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How are your attempts at self-improvement going?
If I were to guess they’re probably somewhere in between succeeding at the expense of great effort or failing by defaulting to your default.
Perhaps the problems started when you decided that you were not okay the way you were. And then from this place of not-okay-ness, you felt like you were in the right position to transform the not-okay you into an okay you.
The issue is not that there is a less-than-perfect you. The issue is that each of us imagines two “me’s” — one that sucks and one that knows how to improve the one that sucks.
Me1 and Me2
So you have Me1 that goes about its business and then you have Me2 standing behind Me1 with a club ready to strike whenever Me1 thinks, feels, says, or does something that Me2 judges inappropriate. (Of course, there is no real Me1 and Me2. But conceptualizing it like this helps us illustrate our predicament.)
Most of us think Me1 is the problem. But this thinking comes from Me2, who is the real troublemaker.
Me2 will never be satisfied with Me1 no matter what Me1 does. Me1 can become the best, most awesome, me it can ever be and Me2 will still knock it down whenever it has a chance.
Me2 is like a rider that constantly whips its horse (Me1) to make it run faster and longer. The rider thinks he’s different from the horse and treats it accordingly.
What the rider fails to realize is that he’s not a rider on a horse. He’s a centaur.
The whole idea of trying hard to improve yourself is based on a faulty assumption — that you are not whole and complete as you are right now.
From there, you imagine a future state that represents wholeness and completeness, that the separated me needs to achieve.
The usual approach towards that imagined future state is akin to the rider and horse relationship — the rider is trying to train the horse.
This attitude towards yourself is full of violence and rejection and can never lead you to a sense of fulfillment, wholeness, completeness, inner peace, or whatever you want to call it.
A Toxic Relationship
The relationship between Me1 and Me2 is the most toxic there is — a master-slave relationship.
No matter what happens, Me2 is always the one calling the shots. Me2 feels like it is the final judge and decider.
Me2 is convinced it has the best intentions and wants only the best for Me1. Me1 doesn’t experience it like that.
Me1 feels itself to be the victim of Me2.
Me2 decides it wants to weed out all of Me1’s weaknesses and negative qualities. Like a ruthless master, it pushes Me1 to work harder, to improve, to be better, and so on. All while Me1 huffs and puffs along in exhaustion.
After a while, Me2 might realize that it has become a source of negativity, which might be the reason for the unhappiness infecting the human. But by the time Me2 realizes that it has already made Me1 responsible for the negativity.
The reason for that is that Me2 can’t work on itself. It can only work on Me1. So whatever is wrong with Me2 is always projected onto Me1.
Nothing is ever wrong with Me1. The only thing that can be considered wrong is Me2. Me2 is the creator of perceived wrongness or the presence of perceived wrongness.
All the work we usually do on ourselves is Me2 working on Me1. But because Me2 is the whole problem this approach is doomed to a never-ending cycle of trying to improve yourself.
Besides, I’m sure you’ve tried it all. You know it doesn’t work.
Sooner or later the effort it takes to keep up this fight against yourself crumbles. Everything falls apart and you’re back to square one.
What can we do instead?
Extreme Acceptance
We’re all familiar with the concept of acceptance. You just need to accept all the crap life throws at you, et voilà you’re happy.
But I want to approach acceptance differently here.
Acceptance is moot. Whatever you’re trying to accept is already fully present in your experience. It has already been accepted, otherwise it wouldn’t show up.
“Something” has deemed the experience as appropriate and let it in through the front door for you.
This viewpoint doesn’t necessarily mean that things you don’t like will bother you less.
But what if you could not just accept unwanted experiences but want them?
Here is an experiment you can try:
Let’s say you experience anxiety for whatever reason and are unable to accept that. Anxiety is nothing but sensations being interpreted as such by thoughts (this insight alone can reduce its intensity).
While you’re experiencing the unwanted sensations labeled anxiety think about something you would want right now (e.g. ice cream, $100 Million, a puppy, anything is fine). Now isolate the feeling of “wanting” or desire and project it onto the anxiety.
Soon you will experience yourself wanting the anxiety and because you have it you no longer need to accept it. Suddenly it ceases to be a problem. (If you want ice cream and someone offers you some, you won’t have difficulties accepting it. Sure, anxiety is not ice cream but you get the point.)
This might sound silly to you, but try it first and see if it doesn’t actually work.
Love, Love, and More Love
Now that we have a new perspective on acceptance all that’s left is ramping it up a notch.
Love.
The idea of showing yourself more love is usually treated as a very soft and uncommittal approach.
What if you went full-on Harakiri on loving yourself?
What if you started loving yourself as if life itself depended upon it?
What if you faced every negative thought, uncomfortable emotion, and difficult experience with an unwavering “I love you.”?
This is a more active approach to acceptance. You’re welcoming your experience. You’re inviting it to be exactly what it is right now.
Know that your present-moment experience can’t be anything else than it is right now.
It will change. But right now it is what it is.
Love it.
Every “I love you” softens resistance toward life. And if you have resistance towards saying “I love you” to yourself or your experience then love that.
Say “I love you” even if you don’t feel it right now (you will). By giving your experience unconditional attention you are showing love, which is the most important aspect.
And if you think you have loved yourself and your experience enough, don’t stop. Keep loving yourself.
For awakening to happen, Me2 needs to relinquish its position as the owner, the controller, the final decider (at least for a moment). Me2 doesn’t want that. (It’s a bit of a helpless situation.)
But the act of radical love toward yourself and your experience is a useful approach. Sooner or later it will dissolve Me2 and all its vestiges.
In other words, love yourself to death.
Luka
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Okay. So this was a key catalyst for my jet-fueled healing and self understanding. I began understanding myself when I realized literally nothing within me was my enemy. My compassion towards the parts that are “negative” have since then expanded. “Intrusive” thinking is one such example. I can’t call it intrusive anymore, that’s misleading and making an enemy out of thought-stuff. But I’m not going to hype myself up. I still get caught off guard, and that will probably continue into infinity. And sometimes it’s hard to understand why something isn’t my enemy even if I’m fully conscious of the… Read more »
Siento lo mismo. Me suena muy familiar e íntimo.
Beautiful and brilliant! Oh how I needed this reminder 🙂 It really is some kind of antidote to suffering. Still I’m a bit, actually a lot, confused and “disappointed” (Me2 is talking I guess) why I kind of always forget to want and love the anxiety (myself)…