I am a recovering self-help junkie.
I have consumed an embarrassing number of self-help books, podcasts, seminars, courses, and retreats, not to mention the hours of therapy, coaching, journaling, meditating, and all manner of efforts toward self-realization. For years, I have treated myself as perpetual self-improvement project, always trying to level up: get up earlier, exercise more, cut out sugar, become a better mother, make more money, consume less, create more, strive until I fall over.
This past January, however, I heard a teaching that has radically shifted the way I think about what it means to be the best version of myself.
While on a virtual meditation retreat, I sat alone, on my cushion for two days, breathing and quietly criticizing my deficient level of focus, of relaxation, of equanimity. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until the teacher said:
“You are not a problem to be fixed.”
You don’t have to do anything, the teacher went on. There’s nothing for you to change about yourself. Whatever happens inside you, happens. Nothing to do. Nothing to change. Nothing to fix.
I burst into tears. Even during meditation, I was still trying to do more, be better, constantly evaluating my performance. To have someone negate the underlying assumption beneath my self-improvement project—that I am a broken, deficient, or defective and in need of repair—allowed me to clearly see the self-loathing at its foundation. I wept for myself.
In the months since, I’ve experimented with this idea that I don’t need to fix myself. Perhaps, my striving toward perpetual improvement actually moves me further away from a sense of well-being. Perhaps my sense of wholeness, happiness, and ease, feels most immediate when I simply affirm the truth: There’s nothing wrong with me.
How would your life change if you believed that you are not a problem to be fixed?
Danielle LaSusa Ph.D. is a Philosophical Coach, helping new moms grapple with what it means to make a person. She is the creator of The Meaning of Motherhood course, and co-creator and co-host of Think Hard podcast, which brings fun, accessible, philosophical thinking to the real world. To join her mailing list, subscribe here.
© Copyright Danielle LaSusa PhD, LCC, 2021. All rights reserved.
