For about a decade, I was a self-help junkie.
I got into it all with the best of intentions: to "achieve my potential/empowerment," and all that jazz.
Motivation wasn't in short supply. But I didn't feel capable enough to achieve my ambitions. I didn't "know enough." I had too many "limiting beliefs." Etc, etc, etc.
I took to personal development like a crack addict takes to the rock. Full-in. Obsessively. Single-focused.
There was an allure - a tempting promise, underlying the marketing of "gurus," that had me convinced everything I could want was within my reach if I just followed their "masterful" advice.
I'm not sure if it started with a true sense of needing "help" or to be "fixed" in any way. I did have my conflicts that weren't serving my advancement, and perhaps was seeking answers and solutions to iron out those kinks. But I was also over-confident - perhaps to the point of arrogant, narcissistic, self-righteous, and even slightly delusional, out of touch with reality as I subscribed to over-estimated beliefs in my intelligence, talent, and inherent potential. Though in a field of motivational rah-rah, such "confidence" seemed to be praised and encouraged more than checked as a limitation, these self-images themselves false beliefs.
Either way...
The deeper I got in, the more the confidence subtly eroded. Or perhaps, it was never confidence to start with - and it was actually the illusion of confidence, layers of self-defence mechanisms coded to cover up insecurities, that crumbled as my dependence upon outer guidance grew. That's not to say there wasn't natural confidence built on a foundation of valid reasons. Though, that natural confidence got largely underutilized as my seeking had me looking upwards to others more "successful" than I was for guidance, rather than building upon inherent strengths.
Somewhere along the way, I fell into a negative vortex.
The ceaseless pursuit of the next teaching, book, cultural meme, or whatever hit of self-help fuelled that high of grandiose aspirations warped my entire mind and ate away at my soul, as I sacrificed my present for the promise of a brighter future - as envisioned through the paradigms of an industry preying on the effects of personal discontent and ambition.
For years, I subscribed to theories commonly-held as truths: well-intended dogma such as "goal-setting," "empowering beliefs," and the usual cliche presumptions found throughout personal development - all moreless implying we can do anything we put our minds to, with enough persistence.
So I set goals. And fell & failed.
I rewrote beliefs, from limiting to "supportive." And still, life really didn't give a fuck what I believed. It continued to serve straight-up doses of reality, without patience or compassion for my naive ignorance.
Looking back at it all, the years were sort of encompassed within a cloudy haze of misinformation.
The more I sought "Truth" and "clarity," the further I fell victim to my own bullshit - beliefs I was destined for something more than a shared humanity with all its flaws, that I was bigger & better than the egoic parts of myself that made my best their bitch through my denial of their existence, that I could somehow bypass the years of character development & maturation required to handle the successes I desired.
T'was not as smooth a journey as the self-help gurus sold. But then again, they wouldn't have sold much had they dished out the Truth that success requires a shitload more work than the majority of lazy masses are willing to put in.
So yeah...
In attempts to rid my head of a life of cultural/societal conditioning and set myself straight, I handed responsibility for my direction over to new cultures who talked slick and told stories appealing to my desires for nearly-instant-gratification. Of course, they professed hustle was required. Did they ever. But in the end, they also professed a lot as Truth that turned out to be just plain wrong within the contexts of life I, myself, had to deal with.
It's not as though many intentionally were misleading their followers.
Moreso, it was just they were preaching one-size-fits-all solutions and advice - that didn't account for the reality that every individual's needs are different at different points in their journeys.
That's not to say there wasn't wisdom in many of their teachings. Rather - it may be far from wise to promote guidance as wisdom applicable in all situations, when it might actually be completely misleading for some individuals in some situations.
The motivational hype was easy to sell.
The discernment essential to customize information delivery specific to the precise needs of an individual and the practicality of communicating intricate distinctions vital to ensuring wise guidance fits a student's timing cycle - these are much more difficult to execute within a business model geared towards mass appeal.
So, it is what it is...
And if sense some tinge of resentment within my writing at a decade of having misdirected my energies due to conviction in the whole "personal development" thing and were to call it out, you'd probably be right.
Maybe it was there all along - though there's a part of me that feels somewhat shaken up and lost.
It seems like I had my goals - and in pursuit of all this extraneous information that was supposed to help the achievement of those goals, I got sidetracked, distracted, and spun out living based on someone else's storylines. Of course, there's no one or nothing to blame - and one might even go as far to say, with all that hippie-dippie shit, it was "meant to be."
There are lessons and wisdom in "failures" that can never be taught in any book. There's necessary guidance that may only be found off-track.
