HIDDEN SIDE EFFECTS OF SELF HELP

Are you more prone to invest in self help or self love?

We all can appreciate some tips and techniques that can make life more enjoyable and efficient but the self help frenzy can have some side effects. Therefore a more authentic and beneficial way to wholeness and living well is self love. Here, I will distinguish the two.

Self help reminds me a lot of the Old Testament methodologies. Approaches that even frustrated God after thousands of years of attempts. Listing what one should do, where he/she is flawed, and offering behavior modification techniques are limited and can even be problematic. This is especially true when you want to unlock the heart and creativity of an individual without the foundation of love.

Self love is the foundation for any true beneficial growth. If I am trying to “fix”, “change”, and instruct another (or myself for that matter) on who and how one should be without love, then I am missing essential ingredients and steps.  If you jump into self help without the self love you will likely experience the fall out of a number of these hidden side effects. Love that softens the human heart was the radical breakthrough of love and grace. That love actually had transformational power for the whole human. Love in truth, practice, and consistent experience works.

 

Self help is follows a number of these premises. These appear beneficial but have side effects.

1. Improving oneself. SIDE EFFECT: NAGGING DISCONTENT WITH ONESELF. Constantly trying to improve oneself can have the subtle overtone of “you are not enough as you are.” When would enough improvement be enough? It is inevitable that once you reach one stage you will set your sights on another. Although progress can be energizing and encouraging, progress without the foundation of self love will breed insatiable perfectionism and nagging discontent with oneself.
2. Recognize what you are lacking. SIDE EFFECT: FANATICAL FAULT FINDING AND SELF HATE. Finding and then coping or justifying or fixing flaws in oneself can become a favorite pastime. One may feel more in control to know and “be on” fixing the flaws. The feeling of control can blind us to the side effect of seeing ourselves more broken than beautiful. Through self help we more clearly see that someone else has techniques for fuller hair, more organization skills, a cleaner kitchen, and a seemingly larger checkbook account. This can be useful when it flows from contribution to oneself not trying to change oneself. Self help will point out where you are missing the skills, will power, or structure you are suppose to have to be, well, good at everything. If we feel like we are failing more than winning because of unrealistic or too broad of expectations we can become to despise, be angry with, fear, and even hate ourselves.
3. Outside in approach. SIDE EFFECT: REINFORCE PEOPLE PLEASING, IMAGE MAINTENANCE, and LOSS OF SELF. We fix what others see or could see as flaws. We become more fixated on outward standards of success or approval versus clarifying our intentions from within our hearts and souls. Culture, industries, media, relationships will happily define success for you and therefore help you set goals in alignment with their values. This can reduce our authenticity, focus and cultivation of our own values and self expression. Our image instead of our heart gets priority of practice and development.
4. Achieving skilled on the shoulds of success. SIDE EFFECT: RIPPLE EFFECT OF “HELPING OTHERS” THROUGH CHANGING OR FIXING THEM. As one achieves more outward demonstrations of success, he/she will often take it upon themselves to train or help others along the way. This is generous but can often carry unwanted side effects. If our help towards others has implications that they need our help, it can reinforce shame. This helping approach may even be subconscious. Unfortunately trying to change or fix another person so that they can be more lovable will replicate the side effects of self help listed above.

 

Self love provides a foundation for sincere, wise, and compassionate help towards ourself and others through traits such as:

1. Accepting oneself. Acceptance generously allows us to rest in contentment and celebration with who we were, who we are, and who we are becoming.
2. Embracing and delighting in the total self. Celebrating our design is the first step toward developing true intimacy with how we were made. We may have flaws and quirks but those are nothing in comparison to the overwhelming beauty and capacity of the heart and soul.
3. Cultivating self awareness and self expression. We begin to know who we really are and what we are really about here on this earth. This awareness of our unique expression will also provide us with access to intuitive wisdom that will work. Attention to our desires, feelings, seasons, and preferences will empower us to cultivate inward motivations independent of people’s affirmations.
4. Freely loving others around you. We will naturally treat others out of the overflow of love and abundance in our own lives. We begin to trust by practice and experience that love produces beautiful and effective fruit.

Want to cultivate more love and thereby grace for growth for yourself? Connect with me for a Art of the Heart session. Align yourself with love, so the whole you can blossom.

With love,

Check out my Two Amigo Tuesday Chat with Lize Marie on self help vs. self love!