Did I catch your attention? 😁
I'm not saying ALL self-help doesn’t work; however, the self-help content I read religiously and internalized over the years didn’t lead me to see or experience any long-term transformations or to feel better about myself (feel empowered) or my life.
Instead, they bred feelings of unworthiness, not being good enough, and insecurity – I valued myself LESS after reading them!
Without meaning to, self-help can do more harm than good and be detrimental to your wellbeing and health when it’s not based in the missing ingredients this article is about.
Whilst healing my inner child and cultivating a relationship with her, I realized that there were two main ingredients missing in the self-help content I consumed over time. They were:
Unconditional Love and Acceptance For Yourself
Without these two crucial ingredients, I wasn’t seeing any results from all the hard work I was putting into “bettering myself” – literally, all of my mental, emotional, physical energy, time and attention went into it.
I experienced hopelessness and dissatisfaction in my life even though I had EVERYTHING I wanted and needed
I was frustrated and sad that things weren’t getting better when I was doing exactly what these self-help content said I should.
Furthermore, I experienced self-loathing because:
a) I was someone who “needed” advice from these books/materials to become better unlike some people– the act of taking in self-help content based in not accepting and loving yourself as you are confirmed my belief at the time that I was inherently not good enough
b) Nothing I did, despite my tireless efforts, led me to more happiness and fulfillment. I was left with the same “problems” and unworthiness as when I began absorbing these content.
I only came to understand that the major key ingredients to self-development was unconditional love and acceptance for self when I began healing my inner child through Inner Child Healing as mentioned above.
This healing, self-discovery, and empowerment modality has you unconditionally love and accept yourself in the present as well as revisit your past and unconditionally love and accept yourself as you experienced moments in your past
As you do so,
You shed ways of being, including thoughts and beliefs, you adopted to have others love and accept you so that you could survive (conditioned ways of being)
The more conditioned ways of being you shed , the more space that's created for you without any conditions, your spirit, to express itself
This is the moment you experience transformation and expand into higher versions of you (I don’t want to use the word “better” here because you already are good enough just as you are). What's more, your quality of life improves too.
This is all based on lived experience - my lived experience
What was common in the self-help content I read since high school all the way to my late 20’s was that they were based on the notion that there was something wrong with you.
You were lacking and needed to change yourself so you don’t lack anymore
These materials promoted NOT accepting yourself as you are
They were promoting change through:
Shame, self-hate, and fear
The common end goal was to become lovable and acceptable, which would happen only when you follow whatever the material said.
Now I want you to imagine something.
Imagine being told by someone you love that you’re not XYZ enough and that you needed to change so you become “better.”
How would you feel?
You may feel anger and stand up for yourself that you are already good enough as you are and don’t need to be more XYZ to become "better."
Or you may be like my past self and internalize this statement from a place of low self-worth and self-esteem
You may experience your heart sink and lose your breath for a second, in shock that someone you love thinks there are things about you that needs to change for them to love and accept you.
You may start feeling inadequate, feel self-doubt creeping up, and feel pressured to change yourself.
You decide to do what you can to change yourself and become more lovable because you think that your survival depends on their love and approval.
You think that you becoming more XYZ would make your loved one(s) happy.
What happens when you attempt to change yourself from a place of desiring external approval and acceptance is that
You’re in a constant state of unsafety and insecurity
Until you get signs from those around you who you depend on for validation/approval/love that you’ve changed “the right way,” you don’t feel like you’ve done enough work and can take it easy, that you’ve changed at all, or you’re finally good enough.
Any signs that you’re not able to change or showcase the "better you” whatever that may be – for instance hold “more interesting” conversations, become more "gentle" (passive), be less/more expressive, be more empathetic to your detriment, etc. - can make you feel shame about yourself like “why am I not changing into the better me?”
Any signs that others may not perceive you to be the changed version of yourself, the so-called “better version” of yourself, leads you into a deep shame cycle whereby you experience shame for your being, getting angry at yourself and feel sadness like “I didn’t do this right”, “God, if only I was like X, then I’d be lovable and acceptable.”
You may get desperate and these thoughts of inadequacy and incompetence can weigh you down even more
Feel how heavy you may feel as a result of trying to change from a place of shame, fear, and feelings of not being good enough, lovable, and acceptable just as you are.
Imagine how heavy these emotions, feelings, and thoughts would make you feel
Pretty damn heavy right?
As mentioned before, when you're changing to have others accept and love you, to validate you, you can't feel good about yourself unless others approve of you
And yet you may find yourself trying over and over again to change, exhausting yourself and yet trying even harder because you want that approval that “holds the key” to your happiness, security, and safety.
After a while, you start burning out.
Even if you may experience short term feelings of happiness when someone compliments you on the changes you've made, you may feel hollow and lose this feeling shortly thereafter.
You may begin to question why you’re trying to change in the first place; needless to say, this desire to change isn’t really coming from you.
You may ask questions like "who am I changing for?" and "what is the point?"
You may begin to realize that you don’t even want to be the person you think you should become or think you’re becoming in the first place, it feels so unnatural and wrong, and question whether it's really a better version of yourself.