And sometimes, life might need to throw us some curveballs to knock us straight in the fucking forehead and knock the sense out of us, in order to disorient and humble us to the degree we become humble enough to accept the track we were on was never the "right" track we thought in the first place. Or perhaps it was for the time - though upon entering new chapters, there's just transitions in store we never could have anticipated, from our past levels of awareness...
What was my addiction to, really?
While on the surface, it might be tempting to say "self-help" itself - or the seeking, the chase, the highs of "ah ha's" gleaned in seminars and motivational programs - might it have been just as equally true that what drove all that self-indulgent behavior was little more than a desire for control?
Perhaps I was too cocky - and too afraid - to admit I wasn't in full control of my life.
This whole concept of, "you can have it all..." That we can design our lives according to our own immediate desires and don't have to bother with the inconveniences of what soul contracts we may be under obligation to fulfil... Is such not but all birthed out of the contrastive experience many of us petty human beings find ourselves in in this realm - somehow or another restricted and oppressed by limitations, be they physical, emotional, intellectual, cultural, governmental, or otherwise?
The billion-dollar self-improvement movement has sold out countless conference rooms and even stadiums full of people, riled up to believe they have the "potential" to overcome "all" obstacles and achieve the lives of their dreams. Though have any of those "leaders" been real enough with the audiences to call it out like it is - raising questions of why it is in the first place that such desires arise to rise above all the "petty" challenges that are simply a natural part of the human experience - or of why the prime outcome promised in each program sold is the sense of exemption from the uncomfortable experience of not being in control of our lives...?
Not likely.
Why?
The illusion of control sells.
It's why people pay gurus for answers. It's why others pop pills to produce a predictable experience day-in-day-out by suppressing emotions that challenge their "stability." It's why millions of others settle into safe routines of coming home after a 9-to-5 to numb their minds with video games where they're in the pilot seat or TV, where the power exercised over a remote control grants access to the selection of a stream of information satisfactory to established belief systems reinforcing some faint illusion of control in a non-sensical world where the idea of our infinitesimally-smallness, frailty, weakness, and morality shake the ego to its core.
Some have managed to act upon the personal development gurus' guidance with great success, no doubt. Some have an innate set of talents & strengths to act upon certain advice, set their sights upon a target, and hustle until the bullseye is hit.
To suggest that anyone can do the same, however - is a sheer, irresponsible propagation of bullshit.
Not all men are created equal.
Throw the idealism out the window.
I can write half-decently and might excel at music. But I sure as fuck would not make a good open heart surgeon.
Stephen Hawkings might be one badass astrophysicist. But he ain't never gonna win no sumo wrestling championship - no matter how much he "sets his mind to it."
We can't merely choose goals at random and achieve them. Period.
If we have a strong backing of natural inclination at something and some serious persistence, maybe. But there must be a question of, where does a goal really come from - the mind, or heart? The ego, or the soul?
(And not to side with the new-age extremists, either, by implying there's anything "bad" about the ego either... fuck that spiritual-righteousness bullshit. None of us are gonna escape ego as long as alive, so may as well embrace, tame, and channel it wisely & constructively.)
Save the poetic, new-age, sugar-coated takes on it - we're in 5D now.
(Maybe beyond. And for those still in 3D, it probably hasn't been too easy a ride, lately.)
Shit don't work like it used to.
Life isn't always direct.
We're evolving from dual-helix, carbon-based DNA creatures to 12-helix crystalline DNA. Who the fuck knows exactly what that even means or the implications. But ignorance aside, we can be sure it means transformation. In ways we likely cannot yet possess the foresight to see or understand.
Goodbye, illusion of control.
And maybe, that parting with false beliefs and outdated paradigms is a good thing.
There's some significant global challenges on the collective plate, with environmental crises, economic crises, wars, and all that jazz. Maybe a complete breakdown of our old ways is in order to crack us open to possibilities of experiencing and engaging in life in ways that can never conform to any cultural paradigm that's come before. That kinda fits the whole theory of evolution, after all.
So, from the analysis of this past addictive pattern of seeking answers and motivational juice to achieve great ambitions, to moving through the humility of accepting limitations of ignorance, to expanding into the broader vision of how we are evolving as part of a greater whole...
What is a "worthy" goal - a new track, an alternative direction to that travelled before in misinformation - outcomes of which would inevitably satisfy the sacrificed investments of time & energy required to materialize...?
As old ways of being fail to work anymore, how are we to redefine, recreate, and reestablish ourselves within a continually-transforming playing field - continually adapting to the requirements of the game, in which there are no "gurus" or "experts" who have the answers, given things are shifting so fast before our eyes, strict reliance upon yesterday's knowledge shall stall us to the speed and fate of dinosaurs...?
Sometimes I question the value of such large questions...
