I have noticed over and over again, both in my personal experience and in that of most people who make inner work a priority, that shifts are very similar to school classes. You arrive at school and you take on a subject. Let’s say it’s math. And let’s say you only take Math because you’re regularly bumping into problems because of your lack of knowing how to calculate. There is a frustration behind that, or a need, whatever you want to call it. And so you come to school and someone teaches you how to do it and you try it by yourself in the setting of the school and it mostly seem to work. It makes sense to you that 1+1=2

And then you go home and you need one kilo of apples and one kilo of ice cream. That already becomes a bit more confusing. It doesn’t really look like those numbers on the blackboard. It looks more real, more consequential. And you might make mistakes a few times still. Good. That is how it is supposed to work. You learn step by step. Throughout the semester, you pile up information and personal tactics to remember how to calculate this or the other. Soon, it becomes quite easy though. And you tell yourself – I got it! I’m ready for the next step. That is when the teacher gives you a test: 1 kilo of feathers plus 2,5 kilos of dark chocolate minus 20 euros divided by two large bags! WOW! How do you do that? It seems to make no sense. And you hurry up and say that you are a failure, that you didn’t understand any of it, etc.

What has happened here is that you are forgetting the principles to work that situation and so you froze instead of applying them as you learned.

Same with inner work – in a therapeutic setting, you are learning the principles that work. You know them, you clear them, you see how they make sense in your life. And then life presents you with a test, usually by sending you one of your triggers: running away in some form, encountering a new “soul-mate” perfect creature, spending on things that don’t matter, etc… This is your opportunity to show that that part of the class has been learned and you are ready to move on.

This is where people trip themselves up. They do not understand that the test isn’t the lesson. The test is a circumstance that is there to give you confidence. It is there to help you apply what you have learned. The trap that the mind proposes is that – okay, IU thought I understood this part of the class – why does it come back? Why am I still unsure? What do I keep bumping into this fog? You are not! This is your right of passage if you want. It is the surest safest way for you to see that what you have learned, works!

When you are willing and able to take that test without employing old tools (like counting on your fingers for example), the lesson becomes a grounding valuable stone at the basis of your structure. This circumstance that seems to be a falling back into old habits of dealing with life, is nothing but an opportunity for you to look at how you used to do things, a sort of a reminder which says: NOT THIS WAY!

So the simplest way to recognize a shift is by looking at the lessons where you don’t employ old patterns anymore.

Let’s take the example of a woman who likes shoes. She is sick and tired of buying shoes and she wants to stop that when she realizes that shoes don’t really make her happy. She educates herself about shopping addiction, about different ways to source her happiness, etc. And then… at the exact moment she gets confident on her abilities to leave this behind, the most amazing pair of shoes appears in the window of her favourite shop AND they’re 50% off … WOW!! This is her opportunity to be aware of the thoughts that come through her head – will she use her old tools? Rationalizing why she needs them and why she should buy them? Or will she go forth with her resolve that she does not need to indulge in things that do not bring true joy? What usually happens is that the woman will skillfully find a reason to buy the shoes while also feeling worthless, not good, not able to keep her resolve, etc… Whereas if she just recognized this as being her test, she would be much prone to passing it.