Are You Healing, Or Just Becoming Kind Of Insufferable?

It can include things like inner child healing, investigating your unconscious beliefs and relationship patterns, taking on a more holistic lifestyle, and even spiritual seeking.

I’m a life coach and a spiritual mentor; so obviously, I’m a supporter of this. It is indisputably more respectable to be the kind of person who sets out to make themselves better than to be the kind of person who never has that thought. Humans are naturally inclined to seek growth, so to do so is healthy; and actually, to achieve it is difficult. 

So, if this is you, know that what I'm about to say is not a condemnation. To make positive, lasting changes in your life is no small thing and I am your cheerleader. 

It is because I love genuinely upward-aiming people, and am one myself, that I am here to say: taking that journey is not so simple these days.  

Over the years, I’ve sat with and guided hundreds of people on the personal growth path. I've witnessed first-hand all of the ends of the spectrum: the obsessive bio-hacking person, the person who's taken way too many mushrooms, the person who thinks astrology is the answer to everything, the person who definitely needs a new therapist, the "coach" who has no business instructing others how to live. 

When you set out on a "personal growth" or "healing journey" today, there are endless resources for you, which is not inherently a bad thing. But from "here's how to avoid chemicals in your food" to "you should become a shaman in the jungle," there is an entire world, an entire industry; and it's very common, and dare I say likely, that you end up somewhere very far from the intention you started with: to be a better person.

There's truth in the fact that there are seasons in life when turning inward is necessary and rightful. For example, sometimes we have to put up more strict, temporary boundaries with family while we take the time to lean into what it was about your childhood that made its mark on you. It's like the old saying: it's hard to see what's attacking the forest if you're in the middle of the trees. So, you step back, as you should. 

The problem is, when you step back from the reality of your dysfunctional relationships, your job that you don't love, your financial problems, or whatever the set of circumstances are that brought you on a healing path, there's a whole world ready to embrace you and take you in. Odds are, this is going to be enticing and even healing for you. You think, "Yes, finally people who think like me." 

And you begin down the path. Or maybe, more accurately, take the leap off the deep end. 

Suddenly you're reading all the books, listening to the podcasts, and it all makes sense. There was that trauma when you were young that implanted a false belief in you that you've been running on ever since. There was the way your mother treated your father that taught you something about men, and you've played it out in all your relationships. And yes, the dang glyphosate in all the food is messing with your gut!

It's like all the answers you were looking for are there and so is a community of people who agree with you. 

So, what's the catch? 

The catch is: the self-help echo chamber of Instagram healers, bio-hacking, and spiritual jargon is loud and locked. Once you're on that hamster wheel, it's difficult to remember who you were before or why you got on in the first place. 

If you have this rich inner life, but you can no longer relate to the average person, who are you really serving? 

Yes, you probably have genuinely addressed things that need addressing and healed things that need healing, and that's amazing. But now that you're trauma-informed and have read The Body Keeps the Score and dabbled with plant medicine, you feel like you can't relate to anyone who hasn't. Now that you meditate every day, you're quietly judging everyone who doesn't. You feel like you uncovered the secrets of the universe, and have been let into the secret club who holds its keys.

Now, instead of winding up a better person than you were before, you just wound up a different one, one who buried the old you so deep that you forgot where you came from. You gave up your ego, sure, but took on what we call the spiritual ego. The one that says, "I'm so spiritual, I'm better than you." 

Okay, maybe this isn't you, but you know these people, don't you? Or maybe you're reading this because you're on the path and you're at risk. 

I can say all of this because I found myself there. I found myself so consumed in the world I had dove into that the regular, mundane things in my God-given life: like my actual family and hometown and the realities of the world as it was in front of my eyes, not in my inner eye, became less real and less important. I felt like an alien to the people in my community.

I had built such a rich world between all my books, practices, and online community of fellow seekers that I felt perfectly justified limiting family time and neglecting childhood friends. I was always ready for the next thing, running on the hamster wheel, all the while becoming less and less relatable to the world I left behind. It's been some time since I hopped off the wheel, but only in the past year have I really been able to reflect. Two things stand out in my mind. 

One was just before last Christmas, I was at Church and the priest said something to the effect of: "Don't be selfish with your time during the holidays, spend it with family." I knew this message was for me. Because in years past, that's exactly what I had done. I called it "self-care" and "boundaries," but really, I was just avoiding the very people who love me and want to spend time with me. 

It got me really reflecting on the world I formerly inhabited and what it means to be a "better person." Sure, I've healed the wounds I was carrying, or "broke the ancestral curses" as we say, but it rendered me something like a recluse, or so particular about how and with whom I spend my time, that I couldn’t really be a blessing to anyone, because I wasn’t open to giving myself to anyone.

To cement this, earlier this year, I heard a pastor say, "If the kind of holiness you have keeps you separate from other people, it's not the same kind of holiness that Jesus had." And this is when it all clicked. 

It's okay for your self-help journey to be selfish… for a little while. 

If your healing journey only brings healing to you, it's not that it's not enough, but it's not the best you can do. And it's certainly not the best God can do. 

What does it mean to truly be a good person? I always turn to the way God framed His promise to Abraham, "Follow me and you'll become a blessing to yourself and everyone around you." The second part of that promise is really important. 

The self-help, Instagram-healer, spiritual seeking world is designed in such a way that you are always so swept up in whatever thing you're processing or healing that the very real, grounded reality you actually exist in fades away into the background. 

Are you really better, or just more comfortable in a world of your own making?

The idea is supposed to be: you gain tools that help support you to create and cultivate a better life, not, go live forever in the tool shed. 

If you have this rich inner life, but you can no longer relate to the average person, who are you really serving? 

If you found a peace and a joy that passes your understanding, but you can't sit at the family dinner table and share it with them, how great is the treasure you found, really? 

Is personal growth just elaborate escapism? 

The answer is: it can be. 

It's a slippery slope. To set out to learn, to heal, to grow is an admirable thing, but know that, especially right now, with the power of algorithms and the accessibility of information and group think, the world that awaits you when you knock on that door seems to be set up to keep you on the inside. 

I say, go on the journey you have to go on, but then come back to share what you found. Or at least, share the self that you've just spent all that time cultivating.

Keep yourself tethered. If you find that your whole world falls apart if you don't have your supplements and your matcha and your yoga and meditation every day, or you're judging your friend who still drinks soda and doesn't know about inner child healing, you've lost the point. 

There’s a real risk of building a house of cards that looks beautiful but only stands if nothing disturbs it. And no matter how curated, a fragile peace isn’t the same as true healing.

Neither is isolation. Ram Dass, beloved spiritual guru, often said, "If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family." You may be doing great in your new community of people who all use the therapized, non-violent language, but if you can't sit with the people who aren't in on tribe-speak, have you really transformed anything or did you just get away from it? 

You may have found holiness, but it's not the kind of holiness Jesus had, because Jesus had no problem breaking bread and drinking wine with people who were nothing like Him. 

If you set out to become a better person and you wind up just abandoning the life you had, it’s worth asking: are you really better, or just more comfortable in a world of your own making?