"Who am I, to exercise any sort of leadership of the sort, when I haven't even been able to create the results I want in my life? What authority do I have, when I haven't even been able to put the advice I've been given into action to create the success I desire in my life, to then go tell anyone else how they ought to be living theirs...?"
Maybe that was another cultural code (bug) I picked up from the self-help game - this idea that part of being successful is sharing tips with others so they become successful. Seems like quite the rampant bug, considering how many business & life coaches there are these days. Yet isn't there a strong element of arrogance there - in the idea that any of us have what it takes to declare ourselves in a better position than another to tell them how to live their lives...?
You wanna know what it'll take for you to be successful?
I don't fucking know.
And anyone else who will "confidently" tell you they do is probably talking out of their asses.
No one knows the full scope of your experience, knowledge, wisdom, talents, inclinations, challenges, strengths, weaknesses, failures, successes, hangups, hidden gifts & opportunities, and details of your soul contracts. Hell, the majority of this stuff probably still lies within our own blind spots.
Some might have enough macho naivety to ambitiously stake their claim on a set outcome and push forcefully, chasing it like a primitive predator. But let's be real for a moment: life rarely conforms to the ideals of our ambitions. "Plan to fail 9 times out of 10," my mentor Roger Hamilton teaches - now that is the beginning of honest guidance.
What worked consistently in the past for others in all likelihood will not work consistently for us now and in the future. We are different people. It is different times.
The journey of life typically contains a lot more chaotic twists and turns than expected. Progress isn't linear. Often, it isn't direct.
Sometimes, we gotta change tracks a thousand times - each we step off of, the result of a choice made at a lower level of awareness than we've risen to during the last leg. Like a ship at sea or a rocket heading to a destination in space, the bulk of our time might be spent in course correction - each period a learning cycle providing feedback there is no other way to receive than by going against the grain of logic and preconception.
This is about the point I shut myself the fuck up now, as I may be venturing too far into sounding as though I know what I'm talking about - when really, I might just be fucking clueless...
I had my goals for the music biz.
Totally didn't work out as planned.
Maybe I wasn't focused enough. Maybe it wasn't meant to be. Maybe the "not meant to be" was simply an excuse.
Life threw its curveballs. And in hindsight, it's all good. I'm probably happier now with what's resulted of veering "off track" than if my ambitions had materialized at such an early age. Not to say I'm truly happy. But maybe I wouldn't be happy with what I thought I wanted when I was younger - and maybe it's a blessing I didn't get it, because I probably would've blown myself out going that big that fast. Or maybe that's all just an attempt at rationalizing my lack of focus and persistence that would've actualized the goals. Maybe I would've been there by now, had I not spent years writing circular neurotic streams of thought.
Along the journey, I've gone down paths and gotten into things I wouldn't have guessed. Maybe I'm just fucking ADD, though a lot of those have captured my attention in ways that I've discovered new depths and breadths of passion. I've been hella scattered among music, business, metaphysics, brainwave science, philosophy, health, and beyond - and truthfully, I've found more joy in those explorations than I had in the dabbles into music. So if "following your passion" is sound advise, then maybe I havent been "off-course - and those initial music-focused goals needed an upgrade, because they were simply a starting point.
Or maybe I needed some major diversions along the way, collecting a whole shitload of life experience, insight, and discoveries within the depths of the soul to channel back into my musical art when it comes time to pick up. Maybe I needed to learn volumes about all different aspects of business and venture even further off into the realms of disruptive technology and the blockchain, for something awaiting ahead - perhaps not just making my own music, but serving in an industry & cultural transformation through the innovation of business models & collaborative systems built on this next wave of technology sweeping the globe.
Who knows.
It sounds like an appealing prospect. Though perhaps I've wisened up enough to accept the outcomes aren't entirely in my control, as they never were.
Perhaps enough wisdom has been extracted from the years of setbacks and "failures," to be real enough to embrace the limits of my ignorance - and no longer even be tempted to think any amount of motivational bullshit could override life's processes already set in motion.
Or perhaps I'm still in a chapter, playing the fool - rationalizing the misdirection of creative energies into excuses, blaming circumstances on theories that control is an illusion and the self-help industry's got it all wrong, when I could be digging in to do the dirty work, putting in the sweat in the studio (currently a MacBook & headphones) to plant those feet one in front of the other, compiling my audio portfolio, beat-by-beat.
Two extremes as options.
The Truth, most likely resides somewhere in the middle.
Either way, one thing is for sure: the path is indirect.
And while I may always have addictive tendencies, I can be thankful to have exited the self-help cult with enough dignity in hand and discernment to see through the fluff of the motivational bullshit - hopefully having taken enough wisdom away from all the experience to both pay it forward, and let my actions do the talking from this point forward.
