12 Questions — Takes about 3 minutes
Inner work is a pilgrimage into the mysterious dark forests of the body, mind, heart, and soul.
It’s a path for the sage, mystic, and philosopher within all of us – a path that often begins as a solitary, lone wolf quest for healing and evolves as a spiritual path of love, devotion, and freedom.
Of all the paths available to us in life, the journey of inner work is the richest, most rewarding, and transformative. It takes us to the root of our traumas, heals our buried wounds, and liberates us to live a life aligned with our Soul’s truth.
So where do you start? What kind of inner work do you need to focus on within your life’s journey right now? This test will help you to find out.
Remember that you can bookmark this page and come back to it every now and then. Test yourself again in 6-12 months and see what has shifted.
What result did you get, and did it resonate? Share below. Your experience helps others recognize themselves.
What is the Purpose of Inner Work?
At its core, inner work – true inner work – is a path of Soul recovery. Beyond healing our psychological blockages, inner work’s greater goal is to reclaim the Deeper Self within us that was lost, buried, or erased throughout the course of our lives.
It is a sacred, life-long commitment to finding more PEACE in our lives, an acronym for:
- playfulness,
- energy,
- authenticity,
- centeredness, and
- empowerment.
Internally, inner work is a path of embodying our Soul’s essence: the wise, wild, warm, welcoming, and whole presence at our core.
These gifts are open to us when we commit to this path, not just as a hobby, but as a way of life.
What Inner Work Paths Are There?
Like any journey, there are many routes and paths we can take to get us through that subterranean world of our deep psyches and toward our inner Center.
We have defined four ‘pillars’ of inner work as follows:
- Embodiment,
- Self-love,
- Inner child work,
- Shadow work.
You can read more about these inner work pillars here. Keep in mind that we move in a spiral when it comes to inner work, so you can and will revisit these four pillars repeatedly on your path.
Frequently Asked Questions
The four inner work types represent four distinct internal dimensions of the healing journey. Each addresses a different layer of who you are and where you carry pain, blockages, or trauma.
– Embodiment is the foundation. This path focuses on exploring the disconnection between mind and body – the numbness, chronic tension, or sense of watching your life from a dissociated distance rather than living within it. Before deeper psychological work can truly take root, the nervous system needs to feel safe enough to be present.
– Self-Love is the next phase, and it helps you to explore your relationship with yourself, specifically the inner critic, the many worthiness wounds, and the deep-seated core beliefs you may carry that result in self-sabotage or self-loathing. This work is less about positive thinking and more about understanding where your negative inner dialogue originated and dismantling it slowly.
– Inner Child Work goes to the heart of why you may still be anxious, overwhelmed, or disconnected in daily life. It helps you to explore the dynamics of your childhood, and how your ancestors, parents, or caretakers influenced you, for better or worse.
– Shadow Work is the final stage of inner work, and it helps you to explore the ‘dark side’ of your psyche and integrate the parts of yourself that you’ve kept suppressed. This work dives into topics such as shame, rage, jealousy, and other uncomfortable emotions and habits, while also helping you to reclaim the buried “gold” within (your disowned gifts and positive qualities like creativity or playfulness).
Yes, absolutely. Inner work moves in a spiral, not a linear straight line. You may revisit the same layer multiple times throughout your life in different ways, or find that completing one layer of work reveals another beneath it. This is normal and healthy.
Someone who begins with self-love work may find that, for instance, as their relationship with themselves improves, their deeper inner child wounds start surfacing that were once too tender to address. Another example is someone who has done significant shadow work who may reach a point where embodiment – or learning to get grounded in their body, rather than just living in the mind – becomes the most essential layer to their healing.
Your result reflects where you are right now, not where you will always be. We recommend retaking this assessment every 6 to 12 months and noting what has shifted.
Trust that instinct, it’s worth paying attention to. Ultimately, you know what your heart and soul resonate with the most.
There are a few possible explanations. The first is that you may have answered based on what feels most familiar rather than what is most active right now. Our oldest wounds can feel so constant that we stop noticing how they’re impacting our choices, which means a deeper layer of pain sometimes hides beneath the one we’re most aware of.
