You can’t change what you can’t see.
Inner Alchemy is a self-guided way to look underneath the things you keep doing, avoiding, overthinking or repeating.
We’ve mapped 162 common limiting beliefs across eight areas of life to help you recognise the beliefs that may be shaping how you think, feel and respond, and identify which ones are having the biggest impact on your life.
Through our self-guided workbooks, you can explore where those beliefs came from, question whether they still hold true for you now, and begin building new ones.
Free · 17 questions · About 5 minutes
What is a limiting belief?
A limiting belief is a conclusion you have come to about yourself, other people, or how life works.
It becomes part of the way you make sense of what is happening around you: what you think something means, what you expect from other people, what you believe will happen if you do or don’t do something, and what feels possible, safe or available to you.
Over time, these conclusions can start to feel like the reality of the situation rather than one possible way of interpreting it.
They can sound like:
Saying no makes people leave.
Rest has to be earned.
If they’re not messaging me, I must have done something wrong.
I’m just not someone who succeeds at things like this.
You may not consciously think these sentences every time something happens. But the belief can still shape what you notice, what you expect, and how you respond.
Knowing the pattern isn’t always enough to
change it.
You probably already know some of your patterns. The harder part is working out what keeps them running.
You can:
Know you’re a people-pleaser and still hear yourself saying yes before you’ve even worked out whether you want to.
Understand that rest is important and still feel guilty the second you stop doing something useful.
Know somebody is inconsistent, have an impressive amount of evidence that they’re inconsistent, and still check your phone hoping they’ve messaged.
This is the part we target. Not just, “What am I doing?” but, “What led to this becoming my first reaction?”
The answer won’t always be one moment in time that created the belief. Human beings are more complicated than that. But when you start looking underneath the behaviour instead of only judging yourself for it, you can begin to understand why the reaction is there, and give yourself the chance to respond differently.
The
Inner Alchemy
Method
NAME IT
Notice the pattern and find the area where it’s showing up.
TRACE IT
Explore the beliefs, fears and old rules underneath it.
ANSWER IT
Use practices and reflection to start responding differently.
Where is it showing up?
Inner Alchemy maps limiting beliefs across eight areas of life to give you a starting point for working out where they may be showing up most strongly, and what might be sitting underneath them.
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Self-Worth & Identity
Who you believe you are and what you’re worth.
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Love & Relationships
What you believe about love, closeness and being chosen.
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Money & Finances
What you believe about money, security and what you’re allowed to have.
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Body, Health & Rest
What you believe your body needs to be, do or prove.
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Career & Success
What you believe about work, ambition and what success says about you.
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Family & Childhood
What you learned about who you had to be to belong.
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Safety & Trust
What you expect to happen when you let your guard down.
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Purpose & Spirit
What you believe about meaning, direction and trusting yourself.
These areas aren’t rigid categories. The same belief can show up in your relationships, your work, your finances, the way you see yourself, or several areas at once.
The point is not to fit every belief neatly into one box. It is to help you narrow down where to look first, so you can start getting closer to the beliefs that may be shaping your patterns.
Where is it showing up?
Inner Alchemy maps limiting beliefs across eight areas of life to give you a starting point for working out where they may be showing up most strongly, and what might be sitting underneath them.
These areas aren’t rigid categories. The same belief can show up in your relationships, your work, your finances, the way you see yourself, or several areas at once.
The point is not to fit every belief neatly into one box. It is to help you narrow down where to look first, so you can start getting closer to the beliefs that may be shaping your patterns.
You don’t need to work on everything at once.
There are 162 limiting beliefs mapped inside Inner Alchemy across eight areas of life. That’s useful for understanding the bigger picture. It’s probably less useful when you’re sitting there wondering where the hell you’re supposed to begin.
The quiz helps you choose an area of life where you might want to start exploring your limiting beliefs. From there, you can look at the beliefs connected to that area and notice which ones feel familiar.
Your result is a starting point for reflection. It won’t diagnose you or identify one belief that explains everything, and you can choose another area if it feels more relevant.
Free · 17 questions · About 5 minutes
Start with Reclaiming Self-Worth.
✦ Coming soon · Digital workbook
Reclaiming Self-Worth explores 20 beliefs connected to how you see yourself, including the pressure to be useful, liked, productive or enough. Work with one belief at a time, looking at where it may have come from, what keeps it believable and how you might respond differently.
Self-guided doesn’t mean doing everything alone.
Inner Alchemy is reflective and educational work. It draws from psychological science alongside journalling, reflective practices and spirituality, while being clear about the difference between them.
A workbook can help you notice something, question something and practise responding differently. It cannot diagnose you, keep you safe in a dangerous situation or replace professional support. If the work becomes too heavy, pause and talk to a support person or a mental health professional.
Read about the limits of self-guided work →
More about Sonya and the approach →
You don’t have to figure out all of your beliefs.
You just need somewhere to start.
Take the Inner Alchemy quiz to choose an area of life where you might want to start exploring your limiting beliefs, or browse the workbooks and journals if you already know where you want to begin.