Take what you will from all the above. Because in some way or another, parts of this are reflections of your story, too. And then - if you're up for the challenge - pay the wisdom forward... ;-)
There's definitely a lot to digest here. I think the first thing that comes to mind is ego. Acknowledging it exists is different than attempting to negotiate, tame, or suppress the ego. I think will is the key, to accepting our ego as part of our whole, not a master or servant. It flares up, and we should observe it and try to understand why it is flaring. It serves a function within us, but like any imbalance, it can also lead to a diseased state.
Your travel through the world, including your experience with the self help phenomenon, serves a purpose too, here right now for the collective consciousness. You're a creature of the Galaxy, go a little easier on yourself, there aren't too many of us around. Instead of chastising your naivety, embrace the knowledge and learning that comes with the realization of how much belief can motivate us to act, whichever way that is. It's only belief that paints our world.
This read like the journal entry of an emotionally intelligent and aware person. I suspect you're on a good track. Thanks for sharing these thoughts, a lot of people battle them daily.
thanks mate. I truly appreciate your comments/feedback. always thoughtful, on-point, and relevant. :-)
As the saying goes - "those who can't do, teach" and that may well be why people have no problem "leading others" in items they know about but have not mastered. Not that anything can ever truly be mastered in my opinion. Only done extremely well, until someone else does it a little weller (just made up that word).
I too did a lot of self-help stuff. And yes, you can fall into a trap of chasing that elusive happiness despite accomplishing things along the way. Suppose that's how they keep you hooked.
I've learned happiness has alot to do with gratitude. It wasn't until I was grateful for what I had that I recognized how much I had accomplished. That was the moment I felt pride and realized - hell I'm pretty freaking awesome already.
Loved your post, it was awesome.
thanks mate. and I appreciate your comment. :-)
Right on.
The "New Age" so-called "spiritualist" gurus are full of shit overall. They sell you rosy-colored glasses and positivity masks to deny and ignore the negative. They try to have you "kill" your ego, when you can't kill yourself, you are you, an ego-"I"-self. These gurus self us beliefs, and we buy into them because we want them to be true. Grounding our understanding of truth in reality is hard work, it's a lot easier to believe whatever we want to "feel-good" about ourselves. Self-delusion is easier.
This is all psychological manipulation to "love-bomb" us into trusting them and accepting what they tell us without any critical thinking. People get into "cult of personality" "worship" because of how infatuated they feel towards these "gurus" that sell them fluffy rainbows they want to believe in. It's a feel-good pleasure trap.
Thanks for showing people the BS of these false beliefs. I also over the power of belief and it's deceptiveness, and the importance of thinking and the manipulative power of language to influence and control consciousness (mind control).
Although, your beliefs about "soul contracts" and "crystaline DNA" seems like you still have "mind viruses" persisting from those you once trusted to give you "truth".
Take care. Peace.
I fell for that killing the ego rubbish a few years ago. It turned out that my life's problems were a result of an underdeveloped ego. You're right, kill the ego and you kill the self.
Thanks for adding your perspective to the discussion.
Bang on. Some great wordings in there adding new depth to key points highky relevant to the topic at hand, excellently articulated.
Not sure if I'll ever entirely rid myself of ALL the mind viruses picked up. Takes time to weed 'em all out. Though, every fine garden takes time to cultivate.
Cheers mate. :-)
Interesting post! We all need guidance and help along life's way but true happiness seems to be found in love, acceptance and gratitude within each of us.
As a writer in the 'self-help' space, I can so relate.
The mix of entrepreneurship and money has made a lot of 'gurus' out there just churn out shit to make a buck. The chase for money, even for me personally has made me wonder why I am writing today.
All in all, I guess there has to be that balance, though sadly, many entrepreneurs out there are out to cheat and scam.
Know what gets to me most? Fresh college grads who call themselves 'life coaches', as if they know everything there is to life, then they charge an exorbitant amount for their time.
Thanks for throwing in your perspective. Is good to get another perspective on this to confirm I'm not just being "pessimistic" with such views. :-)
Haha, that reminds me of this hilarious video:
The problem with the type of self-help described (gurus and motivational people) is twofold.
So, naturally, it won't work because the presupposition is opposite from what is should be.
This leaves one with two options: Sorting their own shit out or get external help that bypasses the conscious mind and reprograms directly the subconscious.
Examples of the second case can be seen by mentalists/hypnotists like Derren Brown when
The thing is, all these things do not really require an external party to reprogram one's subconscious. The capabilities to do these, and other far more impressive things, were always inside one's self. They only needed "permission" to be discovered.
Great addition to the discussion. On-point.
And makes you wonder... what could we be capable of? And how might we find/uncover/access those permission 'switches...?'
That's the billion+ dollar question(s).
greetings from the blockchain course !