The Problem With Personal Development

The path of awakening is not about becoming who you are. Rather, it is about unbecoming who you are not. So in this quick little mini episode, I wanted to talk today about arguably the biggest trap of personal development and simultaneously the most important aspect that very few people are talking about, in my opinion. What I've noticed over the past however many years that I've been working with people is that when we start to do this work, right, whether you are going to therapy, or you have a coach, or you're doing online programs, or you're doing mushrooms at home, or you're going down to the Peruvian jungle to do ayahuasca or whatever it is that you're doing, one of the things that people often don't talk about is that this journey. So first off, the trap is that we buy into this western idea that our personal growth should be this sort of inexorable expansion, just like the stock market, just like this economic obsession that we seem to have in our culture with sort of cancerous growth, right? The only thing that grows continuously without any form of setbacks is cancer, right? Unless it's infringed on. And yet this is the mentality that we have for our own development, that it should only move in one direction, that it should only expand ever, that we should never have any setbacks. And so we never allow ourselves the grace and the compassion and the resiliency and the empathy to have setbacks. And that's one of the biggest traps, I would say the arguably the biggest and most important things that we need to know about our journey. One of the least talked about aspects is that personal development and self help, whatever modality you are embarking on, is actually not just a process of developing ourselves, but a process of undeveloping ourselves. That it's a process of unbecoming. It is a process of unbecoming the narratives, the shitty inner stories that our inner critic feeds us on a daily basis. It is about unbecoming and undeveloping the habits and the beliefs that have allowed us to stay in un unhealthy codependent relationships. It is about dissolving and breaking down the infrastructure and the architecture of our ego and our identity that has been oftentimes built from harsh, sometimes violent or abusive external stimuli in our youth. It is about breaking down that architecture that, that is sometimes causing us to isolate or not have the relationship that we want, not be able to love someone in the way that we really desire or express ourselves, to be able to break down and unbecome the systems unbecome the belief systems that are within us, that are preventing us from being able to really lead ourselves in our lives, in our health, in our physical nature, in our spirituality, in our meditation practices, in our healthy eating habits, our ability to connect with the people that we love or explore the world. And the reason for this, in my opinion, is that the process of unbecoming creates a kind of non locality, a kind of experience of disorientation that is unique to this process because it brings us into contact with death. It brings us into contact with allowing parts of our identity, parts of our ego, to die away. There's sort of the big ego death that's talked about in spirituality, right? Where maybe you have some sort of satori, right? Some sort of sudden awakening, and you are the Bodhisattva sitting on the lotus petal, floating on the lotus petal, meditating. And that causes your entire ego to collapse, to die away in some way where you realize that you're not just this sort of finite self. But that's not most people, right? Maybe you have that on ayahuasca or psychedelics, or you have that experience in meditation or whatever the form is. But for most people, what we're really experiencing are these very small, minute ego deaths that oftentimes go unnoticed, that almost always create a deep sense of disorientation. Because what's happening is that you're letting the systems that have guided your life dissolve and break down, right? So let's just give an example. Let's say that you grew up in a household where you were verbally abused, right? Somebody just called you a piece of crap and piece of shit for, you know, your childhood told you that you weren't smart enough, you weren't good enough, or they neglected you, or they abandoned you. That created a specific belief system within you, a specific architecture that dictates how you operate in the world, that dictates how you operate in relationships. And so when you start to do shadow work, when you start to do therapy, when you start to do mushrooms, what's happening is that those parts of you are being confronted, they're being challenged. And you're not just growing and developing those parts, you're actually saying, I'm going to allow these parts to break down, I'm going to unbecome that person, I'm going to deconstruct that belief system and write a new narrative so that I'm not codependent anymore, so that I can say no and set boundaries in relationships, so that I can speak up and say, this is what I want full heartedly within my sex life, within our relationship, within my work environment. And so to do so can be quite disorienting, be quite confusing and confronting. Because what we're actually doing is saying, I'm going to allow a part of myself to not exist. I'm not going to operate from that place anymore. But what happens then is that we come into contact with the unknown. We come into contact with the unknown. We then do not know