The
self-help market is currently a billion-pound industry. There are thousands of
new books, courses and retreats churned out every year and yet little seems to
change for the majority of people. Does this mean that it is all a scam or is
there real value in this ever-growing industry?
I wanted to write this post because so many people have spoken
about wanting to get off the whole self-improvement cycle and just go back to
living their life. They are tired of trying to get somewhere and tired of
trying to manage, improve, or fix themselves. Unfortunately, many admit to
being self-improvement junkies who have spent a fortune searching for that
magic bullet, only to go from one false dawn to the next.
I am not here to bash the whole self-help market, as there are
some genuine people out there, and there is a lot of good information that will
have helped many people. In saying that, the internet has also created a lot of
charlatans who prey on people’s desperation with clever marketing and
unrealistic claims.
All I would suggest is that if someone wants hundreds of pounds
off you, demands you buy it now before the price goes back up, claims to have
some kind of ‘secret’ or is pumping out new courses every few weeks, then I
would be highly suspicious.
Even when a person does have other people’s best interests at
heart and truly wants to help them, that information still has to resonate with
you. It has to wake up some understanding inside of you so that a genuine
change can occur, otherwise, you may as well discard it.
A good therapist for me should be able to work with you, rather
than the traditional teacher/client relationship. So as to help you to come to
your own conclusions, as the real change eventually has to come from you, no
one out there can FIX you.
When I write, it is not because I want you to follow what I say
blindly while having no idea of the true message behind it. My words are there
to help you to see something for yourself and to fully understand the reasoning
behind what I am saying. When something truly resonates with you and makes
sense, you feel it on a much deeper level and this is where a real shift can
occur.
My
Journey into self-help
My initial experience with self-help happened in a different era
than today. It did not serve me well and, in a lot of cases, only increased my suffering.
I was given techniques to do, mantras and sayings to repeat, homework to fill
out and I found it all incredibly exhausting and counterproductive. I could not
relate to any of it and it certainly did not help.
I also bought every book out there; saw numerous so-called
specialists; took prescribed medication; had a bunch of sayings and techniques
that I carried around with me, and all I managed to achieve was to end up
feeling worse.
Then one day I just had this huge insight where I said to
myself, ‘What if I no longer try to feel any different than I do, what will
happen then?’ To this day I have no idea where those words came from or why
they hit me with such power. Maybe something inside me snapped with exhaustion
while also knowing deep down that the path I was on wasn’t working.
After contemplating those words for a few moments, I realised
with great clarity that all my attempts to escape my suffering and all my
attempts to manipulate my current experience were the main cause of it. I was
unknowingly doing this to myself.
The worse I felt, the more I battled and the more I battled, the
worse I felt, and so the never-ending cycle from which I could not escape went
on. I had totally given up on living, my whole life now revolved around me and
how I was feeling. It literally became a full-time job trying to manage my
inner state.
Letting
go of traditional self-help
It was at this point that I decided to turn my back on all of
the traditional and outdated advice, threw all my self-help books out and
decided to find my own answers. I did not want to spend the rest of my life
managing or suppressing symptoms and that is all these previous books and
therapists seemed to point towards. I wanted to find the source of why I was
suffering, cease doing what was causing it and then go through a process of
healing.
Due to me looking in a different direction and relying more on
my own insights and intuition, I was then able to understand more of what was
causing my suffering, rather than constantly trying to get rid of it.
Everything now pointed towards allowing myself to experience my emotions,
rather than to continually run away, avoid or attempt to manipulate them.
I no longer had any interest in following someone else or any
technique, I could now see that any technique was a refusal to accept how I was
feeling at that particular moment. It was just another form of resistance to
not have my current experience and it is this very resistance that creates so
much extra suffering.
Of course, I had to educate myself on anxiety and panic to
overcome it, but apart from practicing non-avoidance, I didn’t have to do
anything to recover. In fact, all the knowledge I built is what led me to doing
far less and why it was so beneficial. It was all my attempts to manage and fix
myself that became so utterly exhausting and counterproductive.
Trying
not to feel uncomfortable, just makes you feel more uncomfortable
Allowing yourself to feel uncomfortable emotions helps to free
them up. It keeps you from obsessing and ruminating about how you
feel, giving your brain a much-needed rest. It also helps you to become more
present, as you are no longer spending most of your time stuck inside your
head, trying to solve yourself.
The best saying I ever came across stated: ‘Don’t try and solve
yourself, you will just break yourself further’. Never has a truer word been
spoken. Ironically, it is all your attempts to escape your suffering that
usually increases it. The attempted cure often becomes the cause.
This is why I am against any type of self-help that promotes
managing or trying to get rid of suffering, and as many of you will have found
out, this approach never works. This is because you need to understand what is
causing your suffering, so that you no longer create it, and not learn 101
techniques to manage or get rid of it.
Self-help, in its truest and most helpful form, should only
serve to help you come off the whole cycle of self-help, it should not be a
means to keep you on it. It should help guide you to lessen your suffering and
get you back in touch with the real you. It should never be about trying to
manipulate how you feel or change who you are.
A lot of people use self-improvement as a means to change
themselves, rather than to help remove the fake personas and masks, so they can
finally express their true personality. For many, self-improvement boils down
to, “I am not happy with who I am, so I will change myself for the acceptance
of others”.
