There is a moment in a person's development that cannot be faked. It doesn't come from an idea, nor from the desire to be “better,” nor from the need to resolve yet another layer of ourselves. It comes quietly, yet very concretely—like a shift in focus from the inside out. As if something within you stops revolving around internal analyses, relationships, others' reactions, and invisible permissions, and begins to direct itself toward creating, acting, and completing something in the physical world.

A quiet change of focus

This change isn't just psychological. It's energetic. And more and more people who are doing the inner work are starting to feel it. For years, the emphasis has been on clearing, understanding trauma, releasing patterns, and looking within. That was necessary. Without it, everything we build on the outside would just be an extension of unconscious mechanisms. But there comes a point where digging deeper into yourself stops bringing growth and starts creating stagnation. Not because working on yourself is bad, but because it becomes an escape from life.

Why working on yourself can become a hidden form of stagnation

At that stage, a new quality of impulse emerges. It's no longer “I have to fix this to be okay,” but “I want to do something, I want to move toward something, I want to finish.” That desire isn't as tense as the old patterns of proving oneself. It doesn't carry that nervousness of “I have to succeed to be worthy.” It is purer, more direct. More like an inner movement seeking expression.

What confuses many is that resistance also arises alongside it. Fear. Not because it's the wrong direction, but because it's new. Especially among people who have been taught from a young age not to trust their own impulses. To adapt, to listen to authority, to do as they're told. Whenever they went their own way, a correction would come—sometimes through criticism, sometimes through punishment, sometimes through the withdrawal of support. The body remembers this. And so, when an authentic desire to act arises, the body can react as if it's in danger.

In therapeutic work, I don't allow energetic work to become an excuse for stagnation.

Fear of one's own direction

Here's an interesting twist. People often think that working on yourself means getting rid of that fear. But actually, the next step isn't to wait for the fear to disappear, but to learn to act with it. Because the fear that appears isn't a signal that something is wrong, but that you're stepping out of your old identity. From the identity of someone who seeks permission, who aligns with others' expectations, who measures themselves by the reactions of others.

A new phase of development calls for a different relationship to life. No longer just observation and understanding, but immersion. No longer just working on yourself, but working through yourself in the world. Ideas, projects, physical changes, concrete actions—all of this becomes part of the process just as much as introspection.

As within, so without: self-work is not complete without turning toward life.

Therefore, it can be said that self-work isn't complete without this turning toward life. If you stay only in inner work, an endless loop easily forms in which you're always “healing something more” before you start living. But the truth is the opposite—part of the healing only happens when you begin to live differently.

Today's energy is increasingly supporting this. It's as if we are collectively moving from a phase of clearing to a phase of creation. People who have been working on themselves for years now feel they can no longer stay just in that. A need for expression, for building, for concrete results is emerging. Not from ego, but from an urge to bring what is inside out.

In that process, a subtle but important dependency also disappears: the need for permission. Permission to live, to want, to pursue something. As long as that permission is external, a person remains bound. There will always be someone or something that is “still unresolved” and that postpones life. But when the focus shifts to your own sense of agency, that need slowly fades. Not because you become rebellious or closed off to others, but because you no longer build your identity through them.

It's interesting that at that stage relationships also change. They're less burdened by analyses, projections, and the need to “solve” something. They become simpler. Because they're no longer the center around which everything revolves. The center returns to one's own life's direction.

In the end, this transition isn't spectacular from the outside. There aren't necessarily grand declarations or dramatic decisions. It's more like a quiet but firm inner “I'm going.” And every small, concrete step in that direction further stabilizes this new axis. Clarity and certainty don't come before action, but through it. And precisely for that reason, the moment you stop waiting for everything to be resolved and start living marks the true beginning of integrating everything you've done on yourself up to that point.