves through rationalizing support and resisting accountability and change. They keep us trapped in suffering through defending the very beliefs, thoughts, perspectives, and habits that make us feel powerless by placing blame outside of ourselves.

However, the downside of this displacement is that in the process of defending itself, the mind accidentally makes us a victim by giving our power away to the external person, place, or circumstance it is blaming.

We unplug ourselves from the neuron pathways and patterns of suffering that are automatically reacting for us.

“No one loves me. Everyone rejects me. I shouldn’t be this way. God can’t possibly love me. I should know better. I am wrong. I deserve to be punished. I’m incapable. I’m a burden. No one wants to help me. I always lose. People always abandon me. I lose everything I love. People are out to get me. They want me to fail. Fear keeps me one step ahead.

Arguing doesn’t change anything. The world does just fine without my opinions. I don’t need to get involved.

But nevertheless, you have to accept that had you been born into a different family, different time, different country, different religion, different gender, or just overall had different life experiences, your thoughts and beliefs would have been completely altered. So who are you without any of these inheritances? What innocent, pure soul is underneath and behind all these messages? Whatever our inner narrative is, conscious of it or not, our mind will always find a way to rationalize why it is right and the best way for us. This is how it maintains boundaries of control and is what society typically refers to as someone who is “closed-minded.”

The untamed mind is obsessed with being “right,” “making a point,” or being “justified,” even if it brings suffering or death.

In fact, the greater the aggression, pride, or selfishness, the greater compassion needed for the torment going on within the mind exhibiting such behavior. Like can only come from like—hate does not come from love, and love does not come from hate. Aggression and violence being expressed to others can only come from a mind that is aggressive and violent toward itself.

Witness how it has an opinion on just about everything and everyone. Even on subjects it has never actually researched, it still will come up with something. It is all a grand vanity—it does secretly, at its core, believe itself to be a god after all.

Ironically, our fullness of potential is when we are the most humble, present, and don’t have anything to prove.

We might become frustrated or bitter as to why life doesn’t feel authentic, like something is missing or “off.” Thus we search our entire lives trying to fill a void that is coming from thinking something needs to change “out there.” Never thinking that what needs to change is actually “in here.”

Then, just as a radio has the ability to tune into a variety of stations over the airwaves, your mind, in the same way, is simply an antenna receiving thoughts depending on which frequency, or theme of consciousness, you are tuned into. In quantum physics, this is referred to as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, in which human consciousness affects physical reality and not the other way around.

ramble when you’re trying to go to sleep. When the mind is constantly active rehashing the past or projecting into the future, it is not able to be truly present and therefore receptive to genuine insight within the now moment—which is the only “time” inspiration could ever arise.

in every moment there is space between the situation and how you are going to respond. You can either react unconsciously—repeating a past behavior—or you can respond consciously in a new way. Your reaction or response is the frequency you are choosing to align yourself with in that moment.