This is exactly what happened to me
I learned to internalize anything my mom said about the ways I should be because I depended on her for survival – my home was mentally and emotionally unstable and I was deep in survival mode.
I was afraid that not changing myself in ways she said I should would lead to me being kicked out, losing a place to stay, and dying.
Naturally, to avoid death, I took what she said literally and tried to change myself over and over again.
Back then, what she thought of me was truer than what I thought of myself because, again, I depended on her for survival. I let her hold the key to my security and safety, to my happiness.
Besides my mother, I internalized what I saw on Japanese TV and what my Japanese peers said about my body shape/size and personality because I was different from people around me, being mixed race, and felt I needed to compensate for my half-Japaneseness by being more Japanese. This was also coming from a place of securing survival and safety, as I believed that showing more Japanese traits/character (including physical traits) would lead to me being included by my peers.
Let me tell you, this way of living
WAS
SO
EXHAUSTING
I was losing touch with myself.
My bubbly, lighthearted, curious, radiant nature had turned into hiding in a shell, timid, afraid to come out and show the real me. It was like a cloud hung over me even if I had a smile on my face.
I was constantly wondering why I was still the same person (unlovable, unacceptable, and never good enough) after all this tremendous effort.
I had lost joy, self-respect, and most devastatingly my natural deep well of self-love and self-trust.
My natural joy for life started to dwindle because I was seeing mostly “wrongs” in life and loathed myself.
Now, imagine being told you are already lovable and acceptable just as you are AND THEN are told some of your weaknesses
How would you react then?
If you already felt safe and secure in yourself, chances are, you would be able to take this feedback and acknowledge your weaknesses or become aware of things you didn’t know before.
You may take this as an opportunity to get further acquainted with yourself
You may not consider your weaknesses as “bad” as everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and still trust the knowing that you are lovable and acceptable, that you’re good enough, worthy and valuable just as you are.
Any weakness isn’t frightening and all consuming anymore because they don’t come with the negative consequences you perceived when you were trying to change out of shame and fear – your self-worth and self-esteem, lovability and acceptability, safety and security (survival) isn’t on the line.
When you love and accept yourself just as you are, and know that you can develop more of your strengths and your weaknesses, you may experience lightheartedness, expansion, feelings of being whole, more joy and optimism.
At the same time, you may experience better wellbeing, self-worth, self-esteem and quality of life.
a) Self-worth and self-esteem AND b) wellbeing and quality of life
go hand in hand. When a) improves, b) improves too.
Back to the point of this article.
Remember:
We grow and transform through unconditional love and acceptance, not shame, self-hate, and fear
Love and acceptance is the starting point, NOT the end goal
As I stopped outsourcing love and acceptance and began to love and accept myself wholly myself, I experienced transformations in ways I didn't expect.
I gained back my personal power
which I was giving away in the past by giving others the "key" to my happiness, safety, and security.
I was in charge of my life and how I wanted to be and live
I no longer sought out others to accept, love, and validate me – what mattered was that I did this myself. To have others' validation, love, and acceptance is nice, obviously, but does not replace or come before my own.
I could accept, love, and be comfortable with my weaknesses and my strengths, my light and shadow. I didn't need to minimize or try to get rid of any weaknesses or overemphasize and exaggerate my strengths.
I stopped being hyper-vigilant in my environment, looking for any cues of disapproval or threat to my survival.
This opened up a lot of space for me to relax, BE PRESENT and enjoy life
I was happy and radiant again.
I began feeling limitless.
My self-esteem and self-worth rose to the highest levels I’ve experienced in a long time, just like my child self who loved herself unconditionally (my wonder child self).
Also,
I had much more time and energy to do the things I wanted
from gaining back all the time and energy I put into "bettering myself", and I also began to discover what actually enlivened me and gave me a sense of meaning and purpose.
I gained back headspace, and experienced what it's like to have OPEN/FREE headspace!, because I wasn't using my headspace to think of ways to "fix" myself.
I felt this peace and calm internally that everything was ok regardless of what was happening in and around me.
It became easy to be me again.
I actually loved my presence and for once felt like I was worthy of living just as I am, rather than becoming worthy of living once I reached an ideal I didn't have a clear picture of that seemed so far out of reach no matter how hard I tried.
I felt the cracks in my heart fill up and glued with gold (like Kintsugi) so I could hold more love for myself and experience more love in life as I felt safe to open up my heart to the world once again.
I became and felt free
I'm passionate about spreading this message because as humans, I believe it’s natural to want to evolve.
But we have to make sure to do it the right way – through love and acceptance
rather than hurting and shrinking ourselves further in the process through shame, fear, and self-hate, separating ourselves further from our spirit.
For those of you who are more auditory and visual learners, here's a video of me talking in depth about this topic on my YouTube channel:
For more videos on healing, self-development, empowerment, and on Inner Child Healing, you can head to my channel. Go ahead and subscribe, like, comment, and share - please help me spread the word, one less person in survival mode means one more person living in freedom! ❤️
I hope this helps you become more safe and secure within yourself, freeing yourself from living in survival mode 🪽
🌌 Catherine | Peace etc. 🌌
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