More Self, Less Help, PLEASE!
A lot of our stress is self-inflicted.
That's hard to hear. It also sounds suspiciously self-helpey and I totally understand that you just want to puke every time you hear "oh, but you need to figure out your pri-OH-rities".
The problem with self-help is that there is too much of the help (meaning: advice) and not enough of the self (how to get enough headspace to use any of the advice). The reason we don't get things sorted out right then and there is usually that our "self" is decidedly absent.And without the "self" to go do things, the "help" is just a big pile of "stuff you should do" that adds to the internal guilt trip that has turned into a 79-year-long voyage with 1.265 stops along the trail.
When we are too busy, our "self" goes for a hike. Sometimes, that hike turns into a 76-year-long trip along the coast of Hawaii with 1.265 stops for more drinks along the way. And frankly, who can blame the poor "self"? If the autopilot never budges out of the seat, why would any self-respecting conscience bother sticking around? There are more fun things to do than wither in a self-driving bag of worries. Even when you are just a personification of someone's voice in their head.
In the depth of self-help and self-exploration, finding "the self" or revitalising it always involves DOING things. There are yoga and mediation, art classes, retreats, consciousness-raising hikes in blue underpants, spirit quests, and all sorts of other GREAT stuff. And don't get me wrong, it's great.
But it is also a way to get distracted and lost. Again.
When we set out to find our "selves", instead of doing less to add some space, we swap one relentless to-do list with another. Perhaps, we stop volunteering for every PTA activity, stop trying to win every bake sale (yes, you do have the best cherry-colada-fudge squares) and let the dishes pile up on Saturdays. But we quickly make up for it by adding precisely 21 routines, meditations schedules, and yoga plans to our lives.
Self-help, we learn, has to do with DOING the right things instead of the wrong things we have been doing before we found the right book. You know, the one that vibrates with your aura and makes everything sparkle in rose lavender puke.
I think that self-help has a lot more to do with doing fewer things than with doing the right things.
It is a little bit like how an extra walk a week will not do as much for your health as if you quit smoking.
Instead of asking "what can I do", perhaps, we need to be asking "what can I NOT do?"
If we create that kind of space, perhaps, he "self" will show all by itself, no help needed.