for a period of time how to operate. And maybe we have to try on new things for size. We have to try on practicing saying no or setting a boundary, or realizing that our behavior is codependent. And you know, we're like anxiously texting somebody and we catch ourselves in the act of that and we have to say, this is the old behavior. I'm going to let that go. And that can create more disorientation, more confrontation, more confusion for a period of time, because we don't know how to operate any other way. And so our nervous system, our neurology, our literally our whole entire ecosystem is having to pivot into a direction that it doesn't know how to, how to operate in, right? So it's almost like being asked to speak French when all that you've spoken for your entire life is English and suddenly you're having to learn this new language, right? And in this case the language is self appreciation rather than self deprecation, right? Learning how to thank yourself rather than shit on yourself and say, that wasn't fucking good enough again, right? So learning how to build within us these new qualities, these new narratives, these new behaviors for a period of time is going to cause us some, for some people, a lot of disorientation, a lot of questioning, a lot of I don't know where I am. And of course you don't, because you're entering into new territory on the map. So just one last little analogy. Just imagine that the architecture of who you are, your identity, your ego is a territory. And it's a territory that you know very well, right? When your partner does something or says something, you have a general response to it. And that general response is built off of who you've been, your belief systems in the past, your upbringing, et cetera. But when we start to challenge those belief systems, when we start to dissolve them and break them down because they no longer serve us, there is a period of time where we're going to feel that natural sense of disorientation, that natural sense of Unease, right? Not dis ease, but unease of like, ooh, I don't know. I don't really know how this is going to work. If I set this boundary, if I tell my partner this is exactly what I want in our dynamic or what's not okay with me. You know, there's all these concerns that sort of come out of that space because the mind and the body are prediction mechanisms. So your brain is designed from a neurological standpoint to predict what's going to happen to keep you safe. So anytime that we start to operate psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, sexually, relationally, intimately in a way that is different than we have operated in the past, the brain will naturally feel a sense of disorientation, a sense of confusion, a sense of fear, and a sense of not wanting to move in that space. So resistance is natural in the process of unbecoming. Resistance is natural in the process of unbecoming who we are and have been, whether that's who we have been in relationship because we've been unfaithful or we've been, you know, we've cheated before or who. Who we've been is anxious in relationships or avoidant in relationships. And we shut down and we shut our partners out. When we start to move away from that primary operating system of who we've been and we dissolve that way of being and we unbecome that person, There is a period of time where we have to accept that we will feel this sense of nonlocality that we'll feel the sense of, I don't really know where I am, and that's okay. And what I want you to know is that when we feel a bit of that disorientation, not a ton, right? It's not. We don't want to be completely lost in the woods, although that might be okay for a period, period of time. But when we feel that disorientation, when we feel that unknownness, that unknowingness of like, I don't really know what's going to happen if I set this boundary because I've never done it before. I don't really know what's going to happen if I speak my truth in this relationship and tell my partner exactly what I want or, you know, how I feel, or I don't really know what's going to happen if I take this risk within my purpose and venture out to create more meaning in my life. We're going to feel resistance. We're going to feel confrontation, because we are meeting the unknown and the last thing that I want you to know is that it is our work. It is a part of our work to cultivate a deep sense of resiliency, a deep sense of a skill, of meeting that unknown, of being with that quality of disorientation, of confusion. And to know that it is okay and to not villainize it, to not make it an enemy, but rather to invite it in and to remind us, to remind ourselves that this too is a part of self help, that this too is a part of personal development. That this disorientation and confusion and the fear of the unknown is also a sort of signpost of us doing the right work, of us moving in a beautiful, strong, confident new direction that is more aligned with the individual who has yet to be met within ourselves. And that, my friends, is the essence of what this work is. That we unbecome who we have been so that who we are meant to show up as can be realized can be actualized. We have to let go of who we've been. But it is very confronting. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please share it with somebody that you know is going through the work that maybe is a little confused or lost, and hopefully this serves them as well. So thanks so much for tuning in. This is Connor Beaton signing off.