There's No Such Thing as Self-Help

I was the queen of self-help books. I read many and each had some nugget I could take away, that helped ease the pain, end the nagging inside me, fill the empty hole. My life didn't really change. Some things would get better for a while. For the longest time I couldn't understand why the books didn't really fix me. Melody Beattie. Wayne Dyer. Steven Covey. Harriet Lerner. So may more. And still the empty pit was there.

I took classes and workshops and joined groups. Same thing. Each would make me feel better for a little while, and then I'd return to that dark space within me. The space that was never filled up, never went away. I was so sure that there was something fundamentally and inherently wrong with me. I learned to put on the mask to plod through my days and kept some little clicker of hope alive within that maybe someday I would find that elusive answer. What was wrong with me? Why couldn't I just be happy?

All of this reading and all these workshops and all these group sessions taught me enough about my life and my background and my childhood and my marriage and my choices and my parents and my siblings and my bosses and my friends and my colleagues that I could intellectualize all my problems away. HA! I discovered why I thought I was the way I was, but never the "fix".

Three things about self-help:

- My meet and greet with cancer was a huge lesson. I can't even begin to list or describe the things I learned, truly learned, and took into my heart, mind, and soul. It was the push I needed to realize that there is no such thing as self-help. We each have to do our own "work" whatever that may be, but we can not do it alone. Each of us need support, in varying degrees and from different sources. Sometimes we can't find that support or reject that support. We don't live in this world alone. The empty pit of feeling alone seems so true, but we are not alone. You are not alone.

- All the gurus are saying the same thing. (This is a post in itself, for some other day). The same primary message is there no matter the source. AA, Steven Covey, Wayne Dyer, the Bible, Deepak Chopra, Buddha, to list only a few. Different words, different languages, different eras.

- True self-help comes when you learn to trust: yourself, others, your higher power/creator/God (insert your term here). Trusting means you get to the point that you realize you are not in this by yourself. Your life, your actions, your feelings are yours alone. To make a change or grow into yourself, you do the work. Trusting others makes it happen.

This past weekend, I went to a Hay House I Can Do It conference. I can not say that it was life-changing, but I can say it was affirming. I will continue to buy and read the books and attend workshops and go to classes. I know I will learn something new, feel something new or feel something old, but I now do this not to fix myself but to remind myself of what I know. I am not alone. Neither are you. Reach out to someone. Reach out for someone. Keep reaching. Don't let go. Reach some more.

Three Wishes

Some of my people are going through some tough stuff. Really tough stuff, life-altering stuff. My inadequacy at "fixing" it for them burns at me some days. I want to be able to give more than a few words, a hug, thoughts, prayers - I want a magic wand to wave to make it all easier for them. And for me. Often times in my life I've wondered if I feel too much, feel too deeply. I carry the pain of others too readily. I have learned I need to be very careful to not carry too much. When I take their pain, their challenges, their very well-being and make it my own, it is not healthy. Not for them. Not for me.

I've taken a number of personality tests over the course of my life. No matter which test - Myers-Briggs, Colours, Enneagrams, or the simple tests in magazines, the dominant and very clear trait is FEELING. This also showed up in the results of a Sacred Gifts workshop I took last year. It is so inherent,  this is how I've always, always lived my life. I embrace this and have some weird sense of pride that I own this so fully. The dark side of this is neglecting my own self care to the point where my ability to care for others can start to shut down. I am much more aware of this at this stage in my life than I used to be. Years of over-feeling, over-caring turned me into someone who felt so neglected myself that my natural love and care for others got hidden behind a wall. It took a lot of hard work for me to tear that wall down and to reclaim who I am. It's been worth the work.

Three things I wish for my people going through the tough stuff:

- I wish I could fix it for you. I know I can't. I know that some things can't be fixed. I know that some things have to be there creating pain and chaos. It is so hard to believe that things happen for a reason (Do they all truly and really happen for a reason?). I know you need to have your own stuff, feelings, reactions, journey, lives. I just hate to see you hurting.

- I wish peace for you; inner strength and peace to find a measure of joy in your most trying times. I hope your spiritual beliefs, whatever they are, are rays to tightly hold onto, so you have some moments of relief.

- I wish for laughter for you. As trite and cliche as it sounds, laughter really does help us get through anything. It brings perspective, it brings release from stress, it changes our focus, even momentarily. Even the toughest stuff seems do-able when laughter shows up.

That is what I wish for my people. I wish the same for me. I wish the same for you. I will go on feeling deeply, caring deeply and do my best to keep an eye on myself. Only when I take the best care of me, can I offer those words, hugs, thoughts, prayers that will help  "fix" it for you. Caring about myself and others, loving myself and others: that is the magic wand.