The Flamekeeping Series Part 1: What is the Inner Flame?

This is the first in a four-part series on flamekeeping, the practice of noticing and tending to our inner spark, and allowing it to illuminate the path before us. Together, we trace a slower, more attentive way of being with what matters. Read at your own pace and take what feels useful. Each post includes a practical exercise.

I define the inner flame as one's unchanging core. It’s your locus of awareness, vitality, and purpose. It’s that from which unconditional love, joy, and insight can spring. It connects you to the rest of humanity. And if you believe in something more than the material world, I think it's the space from which people connect to the “beyond.”

In this blog series, we'll discuss cultivating awareness of, nurturing, and learning to use our inner flame as a guiding light to lead happier, more peaceful lives. As I've personally experienced and seen in my coaching practice, such flamekeeping helps people from all walks of life make better decisions on a day-to-day basis and eventually ride the ups and downs of uncertainty with more ease.

Here's how you can start noticing your flame. What is it telling you?

Each of us has different ways of being in touch with the inner flame. For most people, attunement requires sensitivity to our emotional/feeling realm and some awareness of our body. Importantly, we must remember that the inner flame speaks in ways that don't always feel magical, comfortable, or good. In listening to it, we figure out what needs tending and what we wish to create more of.

1. Physical sensations, both good and bad

Day to day, cues from the inner flame can show up in discrete moments like a sinking feeling in your stomach or a growing sense of nervousness in your chest. I've also observed chronic pain or a nagging physical issue to be a common indicator that someone's inner flame needs greater tending.

At the same time, when you're operating in tune with your inner flame, you might sense expansion in your chest, energy and lightness in the body, or ease in laughter. This doesn't mean you never get tired, fall sick, or get aches and pains, of course. But broadly, you're not carrying extra burdens from life in your body.

Learning the unique language of your body, which truly varies from person to person, can help you decipher what different sensations mean, leading you to make more decisions in line with your intuition.

2. A gravitational pull to something that keeps returning

Your inner flame might be trying to show you something that needs to be examined and addressed if you keep finding yourself in similar life situations or tackling parallel themes across life stages. This might be an opportunity to consider whether you need to let go of something, shift perspective, or try a new type of solution.

This can also happen with something you're curious about. For example, if you keep being drawn back to a particular interest you’ve been putting on the backburner, it might be time to revisit it in a new way. This type of deep pull is what led me to start work in spiritual care.

3. Suffering that reorganizes meaning

Transformative life events often pare us down to the essentials. Transitions like illness, loss, parenthood, burnout, or a crisis of faith strip away things we’ve been clinging to. These could be roles, identities, or sources of security, both physical and emotional. You might notice your inner voice in the aftermath with thoughts like, “Wow, all I really care about is X," or "I'm so grateful for Y."

Your inner flame is what pervades through the ups and downs of life. In my personal spiritual journey, difficult times of life have always taken me closer to myself.

4. Dread, listlessness, a desire to escape

Sometimes, it isn't a major tragedy that moves us towards our inner flame. When your light is slowly being suffocated -- by a meaningless job, relationships that feel performative, or a life lived on autopilot -- you might feel a quiet sense that something is missing.

Restlessness and dread can be signals that your inner flame is being worn down by a situation, mindset, activity, or longstanding neglect of your inner world.

5. Moments you feel most like yourself

Being in alignment with your inner flame doesn’t always make you feel good. It makes you feel true.

Signs can include a sense of humble knowing, feelings of deep integrity, and being more rooted in who you are. Difficult feelings that feel clarifying or relieving can also be cues, e.g. grief and tenderness for something lost, or productive rather than destructive anger.

6. When you feel truly seen

Often, a good place to start attuning to your inner flame is in conversation with a friend, family member, or thought partner who makes you feel completely safe and at ease.

In true presence, your companion creates a gentle space for your light to show itself and asks thoughtful questions to help you come to your own insights about life. There is no personal agenda, judgment, or desire to rush to a quick bandaid solution.

In my own experience, after a moving call with my best friend, I felt seen in my desire to work in spiritual care despite it being an unconventional life path. This moment gave me the courage to push my work forward in earnest. I try to create a similarly supportive and productive space for the people I work with.

Journaling Exercise: Noticing Your Flame

First, take a few moments to breathe, stretch, or relax. You'll get more out of this if you're centered. Then, reread each of the 6 guidelines above and fill out the chart below. It’s okay if the answer is “I don’t know.”

	Have I ever noticed my inner flame speaking through this theme?	What was its message?
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Let this marinate. I don’t recommend rushing to action or jumping to conclusions about next steps. If you haven’t done much self reflection before, or if you’re feeling burned out and dysregulated, it can be hard to distinguish between deep knowing that comes from within and a mental formation arising from a habit pattern, cognitive distortion, or path of least resistance. That’s something I’ll address in a future blog post.

For now, I’ll say this: true insights will abide.

Stay tuned.

In the rest of the series, I’ll share my framework for:

• how to tend to the inner flame through energy management

• finding your path: how to make better decisions, big and small, through flamekeeping

• common pitfalls along the journey, including how to distinguish between your intuition and thoughts generated by an anxious mind

Happy tending!