Don’t Like What You See? Turn Within

There is a phrase that keeps coming through me lately: Don't like what you see? Turn within. At first glance, I know that could sound like another version of everything is your fault, and that isn't what I mean at all.

Turning within isn't about taking responsibility for another person's choices. It isn't about spiritual bypassing, tolerating harmful behavior, or convincing ourselves that if we could just heal enough, everyone around us would suddenly behave differently. In fact, sometimes turning within is exactly how we finally realize that something outside of us needs to change.

Because when I stop looking outward long enough to listen to myself, I may discover anger I've been dismissing, grief I've been swallowing, a boundary I've been afraid to hold or a desire I've been minimizing. I might discover a truth I've been negotiating with because acknowledging it would require something from me. Maybe I would have to speak up, let go, change direction, disappoint someone or admit that something I once wanted isn't what I want anymore.

That kind of looking within can be uncomfortable as hell.

We talk so much about inner work as though turning inward will always lead us into this beautiful sanctuary where everything suddenly makes sense. Sometimes it does, and sometimes we find the basement. We find the beliefs we inherited and never questioned, the survival patterns that once protected us but now keep us small, and the ego identities we've built entire lives around. We find the places where we learned to perform, please, disappear, control, achieve or abandon ourselves because at some point those things helped us feel safe or connected.

I don't think finding those things means there is something wrong with us. It means we've become aware of something that was already there, and awareness gives us choice. We can turn away from what we've seen and continue doing what we've always done, or we can get curious about what is being revealed.

One of the questions that has become incredibly important to me is, What are you showing me that I'm not seeing? I love this question because it doesn't immediately demand an answer. It creates space. It allows whatever is underneath the obvious story to begin making itself known without deciding ahead of time what that answer is supposed to be.

And sometimes the answer changes everything.

The truth within us isn't always the truth we wanted to find. Sometimes the truth is that I don't want this anymore or I've outgrown this. Sometimes it is that I'm scared. Sometimes I realize I have been asking someone else to give me something I haven't been willing to give myself. And sometimes, perhaps the hardest realization of all, is simply: I already know.

Maybe this is why we're continually invited to turn within. Not because the outside world doesn't matter, but because our relationship with it is constantly showing us something. The neighbor becomes a mirror. The relationship becomes a mirror. The irritation, longing, grief and disappointment can all become mirrors. Even joy can become a mirror, showing us what makes something inside us come alive.

None of those mirrors gets to tell us who we are. They give us information. What we do with that information is ours to choose.

And perhaps that is where this teaching begins connecting to something else I've been sitting with. Because if I keep following the invitation inward, eventually I am going to encounter things I would rather not see. I'm going to meet pieces of myself that have been hidden, rejected, protected or pushed into the shadows.

The mirror, then, becomes a doorway. And I find myself wondering whether this is where the valley begins.

Huge hugs & divine love,
Morgan