CONFESSIONS OF A PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT JUNKIE
A humorous jaunt along the long road to acceptance
Hello. My name’s Liz and I’m an addict. My addiction is not to any illicit substances, nor sex, chocolate or gambling, but to something much more fundamental.
It began 30 years ago, in the early stages of a life-altering illness, when I was advised to read ‘Unlimited Power’ by the personal development giant (and subject of Netflix documentary ‘I’m Not Your Guru’) Tony Robbins.
What grabbed me from the opening few pages was hope. In that book was the lure of belief that I could make my life better. I could learn stuff that would guarantee my seat on the pathway to Nirvana. From a place of desperation, just one bite, and I was all in.
Like most addicts, I started innocently enough, with positive affirmations and visualizations. As soon as I had the opportunity, I progressed in my learning, eagerly absorbing NLP, Hypnotherapy, Reflexology, Reiki, Bach flower remedies, Jungian typology… Each new step promised greater and greater levels of fulfilment, and took me deeper and deeper into the seductive world of personal development.
With renewed vigour in my life, I fire-walked, karate-chopped through wooden boards, bent an iron bar with my throat... I set light to dried buffalo shit as an offering to the Gods, got roasted alive in a sweat lodge, practised yoga at sunrise on the beach, rebirthed, primal-screamed and hyper-ventilated myself into hysteria.
I cut out dairy, sugar, alcohol, caffeine, wheat and meat, and vomited profusely in the process of cleansing my gall-bladder. I invested mightily in vitamin and mineral supplements, endured the embarrassment of colonic irrigation (beware the journey home!), intermittent fasted, bought a juicer and installed a water filter.
I drew esoteric symbols in the air, got acupunctured, had my aura screened, got my astrology chart drawn up and flew to California to become a Results Coach.
The new highs of energy and ecstasy continued to flood in, yet (if I’m honest) were beginning to be balanced somewhat by a number of disappointing lows that loomed heavily on my conscience. Did I really spend so much precious time and energy away from my family doing something that may have caused a degree of harm as well as good? Devastatingly, I lost £16,000 in just a few months immediately following a wealth mastery seminar, by making elementary investment errors and had two lengthy relapses in my health. I also engaged in a stint of marriage counselling, which ended in divorce and (somewhat amusingly but less significantly) bruised my foot quite badly after accidentally kicking the furniture during a ‘let it all hang out’ kind-of therapy session that was designed to let go of pain.
On the subject of pain, I recall writhing and screaming in agony whilst a 300lb Dutchman very kindly helped me to release repressed emotions stuck in my body and later suffered long term distress with two frozen shoulders. These injuries were probably not helped by the decision, aged 50 something, to expand my repertoire of yoga asanas by learning how to do a forearm stand.
Nevertheless, despite the setbacks, the strength of my addiction kept me coming back for more — I chanted mantras on a hill-top, used EFT to ‘tap out’ residual anger at my mother, wrote poetry, sellotaped gemstones into my cleavage and meditated under pyramids. I felt the healing vibration of tuning forks, held hands for group singing, beamed love into the eyes of a stranger, practised the Hawaiian art of ho’opono-pono for forgiveness, journalled, dabbled in numerology, dowsing and angel cards.
I immersed myself in hot-springs, salt baths and cold showers, got dowsed with oil and ayurvedic herbs whilst lying naked on a roof-top massage parlour in India. I got creative with a vision board, did past-life regression and pranayama. I sat between fizzing rings emanating good electrical vibes, wore jewelry to protect me from bad electrical vibes, and survived without Wi-Fi.
There’s more… I could go on... But reflecting on this relentless pursuit, it seems incredibly self-indulgent and obsessive, like most addiction.
Has it made a difference? You might think that by now, I’d be sitting on my golden throne, issuing pearls of wisdom from on high. Sadly no. In fact, in recent months I’ve been through some of the most stressful and emotionally unsettling times ever. After a particularly intense interaction, one family member (who, to be fair, knows little of my explorations over the last 30 years) kindly suggested that I might benefit from some therapy.
Oh my poor Ego.
What did I miss? Where did I go wrong? I’m a coach, facilitator and trainer now. Shouldn’t I know how to thrive no matter what life throws at me? These are not the most positively framed questions, but they are typical of the direction of my darker and more critical thoughts. It still takes conscious awareness and effort to counter them.
In fairness to myself, I wonder if, in true ‘Hero’s journey’ style, I’ve actually come full circle and arrived back home. By and large, I’ve stopped looking for answers in self-help books, expert webinars or expensive seminars. And I’m rarely lured into investing in the latest in-vogue technique to eke out the last vestiges of my unresolved distress.
What I’ve come home to is a clear realization that my ultimate addictions are to health and happiness, both my own and other people’s; these are complemented by the belief that ‘I can fix it’. They’re not bad addictions, in fact I’ve made a career out of them, yet they have often prevented me from finding what I’ve been really looking for all along — peace.
My addiction has created a striving for change, a restlessness that accompanies the underlying assumption that things are not OK as they are and I am not OK as I am. This has led me to ridiculous levels of people pleasing and conflict avoidance, most of which were costly to my self-esteem. All the striving and driving have come from an aversion to discomfort in any form — an unwillingness to sit with pain, and trust that a) it will pass and b) it is ultimately useful. Lasting peace can only come with complete acceptance of what is, no matter what is.
My addictions to health and happiness are perhaps nothing more than instinctive responses to human pain and pleasure, yet they stem from the erroneous notion that I will someday arrive at a point where everything in the garden is rosy. This is a long-misunderstood folly.
So where now? I’m learning to accept my addiction without looking for a fix. Acceptance is perhaps the only reliable key to peace when faced with intransigence. And perhaps my ‘coming home’ is about finally letting go of trying to be anywhere else other than right here, right now.
My final confession is that in my business, I honestly don’t know if I can offer people the solutions they come looking for. I’m told that the key to successful marketing is to be clear about the problem you are helping prospective clients to solve.
In that vein, I’ve written multiple ‘how to’ articles and spent a lot of my professional life designing learning and development programs that feed others’ unquenchable thirst for improvement. However, I genuinely wonder if the real wisdom most of us are seeking can ever really be passed on. It has to be lived.
After investing three decades and goodness knows how much money to travel the world and learn from some of the most successful and well-respected teachers, I’d still say there is no substitute for working things out for yourself.
If you recognize yourself in any of this, from one improve-aholic to another, I hope you can be reassured that life itself is a self-development path with its own inherent wisdom. In my experience, learning from the latest, greatest guru can undoubtedly be helpful as long as you don’t get overly attached and end up feeling disempowered.
Finally, beware that, if you are still struggling, the incessant search for relief can push resolution further away. Can you find a way to simply accept whatever is happening for you and take comfort in the knowledge that nothing lasts forever, no matter how tightly you hold on?
(This article is the third in a series focusing on resistance to change. The first and second articles can be found on the respective links.)