This is part 4 of a 6-part series that looks at the main steps in inner work exercises, explains why each is important and provides some tips for increasing one’s skills with each step.
At some point in many inner work exercises, you may be encouraged to study and carefully describe something or someone that you feel is unlike you in some specific way. After a bit of time, the inner work may suggest you “shape shift” or become that figure, object or quality. This is often a challenging step.
Shape shifting means literally taking the posture, the expression, the attitude or the perspective of something foreign to you. This means imagining into and letting yourself become a figure or quality that is radically different than you know yourself to be and feeling or leaning into something that is unlike you. This can be a bit tricky to do.
It may be hard to let go of your primary sense of who you are, to give up your identity or identities, even for a moment.
Why is shape shifting important to do?
Inner work starts from a premise that your mind and body are not only connected but are actually mirroring each other in some ways. So, using your body experience is a way to directly access information that may elude your everyday thinking.
The figures and qualities in your inner work offer you a chance to recognize, discover or use previously untapped information. These figures may have a new or helpful point of view on life or a message for you or your situation. Often this wisdom is amazing, paradoxical or transcendent. How exciting!
Wisdom, important learning and self-discovery often lie outside of or beyond who you know yourself to be. The insight, experience or perspective that will most help you may not yet be known to you. But it is present in the things, people and ideas that you deny, do not identify with, put down, criticize or hold apart from yourself in some way. Shape shifting allows you to temporarily access powers and abilities that you can’t yet find or own in yourself.
Here are a couple tips for shape shifting:
- Close your eyes. Become aware of what you are noticing. Closing your eyes will support you to sense into your inner vision of the figure and see it more clearly. It will also help you step beyond where you are physically and loosen the grip your physical space may have on your identity.
- Imagine where this figure is in time and space. Ask yourself: where are they? In what setting? What are they doing? How big are they? How would you describe them? Notice their environment.
- Imagine where this figure is in time and space. Ask yourself: where are they? In what setting? What are they doing? How big are they? How would you describe them? Notice their environment.
- Imagine where this figure is in time and space. Ask yourself: where are they? In what setting? What are they doing? How big are they? How would you describe them? Notice their environment.