Again this will not bring you the inner peace and change you are
looking for. Try presenting yourself as someone you are not, try maintaining it
and see how much extra suffering it brings. If you attempt to do so, all your
interactions will end up feeling false. You will waste immense brain energy trying
to maintain a character and have a constant feeling of being a fraud, which
only drags down your self-esteem further.
Learn
to let go of the need to fix yourself
Just remember, we are not here to spend a lifetime in self-help,
trying to improve ourselves or get somewhere. The end goal is to be able to
stand on your own two feet and to just go out and live again. Constantly
working on yourself is exhausting. It keeps you stuck inside your head,
constantly reinforces that there is something wrong and pulls you away from
living.
As previously stated, I am not against some form of self-help
for the right reasons. Most people do need help and guidance along the way, but
it should never become a lifetime pursuit or a reliance on someone else to herd
you around or tell you how to be. At some point, you have to let go of it all
and just go back to living your life.
I am not saying that change was easy; it wasn’t at times and
there was still some inner work to do. I had to feel emotions that I had
suppressed for so long, put myself in situations I felt uncomfortable with,
take responsibility for things I had blamed others for and learn to let go of
all the fake masks and personas I had hidden behind for so long.
Confidence comes through being
comfortable with yourself
The more confident someone is, then the more comfortable they
are in their own skin. They don’t have to work on being confident, change who
they are, or use any technique; it happens naturally. A lot of social anxiety is
built around not being comfortable with who you are and then constantly feeling
judged. If you were comfortable with who you are, so much of your social
anxiety would disappear.
I realised that, for me to feel more comfortable in my own skin,
and to feel more confident around other people and within myself, then I had to
find the true me beneath all these masks I had hidden behind. I had to
rediscover the real me beneath this negative, false self-image that years of
anxiety had created.
This is not to say that we should feel a failure if we aren’t as
confident as others, or set any goals towards perfection. Some people are
naturally shy; most of us do have some hang-ups and insecurities and there is
absolutely nothing wrong with that. I believe that a lot of the self-help
market promotes that all of these things can be fixed and that we should be
happy and confident all the time, which only sets us up to feel like we have
failed or are defective in some way.
We were never meant to be perfect
The truth is, we are all human beings whose moods and self-image
fluctuate on a daily basis. I am the same. Some days I feel great, confident
and with a positive self-image, whereas other days I can feel the complete
opposite, and I am totally fine with that. I don’t feel the need to run out to
the nearest bookstore and fix myself every time I feel down or don’t feel great
about myself.
I realise that I am human and no mood is static, and what
continually fluctuates cannot be real. Seeing this on a deeper level helped me
to no longer identify with any passing mood. It is just something that comes
and goes of its own accord and I attach no real meaning to it.
So don’t feel the need to hit any kind of perfection, stop
comparing yourself to others and stop striving to be any different than who you
are. Just go towards discovering your true self and embrace and live through
that, rather than trying to create another fake version of yourself. The truth
is, you can’t change your core personality. If you are an introvert then you
won’t be the life and soul of the party and nor should you try.
If you keep trying to be someone you are not, you will spend the
rest of your days acting your way through life and, trust me, most people can
see straight through this charade, including yourself.
A
journey to discover your true self
Looking back, I can see that I needed to go on my own self-help
journey to realise that I needed to end the search, return to my default
setting and rely on no one but myself for my inner peace and happiness. I had
to once again touch base with that person who had got lost in a maze of
suffering and who lost himself further through trying to manage and improve
himself.
I remember a famous musician saying “I would rather be hated for
who I am than loved for who I am not”. That line always stuck with me as most
of our journey of self-improvement is about wanting acceptance from others.
When we stop searching for that, all we are left with is who we are. And the
truth is, who we are has far more chance of being accepted by others than any
fake version we present and, if not, then that is not our problem; at least we
are being true to ourselves.
To finish, I may have eventually turned my back on self-help but
I certainly did not turn my back on self-care. I understood the need to look
after myself even more now, physically and mentally. I learned to be kinder to
myself and others; to accept that I am human and have my flaws like everyone
else. I also let go of a lot of negative people around me, moved towards a much
healthier lifestyle and pursued new hobbies that reflected more of who I truly
am.
Loving yourself is not about creating someone you think others
will like; it is about accepting yourself just as you are. The truth is, you
can never fall in love or be comfortable with a fake version of yourself;
reality will always keep knocking with a sense of suffering and unease. The
best way to find inner peace is to rediscover your true self and then to love
and nurture that
So rather than self-improvement, lean far more towards self-care.
I hope I have given a balanced view of self-help. There is
certainly a place for it when used in the correct manner and everyone needs
that extra help and guidance at times. Just try to make sure it doesn’t become
a crutch, a way of life, or a means to change who you are. Also, be clear of
the person’s intentions, make sure it resonates with you and ask yourself if it
is truly helping. If it sounds too good to be true, then it usually is.
Finally don’t rely too much on others to herd you around by telling
you what to do or how to be. As you can see above, a lot of the changes had to
come from me, nothing outside of me could bring that change and no one could
truly fix me. So as well as receiving guidance from others, learn to do your
own reflecting, rely on your intuition and become your own teacher because no
one knows you like you do.
Source: https://bit.ly/3gNzXsZ
About the
author
Paul David owner and sole contributor of this blog and
https://anxietynomore.co.uk. Author of the best selling book on overcoming
anxiety 'At last a life' and the follow up 'At last a life and beyond. Lover of
all animals and the outdoors.
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