Why I Gave Up On Personal Growth & Devoted Myself To Pleasure

In this modern age of information, personal growth has taken the world by storm. We have boundless self-help resources, therapy apps, Facebook and Instagram gurus to inspire and educate us. Wellness, self-care, mental health, and trauma recovery have all become the newest fad. It's kind of cool honestly. We've entered a phase where all of these amazing healing modalities are more accessible than ever. But there's a downside to all this growth.

In any industry the goal is to provide a service that solves a problem. In order to make something lucrative you have to make sure that problem is something lots of people are going to want solved. In the personal growth industry that problem is, well, YOU. Health, wellness, beauty, self care, spirituality, and self help are booming industries that rake in billions of dollars a year while more and more people are wanting a slice of that holistic pie. That means they need customers. And for you to be a customer, that means there needs to be something wrong with you that they can fix.

Don't get me wrong, we all have things about ourselves that we could improve. I don't think I've met a single person who didn't need to do healing. Part of achieving our life goals will include some level of self improvement no matter where we start or what path we choose. We aren't meant to stagnate or stay the same throughout our lives and as we encounter challenges it's nice to have experienced people and effective tools to assist those parts of our journey. Growth is not the enemy nor is self awareness or any healing modality that works for you, but what happens when self-improvement becomes another way we abuse ourselves? What if we start using self awareness and healing as a way to actually run farther away from what we need to face? What if we give away our power to these so-called gurus and life coaches and let them convince us that there's always something wrong with us, that we'll never be whole, never be healed; but we need to keep trying anyway?

In 2017 I dove head first into self improvement and I began working on myself non-stop up until 2022 when all hell broke loose in my life and I had to reassess everything. It was in this chaos that I realized I had been so engulfed by healing and growth that I hadn't given myself space to appreciate, let alone integrate all the juicy, expansive experiences of that last five years. I had been ensnared in the trap that I needed to be better always. That I couldn't be whole or happy or totally fulfilled until I had gotten to the next level. And at every next level there was still something to fix. Was I doomed to be a perpetually broken individual? Was my trauma too much to overcome?

The answer is FUCK NO.

If this resonates in any way I can guarantee the answer is the same for you. You are not broken, you are not beyond healing. You are not doomed to wander the world unfulfilled. You just gotta shift your perspective a teensy bit. Growth, healing, and self improvement don't have to be about fixing something about yourself. It can be a journey of loving discovery and creation if you want it to be.

When we start a new project we're building something beautiful out of all sorts of different components. When something breaks or gets damaged we restore it to its former glory or we make it better than it was by adding new parts. Some things are a one time deal, others require ongoing maintenance. In each of those scenarios we're working with all the parts, not against them. We as people are exactly the same way. Every piece of us is part of the masterpiece that we already are.

Approaching ourselves from the perspective that we're already complete, we just have some refining to do is so much more helpful than seeing ourselves as totally broken. Looking at our most ugly traits and loving them for how well they've kept us protected up to this point is going to get us farther than chastising ourselves every time we revert back to old patterns. Taking away the critical aspect of personal growth and replacing it with compassion and patience opens up a multitude of opportunities for real change in our lives. Not to mention this kind of perspective allows us to truly discern what parts of us really need support and which ones we're being manipulated into working on to fuel the self help industry.

So I gave up on picking apart every little thing I thought was wrong with me and I started doing what felt good for me. Must I constantly be improving or can I just bask in the sunlight on my back porch lovingly knowing that I'm a mess? Do I have to chase another breakthrough about my childhood trauma or can I be proud of myself for the fact that I've already made it out of those hells? Do my past relationship issues need to be dissected right now or can we just be here and enjoy our togetherness? Does my body really need to be ten pounds lighter? Does it really matter if I haven't meditated in a month? Can't I just love myself when I have a day in bed where I do nothing?

When I started devoting myself to my pleasure I opened so many more doors for myself. My life began to shift towards more abundance, more opportunity, more joy. As I write this I am in a space in my life where I am still very much figuring out who I want to be, but I'm so much more comfortable in knowing that I don't need all the answers right now, I can feel good and rest. I don't have to always be a work in progress.

I'm not saying give up and be a shitty person. I'm not saying you shouldn't go to therapy or meditate or eat well. What I am saying is look closer at your motives. Are you pursuing these modalities because it aligns with who you want to be or because you were told you needed to by influential outside forces? It can be addictive to chase the next breakthrough. So I challenge you today to sit with yourself, exactly as you are, and celebrate how far you've come. Lean into the pleasure of the moment. Devote yourself to radical self-acceptance. I dare you! You're going to die someday, so in the mean time you might as well just LIVE.