I had an interesting realization this last week.
For years, I've been all about self-improvement. I wanted to be the best version of myself. Like the army slogan. Suzannah has made me realize though, intellectually, that sometimes (often?) the self-improvement impulse makes people feel worse about themselves. I didn't relate to that as much, personally. But perhaps that's because I had such a deep seated feeling of not being good enough, that other people implying that wasn't a different experience. It was just like they were saying I had dark brown hair. Oh, of course, yes.
I spent a lot of energy trying to re-program how I handled failing at my goals and ideals to be more compassionate, and eventually succeeded. For the most part, nowadays, as I pursue my own improvement, there is an ok-ness with who I am, and a gentleness with my mistakes and failure.
But over this trip, being with family, for some reason I noticed in other people, their desire to improve themselves. They talked about exercise or diet or whatnot, and the things they were trying to do for improving that. And for some reason, I saw clearly the underlying message behind some (much?) of that: 'you're not good enough as you are.' Or 'your not ok as you are.'
Unfortunately, much of the 'self-help' industry is a business that, like beer or car commercials, makes it's money by convincing you that you are lacking something, and buying X will give it to you. If it's a car commercial, maybe it will buy you popularity or freedom or something. With self-help stuff, it's more like there's something wrong with you, and buying the book/program/etc. will make you finally not wrong. But like with a new fancy car, there isn't actually anything wrong with you, so the advertisement needs to instil a sense of there being something wrong with you.
One of the most obvious and yet still effective cases of this is with women's physical appearance. Could be make-up, diet, exercise, clothes. It goes beyond specific commercials at this point to a culturally implanted idea, but the concept they are selling is pretty simple. They want you to think you're not pretty enough, and if you get pretty enough, your life will be better, and then if you buy X, you will be pretty. QED except the research says being pretty is unlikely to actually make you happier.
Anyways, this left me with regret, and an important question.
Regret, because I was modeling this behavior to others. I cringe a bit to think how many people I subtly influenced to start taking part, or increase their buy int, to the "self-improvement, not-good-enough" paradigm/treadmill by my example.
And a question: how to motivate positive behavior in self, in a way that doesn't have all the negative side effects of "not-good-enough" culture.
I need something where the fundamental belief is "I am fine/good/enough/accepted just as I am" but also is strongly motivating for positive behaviors. I suppose healthy behavior is a good example. Eating well and staying active is good for health, energy, longevity, and mood, among other things. It is something I want to do more of. And sometimes, when I'm tired or rushed in the moment I don't want to do those things. So I need something that is strongly motivating for me, even when I'm at my weakest.
And, I need a way of talking about it and presenting it, that is contagious in a good way. That is to say, anyone doing something that seems like a good idea, has the chance to make other people start thinking about doing it. But I don't want to do something that makes other people start judging themselves harshly and thinking there's something wrong with themselves.
I guess somehow the idea is inspiration vs. ... shame? Feeling like there's something wrong with you? Something like that. Hopefully if my own mindset and approach are clearly shifted that will automatically shift how I present and talk about it. The question is, how do I do that? My current question.
Take care and love,
(and maybe I'll write another post soon, since this is for last week)
-Isaac
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