You know what you should be doing. You know the steps you should be taking, the little actions that will pave the way forward. You know you’re perfectly capable of taking those steps, that there’s no good reason to delay any longer, and yet… 🌞 a weekly newsletter for conscious self-creation 🪴 join 600+ subscribers: Subscribe What do you do instead? You scroll Twitter. You stare at the ceiling. You clean your apartment (again). You dilly dally. You do a bunch of things that you don’t even really like doing, and then you feel even worse.

The result is a vicious spiral downwards, where we keep doing things that drain us of energy, and then we don’t have the energy to do the things we actually want to do, and so we do more of the things which are depleting, and… well, so on, so on. Where we actually want to create is the opposite: a virtuous spiral upwards, where we focus on things which inspire us, giving us energy to take on bigger and bigger challenges, unlocking even more energy

The first thing to notice is that the things that deplete us have gravity. We don’t choose them freely. They pull us into old patterns, often without us noticing. That gravity is a product of fear. Your nervous system has one primary goal: keep you alive. It has one primary method of doing so: keep doing the things that kept you alive before. Our biology has an incredible bias towards the familiar, because familiar = safe. When our body is experiencing fear, that means our nervous system thinks we’re in danger. The fear says “get somewhere safe, now.” That translates to “get back to the familiar.”

Which means… if we’re able to be present and curious with the tension in our body, without trying to fight it or “fix” it or “solve” it, our experience transforms. Suddenly, the tension becomes almost pleasurable, as an opportunity to “be with” ourselves. This process does take a bit of practice, but once you’ve found it, you’ll know. It’s the deeply satisfying sense of “I am stepping into fear, but I am not alone—I have my own back.” 🌞 a weekly newsletter for conscious self-creation 🪴 join 600+ subscribers: Subscribe Once we’ve unlocked that feeling, then it becomes easier and easier to break out of these draining patterns. Attunement-to-self is an energizing process, so the moment we begin noticing what we’re feeling, we’re stepping away from depletion. We’ve instantly liberated ourselves from stuckness.

The perceived ‘self’ is an amalgamation shaped by quasi-independent personalities influenced by genetics, upbringing, memories, and trauma. Much of our behavior is driven by animalistic passions and irrepressible emotions.And I think that’s what we hate: We hate not being the boss of our own heads. We hate not being in control. The puppet wishes to overpower the strings—parts of her own body—that keep her upright and sensible.

Girard told us that imitation is the texture of the human experience, that we are constantly orchestrated by desires, and that we are fluid beings who are always becoming more like who we look up to. So, in this light, trying to become the best version of yourself creates an impossible loop: You need the best version of yourself to exist so you know what to strive for in order to become it, but the best version of you can not exist if you do not become it first. Chicken and egg.

the marionette can not be its own puppeteer; that would be a paradox. Trying to improve the self is like Narcissus staring at his reflection: Neither you nor your reflection—who you want to be—changes. You can not improve yourself by staring back at yourself in the same way that a mirror can not become a portrait.1 Self-deficiency implies that external help is needed. You are imperfect at best. You can not produce something from nothing, multiply without a multiplier, or draw straight with crooked lines.

Instead of self-fulfillment or self-actualization, perhaps we are meant to self-deny so we can make room for a Savior. The reason is in its name: Christ-ian, meaning Christ-like, suggests that we shouldn’t be imitating or striving to be some imaginative best-version-of-myself, but rather, someone completely external and objectively Good to the perfect degree.

I'm not sure I agree with *everything* you wrote above, but as I've gotten older, I find myself turning less to self-help books, articles, etc., and more to just hanging out with friends and family.