We've all heard it. The how-I-became-a-better-person story in every self-help genre book. It normally starts with a tale of woe about how awful they were, how not enough, how behind, and how horrible the world was for them.
Maybe it's true, maybe some people have to hit their own rock bottom before making a change. But every time I read these stories I wonder how much more encouraging they would be if the self-loathing wasn't such an integral starting point?
Like what would happen if women (because let's be real, that's the typical target audience of these stories) could hear story after story of people making a change in their life out of a place of acceptance?
What if instead of fad dieting, in its many forms, we ate food for nourishment and in connection with other people?
Couldn't there be balance in our activities?
Making a change out of a desire to grow, instead of a desire to run away from our now-selves?
I think what's missing from most of the writing of self-help authors is a knowledge of the goodness and inherent dignity of each person. They're missing God.
Which isn't to say they don't respect the people they are writing for - clearly they think we are capable of becoming more than what we are. They just miss the point where without an understanding of the humanity end game, it's very hard to travel to that destination.
Most self help books fail to answer why we should want become what the author is proposing. Yes, sometimes it's wrapped up in studies showing why we should make this change, but those are often less convincing when investigated. Too often the author is arguing we should remake ourselves in their own image.
I have a favorite quote from St. Anthony of Padua on the subject - yes the guy you pray to to help you find lost stuff. Many don't know that St. Anthony was a prolific writer, and we still have many of his homilies and talks. He has a beautiful perspective on how to approach becoming our best selves:
"Do you want to have God always in your mind? Be just as he made you to be. Do not go seeking another ‘you’. Do not make yourself otherwise than he made you. Then you will always have God in mind."
Oh how wonderfully freeing!
What St. Anthony gets, and most self-help books don't, is in order to become our truest selves we must have a complete understanding of reality. An understanding of truth that leads us to see ourselves completely and fully as who we are. We have to seek ourselves to seek God, and seek God as we seek ourselves.
That means we can't buy someone else's prepackaged wellness religion. We can't shut off whole parts of ourselves. It often means leading a very different life from our friends and loved ones.
But we get something so much better.
We get to love others without the comparison, envy, and eventually hatred that comes from loathing ourselves.
We get to take perfection out of its oppressive, perverted, usage and reclaim it for it's truth - that seeking perfection is seeking God who is perfect.
We can take all of the anxiety and worry and pressures we have heaped on our shoulders, and notice that it's never been our burden. That was never meant to be there.
We are meant for love, we are meant for God, and we are meant to be who were created to be.
Thankfully, God is patient. He lets it be a process. I have all the leeway in the world to get frustrated, angry, and just done with trying. He lets me be sorry. He lets me stand up and try again. He's infinitely patient, infinitely good.
Seeking his path and truth is the image I want to discover in myself. It does take work. It does take effort. It sometimes looks like getting my butt to the gym and eating well. It does mean making time to read and continuing to nurture my mind. But that only stays helpful if I am seeking the me God sees. Because I am already who he loves - this isn't about making myself good enough for God. It's about learning to see myself in God's truth.
That's real self-help.
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