Let’s take mindfulness as one form of inner work to explore.

Mindfulness can be defined as paying attention on purpose in the present moment, usually with a quality of curiosity or non-judgment. Essentially, this involves taking the time to notice whatever is happening inside ourselves, which can include our physical sensations, emotional states or thoughts, and/or in the external environment around us. This is not easy or altogether natural for us. A 2010 study documented that on average people spend nearly 47 percent of their waking hours with their minds wandering. Being more mindful does take practice, just as getting in shape or learning a new language takes practice too. But with time, we can see measurable results.

Practices such as sitting still and paying conscious, focused attention to something like the way we breathe help foster mindfulness, which can also be seen as a form of brain training. Increasing research is demonstrating that mindfulness practices, especially formal meditation, can change the structure and functioning of our brain over time. Benefits include reduced anxiety and rumination, decreased depression, increased emotion regulation and more positive emotions, improved immune system functioning, and even a slowing of the markers of aging.

While many engage in mindfulness practices to support resilience and better manage stress, the benefits extend into the interpersonal domain too. They are particularly relevant to the ways that change agents approach their work especially in solving problems in their organizations, industries and broader society.

Understand Change from the Inside Out

Inner work first and foremost builds self-awareness. An investment in mindfulness, wellbeing and emotional intelligence builds the inner capacities for noticing and knowing oneself. For example, if I am better able to notice when I am afraid, I might begin to explore why.

This in turn, cultivates the capacities for human understanding, including curiosity, the ability to pay attention without judgment, and change one’s perspectives. As we start to notice and become more present to our inner experience – we notice we feel afraid emotionally, we notice our minds ruminating with worry, we notice the churning in our gut – we may also notice that we tend to become avoidant or reactive when this happens. Mindfulness teaches us to be curious without judgment, and this allows us space to examine our unconscious behavior and be willing to be more vulnerable as we explore it.

Next – self-awareness leads to self-regulation. Having developed the inner capacities to pay attention and inquire, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and wellbeing lead to an enhanced level of self-regulation and aware behavior. This process is not always comfortable as we start to recognize our own patterns of behavior that may have once been unconscious to us. This can include noticing how we react to the things that cause us stress, how we handle fear and discomfort, or our judgments about people who do not share our values. But as these ways of thinking, feeling, and reacting become more apparent to us, mindfulness gives us the power to change our behavior and assumptions more easily. Studies show that by practicing mindfulness we can more easily control our reactions and operate less often on automatic pilot. We experience less rumination, lower anxiety, and more positive emotions over time. While change can be difficult, transforming ourselves contributes to our resilience as well as a sense of personal competency.

As we go through our own shifts, we start to understand what drives other people’s behavior too, especially the ways they cope with change. We also develop the capacity to consider another’s perspective or solve problems in multiple ways. With a deeper, more compassionate understanding of change, we can then make more informed decisions that more effectively enable transformation in others, whether that is within our organizations or the broader community.

Develop More Effective Relationships

As we change ourselves, the quality of our relationships will also change. Once we have a greater capacity to self-reflect, interpret, and regulate emotion and behavior, we build a more compassionate understanding of others and the ability to build positive relationships. Research on mindfulness reveals that with practice, we enjoy an improved ability to express ourselves, increasingly handle conflict with less anger, and pay attention better. When we recognize fear and reactivity in another, we are less likely to judge or dismiss, more likely to feel compassion, and more able to extend curiosity towards others as we did for ourselves.

In our personal and professional relationships, this allows us to connect more deeply and foster greater trust and respect. Having built an understanding of self and others, including compassion, better interpersonal skills, and more adaptive behavior towards others, we are more inclined to connect positively with others and forge a sense of belonging and community. In this place of compassion and connection we tend towards greater prosocial behavior. Helping and altruistic behavior are improved by the strength of social bonds. We can work across differences, build bridges and trust. As we diffuse conflict with patience and empathy, we can forge agreements built on human understanding, making it more likely we can work towards change as allies rather than opponents.

Diagnose Issues More Comprehensively

As we cultivate the capacities of mindfulness, we become adept at setting aside ego, assumptions, and bias to inquire and listen. We are less likely to think our way is the only viewpoint, less likely to create division and blame, and more likely to seek out understanding across differences so as to identify common ground. Feelings of belonging can shift motivations towards others with altruistic motivation to contribute towards shared problems. Drawing from a broader set of perspectives and inviting greater participation from diverse voices gives us a more comprehensive understanding of an issue and stakeholder needs, ideas, and priorities, which we can use in collaboratively designing for change.

Invite More Innovation and Design for Impact and Sustainability

Mindfulness trains us to look at reality with greater curiosity. Instead of seeing failure, mindfulness encourages us to examine circumstances with an eagerness to learn so that we evolve our solutions for greater efficacy. Rather than getting fixated on pushing forward our own narrow agenda or thinking it is all up to us to fix, mindfulness drives us to lead with more openness, question our thinking, seek out more diverse expertise, and be willing to compromise as a strategy towards progress. This fuels innovation and drives sustainability, informed by all voices who are more likely to feel a level of ownership in a solution’s outcomes, rather than an unwilling subject of its implementation.

Lead From Within

As we invest in our own mindfulness, we start to lead from within. We are driven by our passion for the issue not our personal gain, we honor the unique contributions of others, and we then can inspire those around us to pursue a common cause with meaning and impact. While existing clinical research does not demonstrate a causal link, we believe that personal transformation creates the positive conditions for the advancement of social change. This takes place namely through a unique pathway of self-awareness, self-regulation, understanding self, and connection with others leading to a prosocial orientation and behavior. Learn more about this conceptual model explaining the pathway of inner work for social change.

Exploring Other Examples of Mindfulness

To explore other examples of mindfulness in action beyond our own work, we also interviewed nearly 60 NGOs around the world who were integrating inner work into their core social change programs. Read more about our NGO Study and these other extraordinary organizations. We found two common patterns among such programs:

Relational models that teach inner work to foster personal transformation through high-quality relationships with skilled facilitators, mentors, therapeutic or support networks and/or a sense of community.
Applied models that integrate inner work into hands-on, participatory programs where people are transformed by their direct experiences. These models are usually holistic and navigate local customs and culture with integrity and respect.

What was apparent across all of these diverse examples was that the connection between personal transformation and social change had a rippling effect that most often started with individual change, then affected the interpersonal and community levels thereafter. Benefits included:

a sense of optimism, purpose, meaning and connection to something larger than oneself,
a greater awareness of the importance of wellbeing and support for learning, healing and growth,
empowerment, agency, and action to improve not only one’s own circumstances, but others’ as well,
improvements in interpersonal relationships and that a sense of belonging matters, and
prosocial skills and social capacities including helping behavior, altruism, openness, receptivity, the ability to navigate conflict, and a willingness to be civically engaged.

While these models represent very diverse experiences that are subjective, multi-faceted, and context-dependent, most organizations described the connection between personal transformation and social change as a rippling effect that starts with individual change, then affects the ecosystem at the interpersonal and community levels. Read more about our NGO Study.

We are thrilled and excited about all we are learning from our explorations and the increasing community we are finding that is embracing inner work for social change. Still, there remain challenges with exploring this domain, most notably there is little consensus on how we define and measure these subjective experiences. Nevertheless, an increasing collective of organizations report on the value and impact of inner work towards social impact goals. In fact, we are becoming an entire field of our own!

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Why does inner work matter?

Mindfulness as Inner Work in Action