When mechanisms you're trying to resolve, turn against you
An exploration of the fine line between meaningful self-work and becoming trapped in the endless pursuit of healing.
6/12/20264 min read
Back when I first discovered psychotherapy, I didn't know many people who had a therapist. Up until that point, I had never been in such a deep crisis that I felt the need to seek therapy myself. What I did have, however, was an enormous curiosity about human beings - about what it means to be human, how our psyche, spirit, and body function. I was always full of questions and rarely satisfied with simple answers.
Life gradually nudged me in the direction of a serious and long-term psychotherapy training program. But before enrolling, I wanted to experience the method for myself. I remember how excited I felt after some of my first sessions. For the first time ever - I felt that finally I have a space that is there only for me. Once I let go of the belief that you had to be in a really bad place in order to seek therapy and simply surrendered to the process of exploring and getting to know myself, I discovered the wonder and richness of the whole process. My life kept getting better. I began uncovering all the different shades of who I was. I found a lot of goodness within myself, but also a lot of darkness, blind spots, frozen sadness, anger, helplessness and grief. Every journey through sadness brought genuine joy. Every encounter with anger brought strength. Every experience of helplessness brought a sense of support and a deep love that seemed to arrive from somewhere beyond my understanding. Parts of the process were not pleasant, but I was happy to pay that price. Therapy is a wonderful tool. It truly can offer us so much and improve the quality of our lives in countless ways.
And yet, something has changed in our relationship with therapy over the past several years.
Today, therapy is not only about alleviating the pain, but also it's much about improving our lives. What we call "self-work" has become so popular that it now seems everyone must have a therapist or a coach if they want to be happy and fulfilled. The word trauma is everywhere, and so many things are being labeled as trauma, without critical thinking and understanding the depth of this word. Capitalism has made therapy yet another merchandise, another thing you must buy, another way to compete and compare with others. Social media, full of superficial advice and quick fixes, along with the images of ideally staged lives of random people, is not helping. If anything, it is putting pressure on us to keep up with the pace, striving for something bigger, better, deeper, or more regulated, more “authentic”, more, more, more… We've become trapped in the belief that if we just improve ourselves a little more, ultimate and eternal happiness will finally be waiting for us somewhere around the corner.
I meet people who have taken therapy too seriously—people who are living in a cycle of endless self-improvement and healing. People whose whole identity has become one big healing journey. Some people are so focused on healing, trauma and self-analysis that they forget to actually live. Healing becomes a project, a way to always stay ahead of life, control life, make sure you get the “right” outcome.
But healing is not something that happens while we put the rest of our lives on hold. Healing happens exactly in moments filled with ordinary life. While we are trying new things, taking risks, failing, succeeding, falling down, and getting back up again. It happens within life itself. It simply cannot fully happen while sitting in a therapy chair alone, watching yet another youtube video about trauma or on a meditation cushion. Everything we work through in therapy must eventually be tested in real life. We have to live our new perspectives, our new emotions, our new dreams. We have to align our actual lives with the values we've discovered within ourselves. We have to forgive real people who hurt us, dare to create new relationships or re-establish the relationships we want to keep, and open ourselves to the experiences we've longed for. And all of this involves risk—the risk of failing, of being hurt again. But, there is no life without pain. And therapy, as much as it is amazing and powerful, cannot save us from being human. Neither can any form of personal development. The best thing we can hope for - is to find more strength, support and capacity to meet all of life's challenges, and this definitively is something that therapy can help with.
If you are feeling like you are in a loop of constant self improvement, how is this mechanism familiar to you? Why do you think you need to improve all the time? What is your relationship to pleasure? Have you ever had the right to just be you - and have been seen and accepted without the need of trying hard?
Think about it, do you really need another coach, another program, another technique, breathing session, constellation, retreat, ceremony, podcast or the latest self help bestseller? Or do you actually need something else?
Don’t let these questions scare you, they are here to gently guide you. Back towards something more simple and easy than all this hard work you are doing. And trust me, I know what I’m talking about.
This text is not against the idea of personal healing or personal growth. Certainly, it is not against therapy, which in many cases can be literally lifesaving. But it is, however, pointing toward the potential of the idea of personal development to keep us trapped. It is about understanding that the same mechanism we are trying to resolve, can easily turn against us if we don’t pay attention.
Personal development is inherently part of life, well, for the majority of people. You can call it a soul journey, a personal healing journey, a life path, whatever you like. The truth is that our experiences are going to make us learn and evolve, and for that to happen, we need to live. Having help in the times when it is hard is more than welcome, and we don’t need to suffer more than we should. This is why we have each other. And even though it is true that we all need improvement, it is also true we need simplicity. We need the freedom to be human—imperfect, unfinished, and not fully healed. And perhaps more than anything, we need to hear that we are completely okay, even then.