Natural Awakenings is Atlanta’s only magazine focused on holistic health and personal evolution. But what do I mean by “personal evolution”?

Personal evolution isn’t self-improvement. Self-improvement is about doing; personal evolution is about being. Gaining new knowledge, work skills, hobbies and improving one’s health are avenues of self-improvement. Being able to do more, do better and do faster are the end results of self-improvement, and most self-improvement work is externally-oriented in nature.

Personal evolution is inner work, what Google’s Gemini describes as “the deep, conscious process of looking inward to understand your thoughts, emotions, patterns and beliefs … to achieve self-awareness, healing and personal growth, often involving practices like journaling, mindfulness and shadow work.” Gemini also lists meditation, breathwork, visualization, therapy, coaching and dream analysis as other inner-work practices. One thing that I see as a primary vehicle that Google doesn’t list: spiritual development.

My definition would also add more explicit goals: to grow one’s capacity for unconditional love and unbounded compassion; to increase wisdom; to deepen one’s sense of connectedness to all things, including Source/Infinite Intelligence/God; and to clarify and solidify one’s path in life so that working on one’s unique contribution to the world becomes more focused, assured and intense.

We’ve published a lot on personal evolution in this magazine, including articles on life coaching, health coaching, breathwork, non-violent communications, the Enneagram, spirituality, retreats and healing the trauma of slavery.

Yet we haven’t spent much copy on the topic of therapy, but our lead article this month—my interview with author and energy healer Tammy Billups—points to it. While the article isn’t about therapy, it does explore the five main emotional wounds that humans and animals manifest and need to address if they are to heal and grow into their best selves. Billups’ book, Your Animal – Your Soul Mirror: Healing the Emotional Wounds of Animals and Their People, is a deep dive into the five wounds and how individuals can heal from them, whether they have animal companions or not.

Also in this Issue

Also in this issue, we revive our coaching column, renamed from Ask a Coach to Coaching Corner. Columnist Linda Minnick, life coach and PSYCH-K facilitator, starts a 12-article stint with us, which we will publish every other month. This month’s piece, “How to Move Your Life Forward in 2026,” contains dozens of hints on how to incrementally improve in the coming year.

In addition, another article in our Personal Evolution department this month is the second in a three-part series on death and dying. Staff writer Noah Chen takes a look at death doulas and conscious dying coaches and explains how they help people in the final weeks and months of their lives. I found some startling information in that piece. Susan Patterson, a conscious dying coach, runs discussion groups on preparing for the end. She tells of people in their 30s attending. How wonderful! Knowing deep in one’s heart that their time is short and limited, even if they’re relatively young, is the most surefire way to lead a meaningful life.

For all this talk of personal evolution and inner work, is it something you really need to do? To that question, Taylor Elyse Morrison, author of Inner Workout, asks: “Are you a human being?”

Morrison defines inner work as “the work you do to become more of who you already are,” which, she points out, mirrors Carl Jung’s adage: “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” Morrison provides four signs that point to the need for inner work:

• You struggle to hear your inner voice even as you’re consuming a lot of content that should theoretically be helping
• You feel yourself changing the way you show up to make yourself more palatable for others
• You regularly doubt yourself
• You struggle to answer the question, “What do you want?

I find these to be insightful observations. Based on this list, I suspect that at least 95 percent of us need more inner work. And a useful way to start is with what you are reading right now! This month’s issue might stimulate some useful thinking!

Happy New Year, dear readers. Remember, everything you encounter this year is a gift—some gifts are just wrapped more nicely than others. ❧

Publisher of Natural Awakenings Atlanta since 2017, Paul Chen’s professional background includes strategic planning, marketing management and qualitative research. He practices Mahayana Buddhism and kriya yoga. Contact him at [email protected].