What Is The Journey Inward?

What if the spiritual journey isn't about becoming someone new, but about becoming more fully yourself?

In this reflective essay, I explore what I've come to understand about the journey inward after another year of walking, healing, and learning to live with less distraction. Rather than striving for more knowledge, achievement, or certainty, I've discovered that spiritual growth often looks like subtraction—letting go of old stories, reconnecting with the wisdom of the body, and growing deeper roots through stillness and presence.

If you're navigating a quiet season of life, longing to reconnect with your authentic self, or simply searching for a slower, gentler way of being, I hope these reflections offer companionship for your own journey inward.

Transcript

What is the journey inward? One year later. Walking the path of growing roots. Not climbing ladders. Last year, Around this same time, I wrote about why I renamed this publication Journey Inward. At the time, I had begun to realize that fulfillment wasn't going to come through achievement, Recognition, Or certainty. It would come through stillness. Through silence. Through paying attention to my own life and to the quiet presence of the Creator within it. A year later, I find myself understanding that journey a little differently. My spiritual teacher, Fr. Richard Rohr. Often says that the spiritual journey is much more about subtraction than it is about addition. The longer I stay on this path, The more that rings true. We often imagine growth as accumulating more knowledge, More wisdom, More experiences, Or more accomplishments. But the journey inward asks something else. It asks what can be released? What no longer needs to be carried? Who remains when the layers begin to fall away? I have a tree outside my house that hasn't bloomed this year. While the other trees in the neighborhood are full of bright green leaves. This one stands mostly bare. Looking more closely though, I can see that it isn't dead. There is still life within it. Some branches simply need to be pruned. If we were that tree, Pruning probably wouldn't feel like growth. You would feel like loss. Only later do we discover that the pruning wasn't reducing our life. He was concentrating it. Perhaps the journey inward is much the same. Lately, I've noticed something unexpected. When I find myself with five free minutes, I no longer feel the urge to immediately fill them. I don't instinctively reach for my phone or search for something to accomplish. At first, It felt like boredom. Now, I wonder if it is the beginning of learning how to live without distraction. Can I have the patience to wait without feeling the silence? And if I do, What might eventually emerge? Perhaps this quiet season isn't empty after all. Perhaps it is the beginning of discovering what genuinely gives me life, When no one is asking anything of me. No algorithm is competing for my attention. And nothing needs to be achieved. But the quieter the world around me becomes, The more I notice within myself. Old fears, Old longings, Old stories that still quietly shape the way I move through the world. I think this is why the journey inward can feel so uncomfortable. When we stop feeling every empty moment, We eventually meet the parts of ourselves we've spent years trying not to hear. For me, That has meant becoming curious about the parts of myself I learned to leave behind. I still carry a younger part of me that learned her needs weren't important, And another that learned being fully seen wasn't safe. Those beliefs protected me once. Now they often keep me from showing up fully. The journey inward doesn't ask me to reject those parts. It asks me to welcome them home. That shift has also changed how I think about the spiritual life. I'm beginning to believe it isn't about becoming acceptable to some higher power. It's about becoming inwardly undivided so that the love already flowing from Spirit can move through us with fewer obstructions. Perhaps one of the ways I've lived divided is by living almost entirely from my head and my heart. While forgetting the wisdom of my body. This year, I've begun walking as a kind of pilgrimage in place. Alongside a somatic therapist, I am slowly learning to listen to the part of me that has been speaking all along. I'm discovering that the journey inward isn't only psychological or spiritual. It is deeply embodied. Along the way, I've been wondering what all this slow work of subtraction is actually producing. During a recent trip to Alaska, I caught a glimpse of the answer. My family and I were walking through Tongass National Forest when our guide stopped beside what looked like a tiny sapling growing from the remains of an old tree. It looked impossibly young, Perhaps only a year or two old. Then she told us it was seven years old. In that moment, It struck me that we were only looking at what was growing above the surface. Reaching down towards the earth, The tree had spent years developing its root system. It wasn't in a hurry to reach the canopy. It was becoming the kind of tree that could one day survive there. Standing there, I realized that perhaps this is what the journey inward really is. It isn't about reaching higher. It's about growing roots deeper. Much of our culture celebrates the journey outward. Success, Recognition, Certainty, Accomplishment. The journey inward moves in the opposite direction. It asks us to grow roots down and in. To return to the essence of who we have always been. To slowly strip away who we thought we needed to become in order to be loved, Accepted, Or safe. And much like the root system of a tree. This work is mostly unseen and unnoticed. Some people imagine the spiritual life as climbing a ladder toward enlightenment. I picture it differently. I imagine a spiral descending into ourselves. With each turn, Another layer of conditioning falls away. Another adaptive strategy loosens its grip. Another false identity gives way. Until, Somewhere beneath it all, We encounter the person who has been there from the beginning. The journey inward isn't about becoming someone new. It is about becoming more fully ourselves. It's about growing roots that can hold us steady through whatever life brings. And discovering that nothing essential has ever been missing. Only buried beneath years of fear, Striving, And forgetting. Maybe that's why this journey feels less like achieving something than remembering. Remembering who we've been all along. And slowly, Patiently. Finding our way home. If you look at your own life right now, Does this feel like a season of branching outward or a quiet season of growing roots deeper? I'd love to hear how you are navigating the slow work of subtraction in the comments below. With warmth and gratitude.