The second is that more than one result may genuinely apply to you. Most people carry wounds across multiple dimensions simultaneously. The test identifies the most dominant form of inner work you need right now, but it isn’t necessarily the only one you need. If a different result resonated almost as strongly, that dimension is likely part of your work too.
The third is simply that the test, like any assessment, has limits. If a different result speaks to you more clearly or authentically than the one you received, trust your own recognition. You know yourself better than any quiz does.
“Inner work is the effort by which we gain awareness of the deeper layers of consciousness within us and move toward integration of the total self.” – Robert A. Johnson
thank you both for helping me on my journey. I have been working on myself with a therapist and I’m 27 days sober from alcohol. I’ve started painting again and it’s been a real healing experience. I appreciate your work and literature and I feel it will help me clean out my ” spiritual basement”.
Congratulations on your 27 days sober Amy! 😊 Art can be amazingly therapeutic, we’re happy the work is serving like a spring cleaning of your psyche 😄💜
More Shadowork for me :)
Appreciate the resources!
Thanks Igri!
my test showed self-love. I get this, I’ve been working on myself and reaching out in terms of workshops, counselling, therapists, online research & reading materials. I’ve bought the inner child bundle and have read the self love workbook which I plan to start today.
I really enjoy your site, lonewolf.com, It has helped me see myself n my traumas, to see hope, positivity and enlightments. Thank You.
Self Love & yes I agree I need more of it. For sure since I can remember I’ve never been happy with me. My husband always says, “quit beating your self up so much, just for one day leave lizz alone!” but I’m alway very self critical thinking the worst of my self. I have Bdd (BODY DYMORPHIC DISORDER) also, which I’m 75 percent sure has alot to do with the negativity that I carry everyday. But I don’t know how to stop these bad thoughts. I’d love to learn more spiritually & connect to my higher self. But I feel as tho it’s impossible for me.
I’m so glad the result you got resonates with you right now, Brenda. Take good care of yourself 💜
Self -love
Thank you for sharing Paula 💜
Greetings beloved Soul. Thank you for this blessing and advise of which has not resonated as yet. ( I will get the subconscious mind around this). Your article was an awakening to the new paradigm of letting go of the past, working this through in the most kind and gentle way. I Humbly thank you for this for teaching and new ways of changing the past. This is a different way and perceptive of dealing with the past and now embracing the new. Your teachings and work is gratefully appreciated.
Love and light
Sallyjane Vosloo
Thank you for sharing this, Sallyjane :)
I’m really struggling right now with the realities of global politics, especially in my country of origin (US). I feel a deep sense of betrayal, not only personally, but of so many people everywhere.There’s almost nothing I can do to change things, especially since I now live outside the US, but I can’t figure out where exactly I should be expending what little energy I have left. How can one work towards a better inner equilibrium when the world is clearly spinning totally out of control?
By not making our inner peace dependent on external circumstances. By understanding that “charity starts at home,” as the old saying goes, and sorting out our own inner and outer immediate lives. This will then ripple into the whole. We may not be able to change the shitstorms around us, but we do have control over the one inside of us.
Ugh! I honestly believe I’m supposed to just stay in the shadow world …lol. I end up needing to go back to my shadow work and shadow workbook “A LOT (I believe I’ve printed and reprinted 9x times already, that’s just what I can remember. Ugh!).
Don’t get me wrong, it is extremely helpful,and my therapist and I generally open a new shadow every time I go back into it. Just FYI…We do EMDR as one option to get deep into where those past shadows are hidden. (Do not attempt EMDR on your own, talk to a therapist if it’s something you’re interested in learning about, it can be extremely and highly triggering and emotional; you will need a professionals help, just FYI). Shadow work alone is exhausting and triggering and difficult. It’s not my favorite, yet it is my favorite. Once I’m through all the work, it’s absolutely amazing, beautiful, freeing, invgorating.I feel like I can take on anything and everything. My problem is I do. That’s why I personally end up right back in “shadow world” again and again. I know what I need to change, and I know why, It’s the how to do it without loosing who I really am that I struggle with. I do really good for awhile and then I’m right back where I was. I am easily manipulated and people know this and eventually I get broken down once again.
I’m glad you have 1:1 support, LaVonne. It’s normal to go back and forth repeatedly. You’re certainly not alone. ;)